gregory d. alles, surface, space, and intention

Gregory D. Alles S U R F A C E , S P A C E , A N D I N T E N T I O N : T H E P A R T H E N O N A N D T H E K A N D A R I Y A M A H A D E V A

The history of religions has tended to approach the spatial dimension of religion in terms of orientation and varieties of (cosmic) mimesis that it has inherited from thephilosophiaperennis, the self-proclaimed "perennial philosophy." The most widely known example is, of course, Mircea Eliade's treatment of such notions as the center, axis mundi, and imago mundi.'

* Thanks are due to Richard C. Maxwell of Valparaiso University and David Quick of Southwest Missouri State University. The former has fought, at infrequent intervals, for years to dispel my almost total ignorance of art history; both provided helpful bibliographical suggestions. A portion of this article was read under the title, "The Hidden and the Manifest: Temples in India and Greece," at the annual meeting of the Central States section of the American Academy of Religion on April 6, 1987, in St. Louis, Missouri.

I See especially Eliade's "Sacred Places: Temple, Palace, 'Centre of the World,"' in Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York: New American Library, 1963), chap. 10, pp. 367-87, "Symbolism of the 'Centre,"' in Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, trans. Philip Mairet (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), chap. 1, pp. 27-56, and "Sacred Space and Making the World Sacred," in The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1959), chap. 1, pp. 20-65. For valuable criticism of Eliade, see Jonathan Z. Smith, Map Is Not Territory (Leiden: E . J . Brill, 1978). Less widely known, and on the whole less valuable, treatments include: E. 0. James, From Cave to Cathedral: Tem- ples and Shrines of Prehistoric, Classical, and Early Christian Times (New York:

@ 1988 by The Ln~rers l ty of Ch~cagoAil r ~ g h t sreserved 0018-2710 89 2801-0001501 00

2 Surface, Space, and Intention

This approach has at least three drawbacks. First, orientation is not always so significant-and certainly not so all-encompassing-as it is often supposed to be. Thus, the architectural theorist Christian Norberg-Schulz, himself quite open to the existential concerns of those who emphasize orientation, writes: "Without reducing the im- portance of orientation, we have to stress that dwelling above all presupposes identification with the e n ~ i r o n m e n t . " ~

Second, despite its pretensions, the philosophia perennis is not "perennial." Axis mundi, imago mundi, coincidentia oppositorum, and their various theosophical kin are capable of elucidating some spatial dispositions, but only in limited cultural contexts, and then with only limited attention to detail.

Third, and perhaps most important, the approach requires us to impose symbolic interpretations on physical forms if we are to under- stand them. This procedure is mandated by the practice, common among scholars of religions, of assigning privilege to the concerns and methods of textual hermeneutics. In the past few years, students of art such as Svetlana Alpers and Michael Baxandall have pointed out in varying ways the limitations of a text-oriented, narrative, or hermeneutical approach to the artistic product.3 Their critique could easily be extended to symbolic interpretations of religious edifices. Undoubtedly, symbolic interpretations can be helpful, but they can also blind us to the significance of spatial dispositions themselves. In

Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), an evolutionistic account heavy on detail, scant on criticism, with a predilection for the Judaeo-Christian tradition; Gerardus van der Leeuw, "The House of God and the House of Man," in Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art, trans. David E. Green (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1963), pt. 5, pp. 193-210, a "phenomenological" and theological account that projects its author's convictions (the "holy" as "total value") onto history (originally all art sought religious value) but that offers surprisingly little in the way of substance, especially on architecture; Harold W. Turner, From Temple to Meeting House: The Phenomenology and Theology of Places of Worship (The Hague: Mouton, 1979), which supplements an Eliade-like treatment of symbolization with the functional distinction between the house of a god and the house of the assembly before it trails off into Christian theology; and J. G. Davies, Temples, Churches, and Mosques: A Guide to the Appre- ciation of Religious Architecture (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1982), a very readable discussion in the genre of "art appreciation" of the western tradition of sacred architecture, with a helpful presentation of theoretical terms and concepts in an appendix.

2 Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Toward a Phenomenology of Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1980), p. 20. In a more recent systematic attempt, Norberg-Schulz attaches more or less equal significance to enclosure and orientation; see his The Concept of Dwelling: On the Way to Figurative Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1985).

3 Compare Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); and Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), esp. pp. 119-35 for a compelling critique of two ingenious,

3 History of Religions

temple architecture, for example, forms often remain constant over space and time, despite variations in symbolic interpretations or even in the specific religious traditions in the service of which the edifices are dedicated.

Here I want to borrow ideas from scholars of art and architecture to reflect on religious edifices without necessarily reducing them to the symbolic. In particular, I wish to adopt the model of "historical explanation" that Michael Baxandall sketched recently in his book, Patterns of Intention. T o be brief, Baxandall suggested that the cultural artifact is the end product of a series of intentions or de- cisions. This series results from the interaction of what he called the artist's "briefw-what the artist aims to do, whether self-defined or mandated by another-and the culturally defined resources available. But Baxandall recognized that we never really "explain" the artistic product itself. We explain an artifact only insofar as we have first described it. That is, we explain what strikes us as significant when we think about what we have seen.4

In order to work as concretely as possible, I will apply Baxandall's model to a n example from each of two traditions of temple building, the one less, the other more amenable to study in the familiar symbolic terms: the Parthenon at Athens and the Kandgriya Mahadeva at Khajuraho. Both of these temples have been lauded repeatedly as

"high iconographic" "readings" of Piero della Francesco's "Baptism of Christ" (an altarpiece originally in Borgo Sansepolcro, ca. 1440-50). Alpers and Baxandall react to the dominant emphasis on meaning that Erwin Panofsky contributed to art history as currently practiced in the United States. The reaction to Panofsky should be of interest to historians of religions for at least three reasons. First, like Wach, Panofsky was a refugee from Hitler's Germany who established "interpretation" ("iconology") as the dominant mode for the practlce of "art history," itself too narrow a designation for the field. Second, Panofsky was profoundly influenced by the philosophy of symbolic forms developed by Ernst Cassirer, his colleague at Aby Warburg's library at Hamburg; as a result, Panofsky, like Eliade, conceived of his task as that of "deciphering" symbols contained in a work of art, including secret symbols unknown even to the artists themselves. Third, at least some have detected congruence in theory and practice between Panofsky's work and semiotics; the latter, of course, has been the preferred disciplinary paradigm for many of Eliade's students. Among Panofsky's own writings, see especially Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939); Early Netherlandish Painting, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953), esp. chap. 5, "Reality and Sym- bol in Early Flemish Painting: 'Spiritualia sub Metaphoris Corporalium,"' pp. 131-48, for more on the second point above; and Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1955). For a fine study of Panofsky's intellectual tradition, beginning with Hegel and his immediate precursors, see Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982); on Panofsky himself, see Michael Ann Holly, Panofsky and the Founda- tions of Art History (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), esp. pp. 181-93 on the third point above.

