The Torana (arched portal or festoon) is among the striking architectural features of Indian monumental art. The ‘Toranas’ are often embellished with representations of divinities, narratives, and with varied motifs and symbols such as ‘makaras’ (fantastic crocodile-dolphin creatures), ‘ganas’ (goblin-dwarfs), ‘kinnaras’ (bird-men), ‘nagas’ (serpents), and ‘vidyadharas’ (angelic semi-divinities). This richly illustrated, gorgeously produced book discusses, inter alia, the antiquity and rationale of ‘Toranas’; their myriad forms and transformations; their continued presence in association with ‘stupas’, caves, temples, mosques and forts; and their aesthetic relationship with the structure concerned. In addition, the exposition reveals the manifold visual formulations of the ‘torana’ as representative of the basic principles of traditional Indian architectural ornament: integral to the structure; functionally apt; aesthetically significant; and visually evocative. As S. Settar notes in his foreword, the study covers nearly the entire history of the torana-motif, beginning from the earliest Buddhist and Jain instances (Bharhut, Sanchi, Mathura) and ending with those of Indo-Islamic times (notably of the Sultanate and Mughal periods). There are also references from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and surveys drawing parallels from Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Perhaps no country in the world equals India in the richness of its cultural traditions and in the general ignorance and neglect of those traditions. Art history is something that a handful of art historians do, but it is high time that ordinary people became aware of the marvels and intricacies of Indian art. This is why this book on the torana by noted art historian Parul Pandya Dhar is especially important. It is meticulously researched, profusely illustrated, and beautifully produced, a book that the specialist as well as general reader can enjoy and learn a great deal from. Art and architecture can only be understood properly through carefully detailed descriptions and lots of visuals, and this book has both. The author avoids mystifying jargon. technical terms are only used where they are necessary, and are explained carefully in the text and in the glossary.

This is the first detailed study of the torana, which in architecture means an arched portal or festoon (a festoon is a garland made of any material hung between two points). Dhar tracks down the history of the torana not only on the basis of actual samples but also by delving into ancient and medieval architectural treatises and inscriptions. Toranas are mentioned in many texts, including the Arthashastra, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Buddhist Jataka stories. Of course, the architectural treatise known as the Vastushastras talk about them in much greater detail. In fact, there must have been a constant dialogue between theory and practice in Indian art, and that is why the author tells us both about what the theoretical works say and what was envisioned and created by architects, masons and sculptors.

The result is a journey across many centuries, both within India and beyond its borders, as we see changes in the form, meaning and context of the torana. We are introduced to its forerunner in the Lomash Rishi cave in the Barabar hills in Bihar and we move on admiring its earliest examples in the Buddhist stupas of Sanchi and Bharhut. From here onwards, it is like a Bharat yatra, as Dhar guides us through the rock-cut architecture at Ajanta and Ellora in Maharashtra, the Jain temples of Mount Abu in Rajasthan, the Hindu temples at Pattadakal and Hampi in Karnataka, and much more.

Toranas are not only found in temples, they also mark the entrance and interiors of medieval forts, and can be seen in mosques and mausoleums of the Sultanate and Mughal periods as well. And they are a living architectural element, present in monuments of our own time, too, although the modern ones are nowhere as beautiful as their ancient and medieval counterparts.

Unlike pillars, walls and roofs, Toranas did not have a functional purpose. And yet, the free-standing ones were a very important part of structures, because people had to pass through them in order to enter spaces that were highly charged with sacred, political or community significance. Their sheer beauty is overwhelming, but as if that were not enough, Dhar directs our attention to their auspicious, symbolic, and ornamental functions. The sculptures on toranas could tell stories and convey ideas, values and teachings to those who passed through them or past them. They could be symbols of a king’s power and even objects of worship.

The Torana was not confined to India. It is also found in the architecture of ancient Sri Lanka, Myanmar and South-East Asia. This book shows us how it got transformed in these lands — a much needed reminder of the intimate cultural conversation that was carried on for centuries between India and the rest of Asia, the details of which we need to discover much more about. The author reminds us that in ancient and medieval times, there was no strict dividing line between art and craft and between artist and artisan. She urges us to look at and appreciate the richness and beauty of traditional Indian architectural and sculptural forms and ornament.

Ultimately, the photographs speak, and in speaking they forcefully and eloquently drive home the author’s point. The breathtaking beauty of the ancient and medieval toranas represents an artistic vision and skill that is often nothing short of sheer artistic genius.

