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Agama Vasthu

Agama Vasthu

The Agama literature includes the Shilpa- Shastra, which covers architecture and iconography. The aspects of temple construction are dealt in Devalaya Vastu; and Prathima deals with the iconography. Sometimes, the term Shipa is also used to denote the art of sculpting; but here Shipa refers to the practice of the technique, while Shastra refers to its principles.

The worship dealt with the Agama necessarily involves worship -worthy images. The rituals and sequences elaborated in the Agama texts are in the context of such worship- worthy image, which necessarily has to be contained in a shrine. The basic idea is that a temple must be built for the icon, and not an icon got ready for the temples, for a temple is only an outgrowth of the icon, an expanded image of the icon. And an icon is meaningful only in the context of a shrine that is worthy to house it. That is how the Agama literature makes its presence felt in the Shilpa-Sastra, Architecture. The icon and its form; the temple and its structure; and the rituals and their details, thus get interrelated.Further, the Indian temples should be viewed in the general framework of temple culture, which include not only religious and philosophical aspects but social, aesthetic and economic aspects also.

Elaborate rules are laid out in the Agamas for Silpa , describing the quality requirements of the places where temples are to be built, the kind of images to be installed, the materials from which they are to be made, their dimensions, proportions, air circulation, lighting in the temple complex etc. The Manasara and Silpasara are some of the works dealing with these rules. The rituals followed in worship services each day at the temple also follow rules laid out in the Agamas.

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