4 Baxandall, pp. 5-8 and 32-35.


the greatest representatives of their respective traditions of temple building. More important for my purposes, both temples were constructed for roughly similar reasons: as instruments of power intended to glorify two new imperial regimes, the Athenian empire of the fifth century B.C.E. and the rule of the Candellas in central India around 1000 c . E . ~

In the final section of this paper, I will offer an explanation of the different sorts of structures that we encounter in these temples in terms of the religiopolitical briefs of their builders. But before that, I must "describe" the temples, and I will describe them in two ways. First, I will consider the roughly two-dimensional surface of the

3 The best single-volume introduction to the Parthenon is John Boardman, The Parthenon and Its Sculptures (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), despite its fictional beginning. The broad range of current scholarship, without attention to religion, is best represented in Ernst Berger, ed., Parthenon-Kongress Basel: Referate und Berichte 4 . bis 8. April 1982, 2 vols. (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1984), with extensive (but not exhaustive) bibliography. Also useful to the general reader are: Frank Brommer, The Sculptures of the Parthenon: Metopes, Frieze, Pediments, Cult- Statue (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978); Vincent J . Bruno, ed., The Parthenon (New York: Norton, 1974); C. J . Herington, Athena Parthenos and Athena Polias: A Study in the Religion of Periclean Athens (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1955); G. T. W. Hooker, ed., Parthenos and Parthenon, Greece and Rome, supplement vol. 10 (1963) (essays of uneven quality); R. J . Hopper, The Acropolis (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971); H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), esp. pp. 33-50; J . J. Pollitt, Art and Experience in Classical Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), esp. pp. 64-1 10; Martin Robertson and Alison Frantz, The Parthenon Frieze (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); and R. A. Tomlinson, Greek Sanctuaries (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976), esp. pp. 78-90.

The literature on the Kandlriya Mahadeva is less extensive and of uneven quality, but the reader may profitably consult: Eliky Zannas and Jeannine Auboyer, Khajuraho (The Hague: Mouton, 1960); Pramod Chandra, "The Kaula-Kapalika Cults at Kha- jurgho," Lalit-Kala 1-2 (1955-56): 98-107; Krishna Deva, "The Temples of Khajuraho in Central India," Ancient India: Bulletin of the Archaeological Survey of India 15 (1959): 43-65; H. Goetz, "The Historical Background of the Great Temples at Khajuraho," Arts Asiatiques 5, fasc. 1 (Paris, 1958); and Sisir Kumar Mitra, The Early Rulers of Khajurdho (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1958). More generally, see Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple, 2 vols. (1946; reprint, Delhi: Motilal Banar- sidass, 1976), and George Michell, The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Forms (New York: Harper & Row, 1977); and more generally still, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art (1927; reprint, New York: Dover, 1965); R . C. Majumdar, ed., The Struggle for Empire, vol. 5 of The Culture and History of the Indian People, 2d ed. (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966); Benjamin Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1953); and Heinrich Zimmer, The Art of Indian Asia: Its Mythology and Transformations, 2 vols., 2d ed., ed. Joseph Campbell (New York: Pantheon, 1960). Current scholarship on Indian temples is characterized by an intense interest in documentation and morphological analysis (cf. the ongoing series edited by M. A. Dhaky and Michael W. Meister) and on exploring the Indian traditions of architectural theory, on which see Pramod Chandra, On the Study of Indian Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 7-37.

6 Surface, Space, a n d Intention

serve to give shape to empty space. In fact, the Parthenon, like other Doric buildings in the Athens of Perikles, accentuates this space through several innovations. Its columns are less massive than usual; the visible mass of the abaci atop the columns is considerably less than usual; and the columns are taller than usual when compared to their diameters and the space between them, while the height of the pediment is proportionately flatter.' On the long sides of the building, the relations of mass and space are fairly simple: a single row of seventeen columns is set against the background of a solid inner wall. At the two ends, the relations of mass and space become considerably more complex. The addition of the triangular pediments to the architrave and frieze makes the proportion of solid front greater, but behind the outer row of Doric columns, space is considerably ampli- fied and elaborated. In place of the solid inner wall, we find a porch with six Ionic columns, and behind them a wall that is broken by the opening of the door and, perhaps, by windows as well.

The surface of the Kandiiriya provides a sharp contrast. It appears to be a solid mass of stone in which only a few minor openings have been hollowed out (fig. 2). The largest of these openings occurs at the least massive-and least important-part of the structure, the door- way. Even here, the steps-tall where the steps of the Parthenon are short, narrow where those of the Parthenon are broad-combine with the solid mass of the superstructure to give the impression that, in order to make an entrance, the builders had to excavate in solid rock (India, of course, has a particularly brilliant tradition of cave temples). None of this is t o say, however, that the treatment of the surface is less complex than in the Parthenon; if anything, just the reverse is true. The surface of the Kandiiriya is riddled with g a v d k ~ a s (windows) and niches filled with statuary, windows and niches that adorn but never pierce the surface. They give a sense of infinite multiplicity, but not of openness.

The contrast with the Parthenon is perhaps most notable in the Kandiiriya's pillared porch and balconies (fig. 3). From the inside, the pillars can be seen full length, but on the exterior, they are largely hidden from view by a tall skirt. At least half, and perhaps two-thirds or more, of the potentially open space is covered up, and the openings, horizontal rather than vertical, seem to squint at us. The surface of the Parthenon gives shape t o empty space, but the surface of the

7 J. J. Coulton, "The Parthenon and Periclean Doric," in Berger, ed., pp. 40-44. TO my eyes, the overall effect is not unlike that of covering the cella of the temple with a netting of finer and, as a result, proportionately narrower mesh.

10 Surface, Space, a n d Intention

gods that adorn the temple's exterior, even when these figures are executed in subtle, low relief.

The sculpted figures of the KandBriya-there are about 900 of them-resemble Indian sculpture in general in showing none of these interior organs.10 Instead of musculature and veins and bones we see the smooth, opaque surface of a solid mass, characterized-aside from blatant eroticism-by a pleasant, supple roundedness, by lei- surely, limber, almost flaccid shapes (fig. 5). The men are not Greek athletes; they have no projecting muscles. But despite the common bulge at the waistline, they stand firm. The women have abnormally full, hemispherical breasts, delicate waists and hips, and thin, gently tapering legs.

It has become commonplace to emphasize the "pneumatic" charac- ter of Indian sculpture. Indian artists, it is said, attended not to muscles but to the diaphragm and the control of the breath. Such comments are based on the prominence of breath (prdn*) in the traditional Indian notions of personality and of breath control in obtaining release." I have no objections to these views, but broader implications of the treatment of skin in Indian sculpture will be more apparent if we see them in the context of the handling of body covering.

The typical body covering in Greek sculpture is, of course, the drape. Drapery on the Parthenon sculptures can be very full, although it is never so flamboyant and never executed with such ostentatious virtu- osity as would become customary a century or two later. Yet despite the fullness, we perceive quite clearly the body underneath that gives the drape form and life. The groups of women in the east pediment- their identities are disputed-provide good examples (fig. 6). Beneath the folds of their dresses we can discern the clear outlines of thighs, knees, shins, arms, and elbows.