This is a succinct monograph on the morphology of the architectural motif of the torana, or the festooned or simply arched portal, that is a fundamental constituent, endlessly in the history of Indian architecture. Lavishly illustrated and printed on heavy art-paper renders it a fairly weighty to me, no doubt one that scholars of South Asian architectural history would welcome. Although toranas are entrances or gateways, they are not to be confused with Pratolis and Gopuras, which grew into more substantial buildings, sometimes as defensive gatehouses to guard. Gopuras being more substantial buildings, have already been the focus of previous studies (one of the more notable ones of South Indian ones being the 1963 monograph by J.C. Harle).

The study is essentially two-pronged. Establishing a formal morphological corpus or shall we say a taxonomy of the torana and second, ballasting this with ancient texts and inscriptional evidence have to say about the form. This study is thus within a well-established indological methodology, which as Professor Settar’s Foreword makes clear has been followed ever since the earliest writings on Indian art and architecture from the nineteenth century.

In not translating the extensive transcripts of passages from Sanskrit treatises that refer to toranas, clearly the author is reaching out to an erudite audience au fait with Sanskrit. She sets out her rationale at the very outset of the book: Indian art and architecture must be studied in its own specialist language, rather than impress English terminology to approximate what it means. She says, ‘Despite criticism against employing technical terms occuring in the treatises in recent writings, I believe that they play an important role in arriving at a culturally viable framework for an art historical analysis of the Indian temple’ (p. 3). At the same time, she is quite aware that there has seldom been a singular meaning of a term or complete agreement in what it means even in Indian languages. Indian texts are of course not the product of a single mind, they are separated by centuries and may come from regions far apart. Hence preceding her glossary of Sanskrit terminology, she provides for the diligent reader a tabular listing of terms gathered from different texts.

Returning to the first aim of the monograph: to provide a formal analysis of the development of the form of the torana. Art historians of the conventional sort (wont as they are to date and categorize everything), may be disappointed to learn that toranas are not an element like temple-mouldings, or multiplied projecting walls, or forms of iconography that can be used as a tool to date a monument. As she states, ‘No attempts has been made here to suggest a date on the basis of stylistic character of the torana alone’ (p. 4).

Chapter One on ‘The Beginnings’ of the form traces its lineage from the Lomas Rishi cave via Begram ivories, the stupas of Bharhut, Sanchi, Mathura and Amaravati to the Gupta period. Chapter Three, broadly divided into two parts, continues with fifth to eighth century depictions of the motif in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra, followed, in the latter part of the chapter of the continuance of the motif in Southern India till the 13th century. The chapter ends with its legacy in southern India after the 13th century.

Similarly, the following chapter considers the motif in northern India, followed by another focusing on salient examples from Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka. It is in the details of these chapters that we see how toranas may be made for entrances, different ones for framing images or be used in vestibules or aisles. They may be made up of single or multiple arcres or loops, they may be variously decorated with images, foliage, fantastical aquatic or flying creatures, or suffused with decorative ornament. Central and western Indian toranas grow into the most complex, florid examples and free-standing toranas become more visible only after the 10th century when they become an independent architectural entity. Central and western Indian temples share many similar patterns of temporally guided elaboration with those of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, thus it will not be surprising to see, that the torana is one of them.

The interesting query on how such corbelled forms of arches are synthesized with the voussoir ones of islamic architecture in India is indirectly embedded in the book. Thus are to be located interesting comparisons of free-flying illika-toranas of South India with Bahamani and Adil Shahi buildings of Bijapur (p. 101) on the one hand, and the buildings of the Delhi Sultanate (p. 181) on the other.

Perhaps the author ought to have made clear her rationale for the seemingly out of place Chapter Two on a reading of classical texts in the midst of an entirely empirical taxonomical study of the regional and temporal forms of toranas. But being as the book is, for a learned audience, no doubt readers will appreciate that although Sanskrit textual references to toranas (from the 12th to 16th centuries), may help our appreciation of art and architecture from the Gupta and post-Gupta period on. Whether these ideas held a mandate prior to that is questionable. (This perhaps explains why this chapter forms not an extension to the texts discussed in the Introduction, but a prelude to the study of post-Gupta architecture.) Further, while Chapter Two helps in understanding such things as what the conceptual difference between a makara torana and a patra torana may be, as the author herself concludes at the end of the chapter, the texts may not answer why one was used instead of another. As she says, ‘the manner in which norms and criteria are laid out in the treatises betrays the fluidity . . . that inheres within their seemingly tenacious and rigid framework’ (p. 35). This certainly casts the authors of the original texts as inventory fond pedants, for if toranas are more than just a decorative device that are laden with auspicious symbolism, then surely we need to be told what the different selection of iconography on the toranas mean.

