Ram Mandir in Ayodhya – Nagara Style of Architecture

• Ayodhya Ram Mandir is built in the Nagara style of architecture. The temple

• Chandrakant Sompura, 81, and his son Ashish, 51

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-culture/nagara-style-ayodhya-ram-temple-9118010/

• The Nagara style of temple architecture emerged some time in the fifth century CE, during the late Gupta period, in northern India. It is seen in juxtaposition with the Dravida style of southern India, which too emerged in the same period.

1. Garbha griha
2. Shikhara
3. Amalaka
4. Mandapa

• Nagara temples are built on a raised plinth, with the garbha griha (sanctum sanctorum) — where the idol of the deity rests — the most sacred part of the temple.

• Towering over the garbha griha is the shikhara (literally ‘mountain peak’), the most distinguishable aspect of Nagara style temples.
• As the name suggests, shikharas are human-made representations of the natural and cosmological order, as imagined in Hindu tradition.

• It is a stone-like disc visible at the temple’s peak

• It is the temple’s main entryway. It could be a portico or a colonnade hall filled with worshippers.

• Depending on the period and geography, there is a large variation when it comes to what a shikhara looks like, or how it is used in a temple’s design. On this basis, Hardy in his book – The Temple Architecture of India (2007) identifies five modes of Nagara temple architecture

1.     Valabhi

2.     Phamsana

3.     Latina

4.     Shekhari

5.     Bhumija

• This style of temples are rectangular in shape comprising of barrel-vaulted roofs. The vaulted chamber roof has earned them the moniker wagon vaulted buildings/ structures. Teli Ka Mandir, a 9th Century temple at Gwalior has been built in this style.

• These temples are shorter but broader structures comprising of roofs with numerous slabs that rise upwards in a gentle slope on a straight incline like a pyramid meeting at a single point over the mid-point of the building. The Jagmohan of Konark Temple is constructed in the Phamsana mode.

• These temples are characterized by a simple Shikara with a square base and inward curving walls that have a pointed top. Early medieval temples such as the Sun Temple at Markhera in Madhya Pradesh (MP). The Sri Jagannath Temple of Odisha has been constructed in the Latina style

• It is a variation of the Latina where the Shikara comprises of a main Rekha-Prasad Shikara and one or more rows of smaller steeples on both sides of the central spire. Additionally, the base and corners also feature mini Shikaras. The Khajuraho Kandariya Mahadev Temple is one of the most prominent temples built in this style.

• Bhumina style has also evolved from Latina style. It was developed in Malwa under the Paramara dynasty. These temples have a flat upward tapering projection comprising of a central Latina spire and miniature spires on the quadrant formed by the tapering tower. These mini Shikaras carved out both horizontally as well as vertically. The Udayeshwar Temple in MP is built in this style.

• The Dravida counterpart to the shikhara is the vimana. There exists, however, a fundamental difference.
• In the Dravida style temples, vimanas are typically smaller than the great gatehouses or gopurams, which are the most immediately striking architectural elements in a temple complex.
• Moreover, while shikharas are mentioned in southern Indian architectural sources, they refer to only the dome-shaped crowning cap atop the vimana.
• The existence of gopurams also points to another unique feature of the Dravida style — the presence of a boundary wall.
• Few Nagara style temple complexes are lined with distinctive boundary walls that are a part of the temple’s design.

• One of the Ayodhya’s Ram temple’s ‘hybrid’ features is a nagara style with boundary wall of Dravidian style.
• Although no elaborate gopuram has been built (citing paucity of space), a 732m long wall runs around the temple compound.