The women of the Kandgriya occasionally show slight hints of drapery. What would appear to be edges of cloth spiral down several legs (fig. 7). But the cloth is so tight fitting and diaphanous that it might as well not be there at all. Instead, the figures of the KandBriya are notable for what the figures of the Parthenon entirely lack: necklaces, bangles, threads, belts-in a word, the jewels and ornaments without which it is often said Indians feel unfinished and undressed.'* The figures of the Kandariya are not decorated with

l o o n the number of sculptures in the Kandariya, see Zannas and Auboyer, pp. 99- 100.

1 1 Compare Rowland, pp. 15,44,49, 87, 88. 12 See Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, "Ornament," Art Bulletin 21 (1938): 375-82. For

hints on interpreting the spirals on various legs, cf. the earlier, stylized handling of drapery in Indian sculpture as seen, e.g., in Rowland, pls. 80, 82A, 85, and 94B.


vision to perceive underlying shapes, making them accessible to the senses. Second, these underlying shapes are themselves really nothing more than surfaces that enclose and form space. Our minds are not directed to any invisible mass hidden behind the forms. Were we to presume that such a mass existed, we might find ourselves terribly mistaken. The most striking illustration comes from another facet of Perikles's building program; it is the technical masterpiece of the Propylaia, the gateway to the Akropolis (fig. 8). The facade of this structure is symmetrical along the axis of the Akropolis rock. As one enters from the west, one views the six-column front of the entrance, flanked at right angles by two smaller, three-column facades, one to the north and one to the south. Tlie symmetry deceives the eye; or better, the gate is designed solely with an eye to the visible structure that frames the entrance. Behind the north facade is a developed complex known in antiquity as the Pinakotheke or picture gallery. Behind the south facade there is nothing. The south facade was a "false" front, for the Brauronian sanctuary butted up against it from behind and obstructed any further development. But the effect of the front did not suffer, for it depended solely on the visible shape, not on what lay behind it.

In the KandBriya, by contrast, the relation of the hidden and the manifest is what we might call "dialectical difference." The structure emphasizes not space, which allows for the operation of the senses, but mass, which does not allow sight to pass. As a result, the visible is confined to the surface; the hidden exists entirely beneath the "skin." Yet the two are not completely unrelated, for as surface the manifest cannot exist without a hidden mass, just as a hidden mass cannot exist without some sort of visible surface.

The treatment of the surface emphasizes this necessary relationship. The surface is made ever more complex and ornate by adding increasing numbers of ornaments to its outside. The movement is toward the external, just the opposite of the movement in the Parthenon, where the eye is drawn toward internal, constituent forms. But the stronger the centrifugal movement, the stronger grows the conviction that some powerful, hidden mass stands behind all the manifestations, irrupting with its own powerful impulse. The lesson of the temple is that this mass is not entirely inaccessible. In architecture, it is ap- proached via the orifices formed by the door and the balconies. The result is an aesthetics that emphasizes not the integral composition of underlying forms but the multiplicity of external ornaments, not only in architecture and sculpture but in discourse as well, an aesthetic practice that emphasizes alamkdrdh, "ornaments," but more literally, objects that "complete" or "make sufficient."

History of Religions

FIG.8.-Reconstruction of the Akropolis by G. P. Stephens, 1941 (recent scholarly opinion inclines to a different path of approach). (Courtesy Ameri- can School of Classical Studies, Athens.)

CENTERS, RADII, AND GRIDS

In discussing the facades of the Parthenon and the KandZriya, I have been working not with strictly two-dimensional surfaces but with two-dimensional expanses accompanied by an attenuated dimension of depth: the relief of the sculpture, the walls behind the colonnades, and so on. Now I wish to expand this third dimension and consider


FIG.9.-The KandBriya, ground plan. (Eliky Zannas and Jeannine Au- boyer, Khajuraho [The Hague: Mouton, 19601, p. 98; reproduced by permission.)

the manner in which the architects of the two temples have disposed space in general.

In a recent study of pictorial composition, Rudolf Arnheim invokes the work of Paul Klee in order to formulate a distinction between two kinds of spatial disposition. "Cosmically," he writes, "matter organizes itself around centers." This cosmic space-stars, galaxies, planets, moons-is the realm of circles, radii, and spheres. But, Arnheim continues, "in the parochial [or local] view . . . curvature . . . straightens into a plane . . . and the converging radii become parallels."'3 We ourselves dwell in a world of Euclidean space, of what Arnheim calls the "Cartesian grid," a familiar kind of space that has one major (compositional) drawback: the Cartesian grid does not provide a self- evident, privileged center for orientation. Axes can be fixed anywhere, and the rest of space can then be viewed accordingly. Arnheim's distinction is reflected in the three-dimensional structures of the Parthenon and the KandBriya.

The structure of the Kandariya is dominated by centers and radii. Consider the ground plan first (fig. 9). The temple is situated symmetrically along an east-west axis. On this axis two centers radiate lines of force: in the middle, the reception or assembly hall (the mahdmandapa), and about halfway from the middle to the western end, the hall that contains the sacred image (the garbhagrha or "womb-house"). Unlike the entrance porch (the ardhamandapa and

13 Rudolf Arnheirn, The Power of the Center (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), p. vii.

17 History o f Religions

mandapa) , both of these centers are surrounded by a circumambula- tory that shapes the outer surface of the temple. In addition, radii emanate from those centers toward the exterior of the temple along the axis of symmetry and at right angles to it. We detect their presence in the balconies and the narrow, horizontal openings that breach the surface.

Close inspection reveals that the garbhagrha is compositionally the more important of the two points, despite standing off-center. First, the greater mass of the superstructure surmounting the garbhagrha shifts the center of gravity from the midpoint toward the west. Second, the mahcimandapa is only a pillared open area, but the garbhagrha is enclosed by an additional wall and fronted by an additional antechamber (antardla). Third, the mahdmandapa has in reality only two balconies, one on the north, the other on the south, because the heavier garbhagrha intervenes to the west. But the radii of the garbhagrha encounter no such obstructions. They break out into balconies on the north, south, and west. In fact, since the garbhagrha is in essence the compositional center of the structure, the east-west axis of the temple as a whole simply combines two radii that emanate in opposite directions from the sacred image. The mahcimandapa and the entrance porch elaborate the eastern radius as the privileged radius of approach.14

In the temple's elevation (fig. 10) as well as in its ground plan, the garbhagrha continues to exercise a plastic power. Two vectors of force emanate from the sacred image and prevent the structure from assuming the shape of a hemispherical dome, which is the shape of some Indian Buddhist stiipas.

One vector points straight up, opposing the force of gravity with the tremendous vertical uplift for which this temple's Sikhara, its superstructure, is renowned. It transforms the potential hemisphere into the lofty, delicate, paraboloid-like dome that is common in North Indian temples.

