There are some aspects of Indian architectural history that fill us with amazement. But architecture also informs us of the art of building, of the evolution of living traditions. From buildings we can speculate about their origins, antecedents, inspiration and poetry.
The temple town of Puri is 33 kilometres from Konarak, near the beach looking out on the Bay of Bengal. Puri is a typical religious centre with streets lined with shops, resthouses and ashrams for teeming pilgrims who visit each year as they have done for centuries. One major road leads to the famous temple, the raison d’être of Puri, the Jagannath mandir dedicated to the Lord of the Universe. The temple was built in the 12th century, with additions made over subsequent centuries. The temple tower or shikhar, called rekha deul in Orissa, rises to a height of over 57 metres and is a classic example of the mature Orissan style of temple-building. The temple is built of many connected parts: the sanctum with the images and the towering rekha deul above it, so that all can see its conical form above the rooftops of the shops and streets below. Then there are the mandaps of various types named after the temple functions for which they were built.
Cloth into stone
Each year in the Hindu calendar month that falls between June and July, a great festival takes place in Puri, called the Rath Yatra. For this festival, over a hundred thousand people and devotees assemble each year to help draw the mighty wooden temple chariots of the gods on their annual procession. There are three chariots for Jagannath, his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra. The temple chariots are some 14 metres high with 16 enormous wooden wheels. The chariot has high conical cloth-canopied roofs that imitate the Puri temple tower perfectly. The idea that the wooden temple chariot and the design of the stone temples in Orissa are so similar is a matter of great interest. What we have is a translation of the wood and cloth canopies of the temple chariot into stone in the temple architecture of this region. The living chariots are decorated with flags and festoons made of brightly coloured cloth appliqué designs. The art of making this type of appliqué work is still to be found in Pippli that lies on the road from Bhubaneswar to Puri.
The notion of a temple chariot in which the gods are taken through the streets so that devotees may have their annual darshan is not unique to Orissa. However in Orissa, like Hampi in Karnataka, we have a stone temple that imitates the wooden prototype to perfection. The great Surya mandir of Konarak is a well-known example of this process and experiment.
The lame charioteer
In Hindu mythology, the great sun travels through the sky in a mighty chariot driven by seven horses. Musicians and dancers herald the arrival of the sun in the horizon each morning. It is an unending procession of the sun across the sky that we see each day which is captured in the temple form of the Surya mandir of Konarak. The entire stone temple is designed like a huge stone chariot with twelve stone wheels along its sides, drawn by seven stone horses. There are figures of musicians and dancers who accompany the great chariot as it makes its way across the sky each day. In mythology, we are told that Surya has a lame charioteer, Aruna. He is lame because he can never get off the chariot which has to keep moving all the time, as does the sun.
An incredible idea is symbolized in one building — the fact of the sun rising each day. The annual live chariot festival at Puri with its wooden- and cloth-canopied structures and the rendition of these moving events in stone are in one temple in Konarak.