Theoretically speaking though, the pursuit of symbolic meaning (iconology), is now cast as only one branch of art history. Certainly, even studies on purely decorative ornament, have, at least since the 1950s, been harnessed to read a wider notion of aesthetic gestalt, of looking upon the singular element (here the decorative torana) within the aesthetic totality of the building that impresses itself on our sensibilities. The richly illustrated, geographically and temporally sampling of the author helps achieve this.

This study is prefaced by a pertinent point. Studies on design and architectural ornament ran out of favour with an increasingly modernist agenda in architectural and art-history. Indeed, the aesthetic of horror vacui (fear of empty space) began to assume a pejorative ring in connoisseurial circles after the Victorian period. Considered ‘decorative’ and ‘frothy’, it was thought to be ever present in Islamic and Indian art. Postmodern ideology however, as the author states, citing Brent Brolin on architectural ornament, ‘began to evince a renewed interest in the past histories of ornament’ (p. 5). One certainly hopes that is indeed the case, even if the kudos awarded postmodernism are optimistic. In fact, the return to serious studies of singular art motifs, especially decorative ones, is a branch of art-history that certainly needs rekindling, for painstaking and exacting documentation of motifs such as this, can form for several, a rite of passage in the evolution of scholarship, leading to empirical databases that future scholars can use to make the sorts of histories they will find pertinent.

With an increasing number of discourses on ‘texts’, a stark paradox has become obvious. The discourses completely lack dialogue with the conceptually and empirically rich ‘fact’ and/or abundant material contexts. The paradox appears sharper in the field of art and architecture, where studies, shorn of any time space dimension, provoke theoretical abstractions rather than provide clarity. It is an imperative in historical inquiry to seek and explore newer sources of history and interrogate older ones, particularly in the sense of unravelling meanings and representations that situate space and time in visual cultures. The post-modern turn in cultural studies has led to the deconstruction of notions of space -- its essentializing dimension and its dispersal, and to questioning the constitution of the visual -- its shifting spatial ontology and its ‘simultaneity’ in constitution and representation, suggesting continuity and challenging hierarchy.1 Rather than interrogate categories and notions pertaining to art and architecture in relation to particular contexts, such theoretical formulations have defocussed the space-time framework of analysis and to some extent, have led to a marginalization of the abundantly available textual sources, prescriptive and narrative, that afford insights into the evolution of art and architectural forms in the Indian sub-continent. There has been a critical consciousness related to the pitfalls of reading meanings and conceptualizations with regard to objects by uncritically accepting the ‘discourses’ about them.2 While the interpretations of scholars like Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Stella Kramrisch have been scrutinized and critiqued threadbare, a lot of the writings, particularly stemming from the Western academia have worked with notions of form, meaning and composition as expounded by these early scholars of Indian art and architecture. It is in this sense that the paradox related to the visual as text, texts of the visual and textuality and meaning come to the fore.

Parul Pandya Dhar’s tome is a refreshing read that harks to a tradition of solid, empirically based analysis within the discipline of art history and is an extensive and in-depth study of a particular architectural element, the torana. The formidable size of the book is matched by the contents in terms of the vast regional sweep across India and south-east Asia, and the use of an array of textual sources. What is the torana? In simple terms, it refers to an arched portal, primarily an entranceway, which is found in monuments of all kinds, attested to in sources as varied as the Buddhist Jatakas, avadana literature, stone inscriptions and the Sanskrit epics of the early historical period. The exquisite description of cities and city-gates by Coomaraswamy had already brought to our notice this device, linking it to the entrance of the fortified city, consisting of pillars supporting crossbeams at the top and often used in conjunction with the gate-posts, gate-leaves, bolt post and jamb, referred together as esika in the Buddhist sources.3 The arch shape of the torana was a functional and aesthetic component in the architecture of gateways that also performed a symbolic function. The functional aspect is clearly demonstrated in the injunction that the victorious army that enters the city should send its elephants to break the toranas, which in turn would breach the palighal/parigha (cross-bars), causing the uprooting of the esikani.4 Dhar’s introductory comment that ‘the origin of an architectural form or motif may rest in the shared realm of the utilitarian, the symbolic, and the aesthetic’ (p. 8) draws on Coomaraswamy’s understanding that essentially, Indian art was rooted in its culture and reflected the life world of the people conceptualizing and executing it.5