Several features reinforce this vertical thrust. The Sikhara proper is etched by pronounced vertical ribs (fig. 11). In addition, smaller replicas of the Sikhara, known as arigaiikharas or urusyngas, are applied to the outside of the dome. These miniatures are especially

14 Another set of structures attaches weight t o the garbhagrha along secondary radii that more o r less bisect the intersections of the east, west, north, and south radii. In other temples a t KhajurBho, such as the Laksmana, smaller temples have been built a t the points where these secondary radii intersect the periphery of the base. The result is an arrangement, known in Sanskrit as the paAcGyatana, that resembles the quincunx, the arrangement of five dots on the appropriate face of a die.

Surface, Space, and Intention

FIG.10.-The Kandgriya, conjectural section. (Eliky Zannas and Jeannine Auboyer, Khajuraho [The Hague: Mouton, 19601, p. 77; reproduced by permission.)

prominent in ascending series along the four primary horizontal radii that emanate from the garbhagyha. The base of the temple complex and the plinth of the temple itself add to the impression of height. Finally-the crowning glory-the multiplicity of finials at the lower levels gradually gives way to a single ornament that looks like an elaborate circular cushion, a double-amalaka, larger than all the others, that stands on the summit of the main dome. This amalaka adorns the point toward which all the verticals tend and draws our eyes to the very summit of the structure, the culmination of the vertical thrust.

The other strong vector is the radius that extends horizontally toward the east. It distorts the potentially hemispherical shape still further, for it draws out the eastern series of supplementary superstructures until they become independent structures. Fitted with miniatures of their own, these superstructures sit atop the various


FIG.11.-The Kandariya, iikhara. (Eliky Zannas and Jeannine Auboyer, Khajuraho [The Hague: Mouton, 19601, p. 73; reproduced by permission.)

chambers that elaborate the central axis. Unlike the upward thrust of the vertical vector, however, the movement along this vector is not away from the garbhagrha but toward it. Several factors contribute to this effect, but the most intriguing is the gradation of height. The successive finials define a graceful, ascending, parabolic arc that reaches to the summit of the s'ikhara, an arc whose grace can be assessed by comparing it with the less impressive superstructures of the Devi Jagadambs temple next door. The graceful ascent pulls our eyes along to the dome that surmounts the sacred image, and as a result, the superstructures replicate in elevation the spiritual-and in fact literal-movement of the worshipers as they approach the image of the god.15

But the elevation of the temple has this effect only so long as one views the temple from the side. Seen from the front, the various

15 As one approaches the sacred image, the floors of the temple increase in height; cf. Zannas and Auboyer (n. 5 above), p. 100.

History of Religions 2 1

The Parthenon is symmetrically arranged about an axis that runs roughly east-west. The triangles of the pediments and the ridge of the roof, together with the porches and doors, mark this axis unmistak- ably. But no structural variation assigns greater weight to one end of the building or the other. On the outside, at least, the structure is also perfectly symmetrical about a north-south axis. From the temple's exterior, it is impossible to predict precisely where Phidias's enormous gold and ivory statue of Athena will stand.

There is only one exception to this north-south symmetry. A single external feature gives precedence to the eastern over the western entrance, and that is the continuous Ionic frieze at the top of the actual walls. The subject of the frieze is widely agreed to be the festal procession at the quadrennial celebration of the Great Panathenaia, Athens's celebration of itself. The actual procession passed by the north side of the Parthenon on its way to the great altar on the east of the Acropolis. The procession on the frieze moves from west to east, too, culminating at the entrance to the chamber housing Phidias's mammoth statue. But it is difficult to assess the gentle sense of direction that the frieze might have contributed to the Parthenon. The frieze was only a meter high, but it stood about twelve meters off the ground. To compound the difficulty, it was lighted only indirectly, and it was at least partially obscured from view by other structures of the temple."

Besides lacking an externally visible center, the Parthenon also presents a sharp contrast to the KandBriya's vertical thrust. Although the temple stands on the heights of the Akropolis, it has no vertical uplift. It looks not up but down: it caps and oversees the entire settled landscape, a function that Vincent Scully ascribes to all Greek altars.18 Several of the temple's features accentuate the horizontal. The building takes shape between the two broad planes of the parallel base and roof. The horizontal of the roof is further accented by single

the Greek temple is Konstantinos A. Doxiadis, Architectural Space in Ancient Greece, trans. Jaqueline Tyrwhitt (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1972). Architectural theory has long noted that fifth-century buildings were still isolated constructions, unlike the sorts of integrated fora or piazze that appeared later. The point is worth noting, although it plays no role in the contrast that I am developing here.

17 The situation inside the chamber is similar to the situation outside. No radii direct lines of force from the image or lines of vision to the image, perhaps because, whatever the precise status of the image, it had no role in ritual. Instead, the image was set against a frame of dainty Ionic columns, two rows high, that defined a circumam- bulatory much too narrow for comfort, a frame of rectangular grids parallel to the walls of the chamber not altogether different from the frame formed by the external colonnades.

18 Vincent Scully, The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture, rev. ed. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969).

22 Suvace, Space, and Intention

rows of sculpted decorations: the Doric metopes above the colonnade, the horizontal Ionic frieze atop the wall behind the columns. The figures on the pediments also contribute to the horizontal impression; they cluster about the axis of symmetry, then taper off horizontally toward the north and south. Even the most clearly vertical elements of the structure-the columns-are fashioned in a way that negates their potential upward thrust. As Mavrikios showed years ago, the entasis or slight bowing of the columns counters the upward tendency of the vertical by drawing the eye downward, causing it to oscillate down, then up, then back down again. Furthermore, Mavrikios showed how entasis combined with other refinements to lend a downward thrust to the structure as a whole: it makes the weight of the roof visible, for the roof seems to cause even the solid stone of the columns to flex.19

History affords a peculiar illustration of just how inappropriate an upward thrust is to this structure. After the Parthenon served its time as a treasury for Athena, as an Orthodox church of Hagia Sophia, and as a Catholic church of Notre Dame, it became a mosque. The temple finally lost its namesake, the virgin goddess, but it did gain a minaret. This vertical spire is clearly visible in contemporary repre- sentations (fig. 13), and it just as clearly violates the predominantly horizontal lines of the building as a whole.

Thus, in place of the primary spatial characteristics of the KandBriya-the compositional force of a central point or points and a vigorous vertical thrust-the Parthenon substitutes a centerless grid and a dominant horizontality. One other notable feature arises as a corollary of these traits. In the Indian temple, the one and the many-unity and multiplicity-exist in a relation of dialectical difference: the many emanates from but constantly points back to the one. In the Greek temple, the many and the one exist in a relation of dialectical identity. Because the Parthenon has no privileged point that can be associated with unity, the only unity possible is the unity of the entire structure; and if the Parthenon is to maintain this unity, it also cannot confront us with unbridled multiplicity.

