Sacred Architecture

In most religious traditions sacred architecture has a particular style that distinguishes it from other forms of architecture. A church, a mosque, gurdwara or a Hindu temple are frequently recognisable as sacred buildings, because of architectural features such as spires, minarets or domes.

Buildings are functional, as they must serve a particular purpose – for example as places to live or venues for entertainment. However, as Thomas Barrie (2010:10) points out, architecture is also communicative.  The way that you decorate your house is not only indicative of your financial circumstances, but also communicates aspects of your personality. Similarly, churches, temples, mosques and synagogues have the potential to communicate aspects of their respective religious traditions. Sacred buildings communicate religious ideas through a number of different ways, such as location, orientation and design.

Many religious buildings are located in specific places that are associated with the sacred geography of particular religious traditions. These sacred places are linked with mythological narratives. For example, the Vishvanāth Temple in Banaras is said to be where the Śiva manifested as a column of light.²This links the Viṣvanāth Temple not only to an important mythic narrative, but also to Hindu sacred geography.

Religious places are also often associated with historical figures. For example, the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya commemorates the place where the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment. This temple is a UNESCO world heritage site and a place of pilgrimage for many Buddhists.

Many sacred buildings are located for practical reasons rather than being identified with a sacred geography. Temples are very important for the Hindu tradition founded by Swaminarayan in the early 19^th century. There are now many Swaminarayan temples across the globe, including in London. The Swaminarayan interpretation of Hinduism is very popular amongst Gujaratis, and consequently the temple was built in a suburb of London that has a large Gujarati population. The London temple, whilst not directly associated with the life of Swaminarayan or any Hindu narrative, has become pilgrimage place in its own right.

Many religious buildings are oriented in auspicious directions, often aligning with the cardinal points, the equinoxes and/or astronomical configurations. For example, Stonehenge is oriented so that it is aligned to the passage of the sun, in particular the summer and winter solstice. The sun rises on the summer solstice to the left of large stone outside the circle known as the heel stone and can be seen through a gap in the outer circle. While it is only speculative, it is reasonable to suggest that the solstices were significant days in the calendar and may well have been ritually celebrated.

Consequently, there is, as Lindsay Jones observes, a synchronisation between a celestial event, a human construction and ritual performance (Jones 2000: Vol II, 80). This synchronicity emphasises that the human construction is the centre of the cosmos and aligned with sacred time.

Other sacred buildings are not necessarily oriented towards celestial events but have a different alignment. For example, there is a convention that many Christian churches are oriented to the East, which could be interpreted as signifying the risen Christ. All mosques are oriented towards Mecca. About the only universal feature that all mosques have is a niche called a mihrab that points towards Mecca and therefore indicates the direction that Muslims must face when praying. Consequently, Mecca is clearly indicated as the centre of the Islamic world.

Many religious buildings are resplendent and monumental in scale. The Greek historian Prokopios described Hagia Sophia in Constantinople just after it had been rebuilt by the emperor Justinian 537:

So the church has been made a spectacle of great beauty, stupendous to those who see it and altogether incredible to those who hear of it … it boasts of an ineffable beauty, for it subtly combines its mass with the harmony of its proportions

Description of The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople

The scale and splendour of many sacred buildings is also a statement of power. This is both testimony to the power of religion in society and a declaration of political power. Ruling elites often sponsored the building of massive temples to demonstrate not only their piety, but also their wealth and power. One of the amazing bas reliefs at Angkor Wat built by the Khmer King Suryavaram II in the 12th century depict scenes of his military defeat of the Chams. Consequently, many of the monumental religious buildings, such as Angkor Wat, problematise a clear differentiation between sacred and secular architecture.

Many religious buildings are regarded as architectural representations of cosmological ideas – the macrocosm (the cosmos) represented as microcosm (the architecture). This approach to religious architecture is based on the idea that creation is characterised by balance and harmony. Often sacred architecture aspires to replicating the perceived harmony of creation.

There are certain universally applicable rhythms and proportions, observable in the workings of nature and mathematics that ought then to be replicated in architecture

Jones, 2000, Vol II: 48

This homology between the design and proportions of a sacred building and beliefs about the symmetry of the cosmos is a form of sacred geometry. Many of the Ottoman mosques, for example ‘applied geometry in plan, section, and elevation as a means of representing a divine paradise through non-iconographic means (Barrie 2010: 133).

The design of many Hindu temples is determined by ideas of sacred geometry. However, it is important to note that the use of sacred geometry only applies to some temples and there are also numerous Hindu places of worship whose design is not determined by concepts of cosmological symmetry.

The design template of the archetypal Hindu temple can be found in a number of Sanskrit texts known as the Vāstu Śāstras. However, as George Michell (1988) points out, these texts are theoretical treatises composed by brahman priests and not architectural blueprints. Nonetheless these architectural treatises provide an insight into how Hindu temples are perceived. The Swaminarayan temple in London, for example, indicates that:

The Mandir is a traditional place of Hindu worship designed and constructed entirely according to ancient Vedic architectural texts.