Several features register the interplay of unity and multiplicity. The Parthenon had a wider front than other temples of the time, con- sisting of eight columns across instead of six. But an eight-column front is not all that extravagant. On the basis of studies in the psychology of art, Scully suggests that eight is the fewest number of

19 A. Mavrikios, "Aesthetic Analysis concerning the Curvature of the Parthenon," American Journal of Archaeology 69 (1965): 264-68, reprinted in Bruno, ed. (n. 5 above), pp. 199-224.


columns that is still too many to be taken in with a single glance. That is, the front of the Parthenon has just enough columns to keep our eyes moving, and no more.20 The renowned frieze contains close to 200 human figures, but Evelyn Harrison has shown how these various groups-for example, the racing figures on the south frieze- d o not overwhelm us with multiplicity but carefully and clearly represent the various divisions of the united Athenian society: tribes, phratries, and Finally, the Parthenon is deservedly famous for its subtle and pervasive refinements: the entasis of the columns; the curvature of the stylobate, frieze, and architrave; and minor adjust- ments to the width of the columns and the distance between them, to name the most obvious. From antiquity to the present, these refinements have been explained in a variety of ways, but I find a suggestion advanced by Mavrikios, among others, to be most compelling. He suggests that the refinements prevent the temple from fragmenting into a rugged assemblage of isolated parts. They effectively integrate multiplicity into a unified whole.22

PATTERNS O F INTENTION

I have now finished describing the Parthenon and the Kandsriya. In treating the surface of the temples, Greek and Indian craftsmen negotiated the hidden and the manifest differently. The Parthenon emphasizes visible shapes in space; the Kandsriya emphasizes the irruption of an invisible mass. In terms of spatial disposition, the Parthenon shows us rectangular grids the primary force of which is horizontal; the Kandsriya emphasizes centered points through radii and concentric curves, and it also displays a powerful vertical thrust.

20 Scully, p. 175. 21 Evelyn B. Harrison, "Time in the Parthenon Frieze," in Berger, ed. (n. 5 above),

pp. 230-34. 22 Mavrikios, in Bruno, ed., p. 224; for the variety of past interpretations of the

Parthenon's refinements, see Pollitt (n. 5 above), pp. 75-78. Two other differences that reveal the contrast formulated in this section are worth noting. First, the ceiling of the Parthenon defines a pronounced rectangular grid, but in the KandBriya, ceilings transform the square of the floor plan (garbhagrha, mahdmandapa) into a series of concentric circles. Second, Greek and Indian architects had complex mathematical skills, but mathematical skills that were directed to fundamentally different ends: Indian architecture begins with a square (mandala) and subdivides it regularly in order to identify the variation in potency emanating from the center; Greek architects appear to have used the geometrical potentials of the straightedge and the compass, modified by ocular experience, to design visually pleasing shapes within Euclidean planes. On the former, see esp. Kramrisch (n. 5 above); on the latter, see the fascinating study by Lothar Haselberger, "The Construction Plans for the Temple of Apollo at Didyma," Scientific American 253, no. 6 (December 1985): 126-32 (cf. p. 131, col. 2, where Haselberger. too, discusses the integrating effects of entasis and other refinements).

History of Religions 25

It is now time to account for these features. I begin by recalling the similarity without which these differences would be insignificant: the same religiopolitical "intentionu-to use Baxandall's term-stood behind the construction of both buildings. But the term "intention" requires some clarification.

Like Baxandall, when I use the term "intention," I do not mean "an actual, particular psychological state or even a historical set of mental events inside the heads of [in my case, the sponsors and architects of the Parthenon and KandBriya], in the light of which, if I knew them, I would interpret [these two temples]." All questions about the hermeneutical value of an author's intentions aside, I doubt that we could ever recover the actual psychological volitions of Phidias, who oversaw the beautification of the Akropolis; of Iktinos and Kallikrates, the traditional architects of the Parthenon; of the instigator, Perikles; or that we could ever plumb that most inscrutable of minds, the collective volition of the Athenian dgmos, whose role in the project was by no means negligible. With Baxandall, I want to speak of intention in another sense, as "a general condition of rational human action," and more specifically, as a shorthand term that refers to the "relation between the object and [the] circumstances [of its produc- t i o n ~ . " ~ ~Intention in this sense is not so much a characteristic of the architect's mind as it is of the temples themselves. It refers in part- and this is the part that will interest me-to the culturally defined reasons for constructing a building such as the Parthenon or the KandBriya. Unlike the thoughts of Phidias or of the unknown master- mind of the KandBriya, intentions in this sense are accessible.

Beautification of the Athenian Akropolis began when the tyrant Pisistratos made this fortress-rock his personal dwelling in the mid- sixth century B.C.E. But Pisistratos's buildings did not last long. The obscure details of Akropolis building after Pisistratos need not detain us. In 480, the Persians invaded Greece under the leadership of Xerxes. They took Athens and consigned the Akropolis to flames. For three decades the Akropolis remained in ruins.24

23 Baxandall, pp. 41-42. 24 According to a later rumor, the Akropolis was left desolate for religious reasons.

In 479, it was said, the Greeks had taken an oath just before the final, decisive battle against the Persians at Plataea. They had sworn not to rebuild the temples that the Persians had destroyed but to leave them in ruin as memorials of the barbarian sacrilege. So fine a historian of this period as Russell Meiggs believes the oath to be genuine. He calls it "the simplest hypothesis to explain why there was such a long delay in temple building in the period following the Persian Wars" ("The Political Implica- tions of the Parthenon," in Hooker, ed. [n. 5 above], pp. 36-45, reprinted in Bruno, ed. [n. 5 above], pp. 101-11, esp. p. 104). For a more detailed discussion of both evidence and scholarship, see Meiggs's The Athenian Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972),


When the Athenians began to rebuild the Acropolis around the year 450, the situation had changed considerably. First, the Persian threat that dominated Greek life in the early fifth century had diminished. A treaty, known as the Peace of Kallias, is said to have been signed with the Persians in 449. Second, the Athenians had begun to treat the other members of the Delian League, originally a body of equals banded together for protection against Persia, as subservient states. Third, as a sign of the Athenian hegemony, the treasures of the League had been transferred from Delos to Athens in 454. The League now stood under the protection not of the Delian Apollo but of the goddess of Athens, Athena. Finally, Athens itself had been progressively democratized. Most significant for our purposes are the laws of Ephialtes, passed in 462. To counter any threat of continued aristocratic privilege, these laws gave the popular assembly sole responsibility for all public buildings. The people were to decide what should be built, how it should be funded, and who should oversee the construction.

In the context of increasing democratization at home and increasing tyrannization abroad, Perikles put before the assembly a decree that some of the accumulated wealth of the Delian League be used to rebuild the temples of the Akropolis. Undoubtedly the reasons for this proposal and for its success were varied. Probably not the least of the reasons were the economic benefits the Athenian citizens would enjoy. But the first of the new buildings also had unmistakable political-or rather, religiopolitical-implications. It was a treasury, much grander than any treasury previously built, intended to house the wealth of the league under the watchful eye of Athena. Today we know this treasury as the art hen on.^^

pp. 155-56 and 504-7. The rumor first appeared in the fourth century. At that time, the historian Theopompus dismissed it as Athenian propaganda, and he has had a loyal following ever since. I should note that the received dates for the Peace of Kallias (see below) have recently been questioned. The new dating would alter in certain details the history I present here, but it should not change the religiopolitical significance of the Parthenon, which is my real concern. See John Walsh, "The Athenian Building Program of the 460s B.c.,"American Journal of Archaeology 90, no. 2 (April 1986): 179-80, abstract.

25 The Parthenon should be viewed as a treasury with a votive statue rather than as a temple with a cult statue; cf. Felix Preisshofen, "Zur Funktion des Parthenon nach den schriftlichen Quellen," in Berger, ed. (n. 5 above), pp. 15-18; Wolfgang Schuller, "Die attische Seebund und der Parthenon," ibid., pp. 20-25; and Gerhard Zinserling, "Perikles-Parthenon-Phidias," ibid., pp. 26-29. C. J . Herington (n. 5 above) con- vincingly demonstrates that the structure was not called "Parthenon" when it was originally built; for an equally convincing critique of Herington's own speculations about the religious significance of the Parthenon and its predecessors, see Preisshofen, p. 17.

27 History o f Religions

That the Parthenon was built as an instrument of power is evident in its sculptures. On the metopes, humans fight centaurs, Greeks fight Amazons (who look remarkably like Persians), Achaians fight Trojans, and gods fight giants. All of these themes reflect the struggle of civilization against barbarity under the protection of the gods, the alleged reason for the existence of the Delian League. Many of them- Lapiths versus centaurs, Greeks versus Amazons, even Achaians versus Trojans-also carry distinctly Athenian connotation^.^^ And all take place under the watchful eye of Athena, who dominates the pediments. Inside the temple, two of the themes, the centauromachy and the amazonomachy, are repeated on the shield of Phidias's great statue of Athena. Thukydides, who lived during the time of the building program and began writing before it was completed, com- mented on the "political" effects of such structures: "If Athens should [be deserted, and nothing should be left of it but its temples and the foundations of its other buildings,] its power would, I think, from what appeared of the city's ruins, be conjectured double what it is."27

The religious connotations of the Parthenon are just as pronounced as its political implications, even if they violate the presuppositions with which we may first approach the building. No cult was conducted in the Parthenon, but that was normal procedure in Greece, where sacrifices to the Olympian gods were generally offered on open- air altars outside the temples. What is more unusual in such a large structure is that the Parthenon seems to have housed a votive statue rather than a cult image per se. Phidias's great statue probably did not receive the benefit of the outdoor cult, which was reserved for the old wooden image of Athena that had fallen from the sky.28 Never- theless, the Parthenon loudly proclaims its religious status. The Greek polis was maintained as a polis by the power of the gods. In this sense, political power in Greece was always religious power. When the Parthenon celebrates Athens's supremacy, it evokes the religious roots of that supremacy. It does so most vigorously in the continuous frieze.

The frieze depicts the central religious festival that celebrated the original organization of the Athenian state and in doing so periodi- cally reconstituted it: the procession of the Great Panathenaia, the

26 On the Trojan War in Athenian propaganda, see Boardman (n. 5 above), pp. 22 and 22 1.

27 Thukydides 1.10.2 (Loeb). 28 Some speculate that the north frieze portrays the sacrifice intended for the ancient

statue for which the Erechtheum was built, while the south frieze portrays animals intended for the new image housed in the Parthenon, but this interpretation is strained; cf. John Boardman, "The Parthenon Frieze," in Berger, ed., pp. 210-15.


festival of "All Athens" celebrated on the birthday of both Athena and her city. The original force of the frieze is easily overlooked today. The Parthenon was the first Doric building to have such a continuous frieze, and the Parthenon sculptures were unique among all Greek temples in depicting a human ritual. But by the time the Parthenon was built, the Panathenaia had become not simply a celebration of the synoecism of Athens; it was also a celebration of Athens's empire. Although foreigners d o not seem to have been sculpted on the frieze itself, Athens at that time required her allies to participate in the festival. Thus, the Parthenon stood on the Akropolis and overlooked not just Attica, but the whole Athenian empire. Built when the ambitions of the Athenian people were reaching their zenith, it physically embodied the religiopolitical power through which Athens dominated its "allies."

The history of Greece in the fifth century is not beyond dispute, but it is considerably clearer than our knowledge of central India at the time when the Kandariya Mahadeva was erected. Many scholars date this temple in the last part of the tenth century C.E.on the basis of inscriptions found near the temple but not on it. About a century and a quarter earlier, the rulers of the region, the Candellas, had been petty vassals in a loose empire based farther east. By gradually expanding their territory and by faithfully repulsing foreign invaders, the Candellas became a major power. YaSovarman (died ca. 950 c.E.) laid the foundations for Candella control. He also began building temples at a city that lay in the heart of his ancestral territory, KhajurBho. His son, Dhanga, who is reputed to have lived over a hundred years and who reigned from about 950 to 1008, expanded the dominion until it rivaled that of his ancestors' overlords. He conducted raids and entered into alliances much farther afield; he refused to pay tribute, effectively declaring his independence; and he won for himself recognition as a samriij, a universal monarch. As an integral part of his policy, he built temples, among them many of the major temples of KhajurBho, including (perhaps) the Kandariya ~ a h a d e v a . ~ '

29 Zannas and Auboyer, e.g., attribute the Kandariya to Dhanga (pp. 34-35). But S. K. Saraswati suggests a date not earlier than about 1050 c.E.,although he does so entirely on the (to me) uncertain grounds of stylistic evolution; he argues that the Kandariya and temples like it are so complex that they must stand at the culmination of a long, slow developmental process; cf. his contribution to chap. 20 in Majumdar, ed. (n. 5 above), pp. 530-640, esp. pp 564-65. Admittedly, the attribution to Dhaliga is far from certain. So reputable a body as the American Institute of Indian Studies dates the temple ca. 1025-50, and that date would force me to adjust my comments to the situation of a somewhat more established imperial power. In either case, however, another, less famous temple, the ViSvanBtha, is quite like the Kandariya in all but size,


personalities of many Candella kings have been irretrievably lost behind the verbal bombast of their claims.32 In building temples, kings like Dhanga were not simply bowing in reverence before the gods. They were also erecting monuments to the power by which they dominated; the temples were massive instruments of political control. There is even speculation that one of the erotic acrobats on the temple's exterior was intended to be King Dhanga himself, perform- ing the supposedly esoteric rituals that were responsible for his long life and reign.33

The situation, then, is as follows. The architects of the Parthenon and the Kandgriya received the same general "charge," to use Baxan- dall's term. They were to build temples that embodied the religiopolitical power of two newly emergent empires. They also faced the same challenge: not the challenge of embodying religiopolitical power in stone-for Indian and Greek architects were accustomed to that task-but the challenge of grandeur. The new imperial powers required instruments of control that surpassed all preceding structures. The praise that both temples often receive is testimony to the success with which the architects performed this task.

It is interesting, of course, to explore how they did so. Historians of architecture are hardly unfamiliar with the topic. But my comparative description poses another problem. In executing the same charge and meeting the same challenge, the architects of the Parthenon and the Kandgriya constructed two very different temples. Obviously, they inherited two very different conventions of sacred architecture, neither of which was severely strained by the religiopolitical "charge." How is it that such radically different conventions could be so ideally suited to meet the same imperialistic end?