Shri Swaminarayan Mandir

The first task is to find a suitable place for building the temple. This place is often associated with the narrative of a particular deity. So Dwarka, for example, is where Kṛṣṇa is said to have had his capital.

Once, this place has been identified it is ritually purified. Then, according to astrological calculations, the best time is determined to lay out a grid (maṇḍala), which should be aligned with the cardinal points. Each of the squares of the grid is also associated with a particular deity. The grid is also conceived in terms of the cosmic man puruṣa who is depicted as diagonally placed across the maṇḍala. This grid links cosmological time and sacred space to the temple.

The ideal temple is built according to a strict mathematical scheme.

Only if the temple is constructed correctly according to a mathematical system can it be expected to function in harmony with the mathematical basis of the universe

Michell, 1988: 73

The central square of the maṇḍala is regarded as particularly significant. The main shrine is therefore located over this central square. The main shrine in Hindu temples is called the gṛha garba ‘womb chamber’. This suggests that within the temple itself there are different zones of sacredness, and the devotee progressively moves from the lesser sacred areas on the periphery to the spiritual heart of the temple. The central shrine is frequently dark and resembles a sort of cave.

Throughout India there are temples, such as the extraordinary temples at Ellora, that were literally hewn out of rocks. Consequently, the gṛha garba refers back to some of the earliest Hindu temples. Furthermore many of the Hindu deities have a strong association with caves and mountains.

Mountains are not only associated with Hindu deities, but as the religious studies scholar Mircea Eliade, suggests temples can be considered to be the axis mundi – the cosmic axis that connects the sacred with the mundane.

The sacred mountain where heaven and earth meet, stands at the centre of the world. Every temple … is assimilated to a “sacred mountain” and thus becomes a centre. The temple as the place through which the Axis Mundi passes is held to be a point of junction between heaven and earth.

Eliade 1958: 375.

At its simplest religious buildings are places where the faithful can gather. The terms synagogue and church (ekklēsia) and the Arabic term jami – used to indicate larger mosques – all have the connotation ‘to assemble’.

In essence, a large room for gathering together is at the crux of most religious building.

Pallister 2015:20

Swaminarayan Akshardham (‘Divine Abode’) Delhi

The murti of Swaminarayan installed in Akshardham
Images from Swaminarayan Akshardham

Mandirs are not mere buildings of stone. A pulsating consciousness courses through each component of the mandir … The seers of ancient India conceived mandirs not as buildings, merely awe inspiring and beautiful, but as profound sacred representations of God … Every atom of the mandir radiates the divinity of the supreme

(BAPS 2007:4)

Whilst most forms of Christianity are congregational and churches can be regarded as architectural spaces for the gathering of the community, the idea of the congregation is not as significant for many forms of Hinduism. The Hindu temple is regarded as a dwelling place of the deity as opposed to being considered as a house for the community of the faithful. Consequently the structure of the Hindu temple must conform to idealised measurements outlined in the texts to make it a fit abode for the deity.

One of the most used terms for a Hindu temple is maṇḍir – which derives from the root mand meaning ‘to abide’. The image of a deity that is installed in the maṇḍir is referred to as a murti ‘form’. The implication is that the image is not simply a symbol or representation but is regarded as a form of the deity. (see post on iconography). Consequently, the maṇḍir has to be constructed in a way that is appropriate for the abode of a deity. However, not only is the temple conceived as the abode of the deity it is also in some senses regarded as the sacred in itself.

Religious buildings are also places of religious learning. Obviously, sacred buildings are places of oral instruction, in the form of sermons. However, the design of building and the iconographic detail also perform a pedagogical function. The architecture itself provides a visual representation of metaphysical and theological ideas. The iconography of sacred architecture reminds the faithful of mythic narratives.

A small temple in Rishikesh. This image represents the deity Kṛṣṇa explaining to Arjuna why he must go into battle. This is a visual representation of the important Hindu text the Bhagavad Gītā⁴

Most religious buildings have a threshold that, as Eliade has suggested marks the crossing between profane and sacred space. However, sacred architecture can also be regarded as liminal spaces.

Thomas Barrie (2010) characterises religious architecture as ‘the sacred in-between’. By this he means that sacred architecture has the potential to mediate between the sacred and the mundane.

The experience of sacred architecture takes us out of the everyday … We enter a different environment where our senses are confronted by the complexity and profusion of images and surface decoration typical of many sacred places

Barrie 2010: 19

In other words sacred spaces act as crossing points that exist between the profane and the transcendent.

While some religious buildings, particularly Hindu temples, can be busy noises places, there are also some buildings designed to facilitate quiet contemplation. In this sense the perception of sacred architecture is viewed as a sanctuary, a place away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. This conceptualisation of sacred architecture is frequently associated with monasticism and tends to adopt an aniconic aesthetic.

The idea of sanctuary is clearly expressed in Cistercian architecture:

Everything in our life tends to protect us from the turmoil of the world and of our passions, to guarantee us solitude of the spirit, the heart and the will, in order that our monasteries be sanctuaries of silence filled with the fragrance of prayer

In Jones 2000: 271 Vol 2.

Acey Abbey: A Cistercian Abbey
Image from Wikipedia