One possible answer is that of formalism: the variations are simply arbitrary. Different times and different places have different tastes, governed synchronically by their own internal, aesthetic logic and perhaps diachronically by the aesthetic analogues to Grimm's laws. But in the case of the Parthenon and the Kandgriya, it is not so easy to divorce form from function. These architectural structures have never existed in an isolated artistic universe. The fit between temple

32 Printed with summary by Franz Kielhorn in "Khajuraho Inscription No. 4," Epigraphia Indica 1 (1888): 137-47.

33 Dhanga is "Dhanga-deva;" in one inscription, he gives Siva credit for all his glories. At least later Candellas assumed the title of "parama-maheivara," and the coins of one of them adopt the title "dhgra-deva," "god of/on the earth" (Mitra [n. 5 above], pp. 194, 197, 184). On the relation between the products of the king's propa- gandists (praiastikdras) and Manu, see Mitra, pp. 146-47. On the identification of the human couples with gods on the basis of their location on the temple's exterior, and for the speculative identification with Dhanga and his heirs, see Goetz, p. 45.


and task is too snug. Each temple's structure was meant to d o something and to do it well. And the variations in the structures of these temples are simply too great, too systematically coherent, and too central to the appearance of each to be entirely unrelated to the temples' tasks.34

But the other obvious answer is not possible either. We cannot simply correlate these structures with either the religiopolitical institutions or the religiopolitical ideologies and symbols they were meant to serve-the second, of course, is the option historians of religions routinely prefer. On the one hand, Greek tyrants sponsored the same kinds of temples as Greek citizen bodies, and there were Indian corporations that sponsored the same kinds of temples as Indian kings. On the other hand, the same architectural structures are associated with a variety of different ideologies and symbols, if for no other reason than that they are dedicated to significantly different gods (and in the case of Jain temples, significantly different heroes).

I want to suggest, then, another option. The structures of the Parthenon and the Kandsriya reflect neither religiopolitical institutions nor religiopolitical ideologies and symbols; they represent the different patterns or configurations according to which Greeks and Indians saw power operating.35 Instead of being determined by institutions or ideologies, these patterns are themselves independent variables. They establish the parameters in which action can be routinized in institutions. They delimit the boundaries, both formal

34 Circumstantial evidence seems to strengthen this supposition. Earlier Indian temples-temples built when the architects were just beginning to add circumam- bulatories-look much more like Greek temples than the Kandariya does, perhaps for reasons not unrelated to Hellenistic-Roman influence (see Hermann Goetz, "Imperial Rome and the Genesis of Classic Indian Art," East and West 10 [1969]: 153-83). Still, we can detect distinctive differences. For example, the well-preserved late Gupta temple to DurgH at Aihole resembles the Parthenon to a degree: it is completely surrounded by a colonnade; it has a flat roof and a rectangular front. Nevertheless, the columns are heavy and squat, presenting a less open appearance than any Greek temple. The vertical is already becoming emphasized through a small superstructure atop the flat roof. The back of the temple is not squared but round, and the cult-image displays its plastic power by standing at the center of three concentric half-circles. As Goetz insists, if Hellenistic-Roman conventions exerted any influence on Indian art and architecture, they were quickly absorbed and transformed. South Indian temples, of course, exhibit significantly different conventions. A case could be made, however, that these conventions embody the same underlying principles, but embody them in different fashion.

35 I do so partly because 1 have seen similar patterns operating in another instrument of control, Greek and Indian epic. See my article, "Verbal Craft and Religious Act in the Iliad: The Dynamics of a Community Center" (forthcoming in Religion), which contains comparative comments on the VHlmiki-RHmHyana, and more extensively, my dissertation, "Epic Persuasion: Religion and Rhetoric in the Niad and VHlkmiki's Rdmdyana" (University of Chicago, 1986), which I am currently expanding for publication.


and substantive, within which ideas can be expressed and, in the case of more careful discourse, within which philosophical questions can be posed and addressed. Given physical representation in temples, they become part of the culturally inherited material conditions of knowledge and action.

On this model, the configuration of religiopolitical power represented in the Kandsriya has several distinct characteristics. First, it is, so to speak, "dividuated." Power concentrates in a distinct, separate unit or set of units. In architectural practice these distinct units are single points or isolated masses; in architectural theory they may be called "kernels" or "seeds." Given human characteristics, they become gods, and represented in image form, they receive the benefits of temple cults.

Second, as the botanical metaphors indicate, power is generative. The operation of power is configured in terms of irruption. In and of themselves, isolated points or masses are opaque or invisible, but they are powerful only to the extent that they can call what the senses perceive into existence. The result is what I have called a "dialectical difference" between the hidden and the manifest: the multiplicity and the variety of manifestations makes us aware of an opaque, radiating mass below the surface. The Kandsriya underscores this hidden power of generativity with a bright red pen: the lingam (penis) at the center resides in the garbhagrha (the "womb-house), and it gives rise on the surface to varied and multiple sexual acts.

Third, power is cumulative. In such a configuration, external adornments are best conjoined by addition and repetition. Integral relationships-relationships in which parts combine to make neat wholes-actually diminish the impression of power, for they counter- act the sense of overwhelming multiplicity and variety that addition and juxtaposition preserve.

Finally, power is differential. The dialectical difference that subsists between the hidden and the manifest favors structures that establish distance. In architectural terms, the axis of approach becomes elon- gated and-as an effective response to the pervasive experience of g r a ~ i t ~ ~ ~ - astrong vertical thrust overwhelms the worshiper who is confined to viewing the temple from the ground.

As represented in the Parthenon, religiopolitical power is quite different. First, power is not "dividuated" but systemic or organic. Instead of concentrating in hidden masses and isolated points, it resides in visible volumes that participate in larger, manifest systems

36 Arnheim (n. 13 above) comments quite well on how gravity affects human per- ception: see chap. 2, "The Strongest Center and Its Rivals," pp. 10-41.


at the same time that their own interior, organic nature is apparent. The Parthenon contains and reveals the supreme "organ" of power, the goddess of the city. At the same time, like all Greek temples, the Parthenon was not the site of ritual, the center to which all activity was directed. Instead, it stood on the periphery and provided a visual frame-it delimited an empty, systemic space-in which the events of the ritual could "take place."

Second, this power is not generative but interactive. Power is not signaled by the unrestrained irruption of the hidden into the manifest. It prefers the space made available when the hidden and manifest stand in a relation of dialectical identity, a space that makes possible the effective interaction of constituent parts: the muscles of the body, the elements of the temple, the members of the citizen body, the Olympian gods. The contrast is even signaled by the deities to whom the two temples are dedicated. ~ i v a ' s symbol is the lingam and his temple is adorned with an erotic glossary in stone, but the goddess of the Parthenon, the force who binds Athens together and makes it work, is herself parthenos, a perpetual virgin.

Third, this power is not additive but integrative. In a configuration in which power results not from irruption but from effective interaction, addition and repetition are equivalent to wasted effort and dissipation. The Parthenon shows at every turn that in this configuration the most powerful is that which carefully and subtly inte- grates all parts into a whole.

Finally, this power is "proximative." The dialectical identity between the hidden and the manifest mandates that the absolute distance of verticality be avoided in favor of a horizontality that favors interaction. Variations of power are represented not by separation nor by multiplicity but by variation in size-the extent of space over which an interacting part extends, the amount of the available system that it occupies. Size differentiates gods, heroes, and human beings on the Parthenon frieze; it characterizes Phidias's Athena, whose head reaches up to the very ceiling of her temple; and it renders the Parthenon itself, and by implication the power that built it, the most magnificent in the Greek world.

We cannot say that the structures of the KandZriya and the Parthenon simply reflect the institutions and ideologies of Candella India and fifth-century Greece, but it is possible to assert the con- verse. These institutions and ideologies fit comfortably within the configurations of power that the architectural features of the temples represent. In fact, these institutions and ideologies fit so snugly that they tended to become the norm in each society rather than the exception.


In Candella society, religiopolitical power is concentrated at a single point in the person of the god-king. As are both the temple and the god, the king is meant to be viewed by the people, but he maintains his distance. His mass becomes more generally visible in the palace and the extensive palace institutions that he generates. In effect, the king is surrounded by hierarchies whose ranks become- like the blossoming of ornaments on a temple's surface-more numerous the farther they are removed from the central unity.

Ideology actually makes the king not just the powerful mass that irrupts at the center of his realm; like the god, he becomes the usually invisible force responsible for the well-being of the whole world. The king is samrtTj, universal monarch, but that claim does not deter his ideologues from celebrating the various manifestations of power at the limits of his realm: raids and alliances abound in rich profusion. The ideologues also celebrate the power of irruption for which the king is renowned within his kingdom, which is the ability to ensure prosperity through generation. On the one hand, the rich erotic scenes on the surface of the Kandiiriya rejoice in a superfluity of those human generative powers that reach their heights in the king. On the other hand, Dhanga is said to have lived longer than a complete life (more than 100 years); then he died only because he voluntarily committed suicide at-or would it be better to say "merged withw?- a most sacred and vital spot, the conjunction of the Ganges and the ~ u m n a . ~ '

In fifth-century Greece, religiopolitical power does not concentrate in a single point or an irrupting mass; it is given to the "d2mos" as a whole. It is doled out among all males who count as powerful; among those, that is, who are (in Greek [male] eyes) the most powerful organs in a religiosocial system of smaller scale, the family. These "people" are "organv-ized through a careful system of relations into an effective, voting body. Like political institutions in Greece generally, they need no mass or palace in which to reside; they require instead empty but ordered spaces in which they may confront each other and interact: an agora, an Areopagus, a Pnyx, or, when the

37 Mitra writes of the Candellas: "Their munificence is often highly spoken of and they are described as the veritable 'kalpataru,' the tree that fulfills all desires" (p. 146). On p. 69, n. 47, he reproduces the inscription that describes Dhanga entering the sacred conjunction, absorbed in meditation on Rudra. Goetz makes the suggestion that the particular ideology and behavior represented in the KandHriya represents an attempt by a foreigner at court to dissipate Candella power through deluding the king with his own grandeur and diverting his energies toward sexual pursuits. The suggestion, made primarily on circumstantial grounds, lends an aura of intrigue that may not be inappropriate, but it ignores the ideology of the Candellas themselves and smacks of prudery besides.

35 History of Religions

interactions involve the city's gods, an Akropolis. Because power consists in the effective interworking of this body, no absolute distance separates some bearers of power from others. Perikles wields more influence at Athens, but technically he is primus inter pares.

The political ideology varies accordingly. No one celebrates Peri- kles's powers of irruption-his powers of longevity or fertility-and certainly not in terms that, like the Candellas' claims, entirely obscure Perikles's personality behind stock phrases. In Greece, the ideology of power focuses on such intangibles as influence and glory: the ability of one part or organ-the first among equals-to dominate the working of the whole, as Perikles dominates the assembly, as Athena dominates the Parthenon, as the Parthenon dominates Athens, and as Athens dominates the Delian League. That power is greatest not whose essence is hidden but whose visible effects are apparent for generations to come. Thus, Thukydides attributes to Perikles words intended to express Athenian political aspirations. These words were not spoken of the Parthenon, but they might as well have been: "Many are the proofs which we have given of our power and assuredly it does not lack witnesses, and therefore we shall be the wonder not only of men of today but of after time^."^^

PATTERNS AND SYMBOLS

I have nothing more to offer on the Parthenon and the KandBriya, but before I close, I want to return briefly to the points I raised at the beginning. I claimed that I would adopt Baxandall's model of "historical explanation," and that I would d o so to approach the physical structure of two temples in a way that did not reduce them to symbolic meanings. Now that I have finished, perhaps each claim can tolerate further comment.

If I have used Baxandall's model of investigation, I have not followed his thought slavishly, nor did I intend to. My results-at least my descriptions-are in some respects more reminiscent of the thought of Heinrich Wolfflin, especially Wolfflin's well-known formal distinction between the classical and the baroque or, in terms that are less loaded culturally, the linear and the painterly styles. Of course, I know enough to skirt the two major snares in which Wolfflin became entangled, which are his strict evolutionism and his abstract formalism. Moreover, I suspect that some of the resemblance is merely superficial. For example, I would not call baroque art "generative," as I d o Indian art. But the resemblance is worth noting, for it raises a

38 Thukydides 2.41.4(Loeb).


larger issue. If Baxandall is reacting to "high hermeneutics" in the tradition of Panofsky, Panofsky's hermeneutics are reacting to an abstract formalism in the tradition of Wolfflin.

There are some for whom the identification of elaborate and subtle systems of symbols in temple architecture is merely the petty conceit of bored, imaginative priests and academic obscurantists. In what has preceded I hope I have shown that historians of religions can look at physical structures as religious structures without constant recourse to the symbolic. At the same time, I would hardly suggest that historians of religions give up interpreting symbols altogether. At the very least, the sculpted decorations of the Parthenon and the K a n d ~ r i y amust also be observed with an eye informed by myths and symbols. The most I will claim is that my "explanation" of the temple's forms provides a larger context in which the symbols must be read. But that context may mark certain limits to symbolic analysis, including (most pointedly) limits to the kinds of concepts which many historians of religions have been so very fond of, concepts of spatial orientation and cosmic mimesis.

It has been clear for years that Eliade's peculiar categories-the center, axis mundi, imago mundi-are helpful in some contexts (e.g., India) but totally inadequate in others (e.g., Greece). My analysis suggests a reason why. Categories of orientation and cosmic imitation are appropriate when religion cultivates a kind of power that focuses on a hidden, radiating point that generates manifest reality. But when religion concerns a different kind of power-for example, a power that does not orient because it prefers the space of the "Cartesian grid" to masses with their centers, a power that does not seek to generate the cosmos but to govern the ordered interaction of society- to impose the received categories on physical form is misleading, and worse.

Western Maryland College

gregory d. alles, surface, space, and intention

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