The best standing examples of this architectural element is found in Sanchi, where the four directions are marked by magnificent toranas with an ‘ivory-like finish’ (p. 9). Monumental reliefs and ivory fragments reveal different contexts in which toranas were employed -- at the entrance of cities, shrines and domestic spaces. While in the former case, the pratoli (gatehouse of the fortification) was adorned with this arch, in the visual descriptions of stupas, vriksha caityas and dwellings the torana marked the entry into that demarcated space, sacred and secular. In all cases, it was used as an element to mark the passage from one domain to another -- external to the inner recesses in the physical sense and in a more philosophical reading in the Milindapanho, marking the passage from ignorance to knowledge (p. 21).

From the Gupta period, the torana became an architectural feature particularly embellished in the temple entranceway -- referred to as dvara-torana, in different segments of the structural stone temple such as in the mandapas (pavilions) and antarala (vestibules), the parikara torana which framed images and those demarcating the devakosthas in the inner vestibules around the sanctum sanctorum (garbhagriha) and the outer walls of the temple. By the 10th century CE, the torana was more of an ornamental element as seen from the profusion of nasi (dormer) and kudya (wall) toranas on the walls of the temple and the spire (pp. 29, 38-39, 70, et cetera).

The composition of the torana as understood from the early Buddhist evidence suggests two pillars connected by one or more cross-bars at the upper end that terminated in volutes. The Sanchi toranas have three such architraves that appear to have been balanced on the outside by brackets sculpted in the form of dryads (salabhanjika), while the Nasik torana against the wall of the cave reveals vyala brackets. There are railings that are attached to the toranas called the vedika, and it has been argued that the roots of this type of enclosure were probably to be found in ordinary domestic architecture, where a wooden fence with a gate surrounded the homestead. What is important in the context of the sacred monuments where they are found is that they are invested with significance, both, in terms of the liminal space these convey between the mundane and the sacred, and in terms of the didactic and religious messages conveyed in the literary motifs and narratives about the significance of the torana. (pp. 9, 13, 15) torana reliefs from Bharhut, Mathura, Sanchi and Amaravati illustrate scenes from the life of the Buddha, narrate tales related to the past lives of the Buddha sourced from the Jatakas, and breathe life into literary descriptions of mythical animals such as fish-tailed lions. Gana (goblin), kinnara (half human half bird) and divine figures, along with a range of representations of flora, fauna and ordinary people decorate the stambha, architraves and even the portions between these bars. As such, these early examples provide a voluptuous view of the social life, beliefs and traditions of the times in which they were composed.

The dvara torana found in Gupta period temples and thereafter, embedded the torana within the doorway of the sanctum, resulting in the composition of the torana-bandha. The early medieval temples in Karnataka, central and western India reveal an ‘invasion’ of this element across walls, pillars and interiors of the temples. They serve primarily as ornamentation where the floral and faunal representations predominate. Often there are centrally framed divine figures within the arch, which peaks in a kirtti-mukha, particularly when found marking niches on outer walls. The dryad and animal figures in the brackets began to be replaced by the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna, and gradually these figures moved downwards to the pillar bases. The delicate S-shaped almost hanging-in-the-air appearance of the western Indian types exemplified in Mount Abu reveal the arti-sanal exuberance which appears to overtake textual elaboration. In south-east Asia, there are a number of styles bearing affinity with types found in the Indian sub-continent from about the seventh century. The variety of forms suggests as in the Indian case that these were derived in part from local prototypes in perishable material.

The tradition of erecting free-standing toranas in early medieval and medieval times is seen as deriving from the early association of this architectural component with power and prestige (p. 148). In the context of the latter, these may have also served as pegs for swings on ceremonial occasions such as marriage and consecration and for tulabhara (weighing) rituals. Just as the Pattini cult affords an insight into the ritual uses of the free-standing torana as an altar for offerings in Sri Lanka, there are numerous examples of toranas in local social and ritual contexts that might provide different symbolic meanings. The torana for marriages in parts of south India involve the use of female/flowering banana stems with the fruit hanging from them, a symbol of fertility. Toranas of mango leaves, although traditionally prescribed for sudras, is as much used at the entrances in brahmanical house-holds as in those of other castes.

Historians have been attracted to art and architectural forms as a source for understanding questions of power, legitimacy and patronage. Dhar’s expansive study does not seek to address such concerns. However, it does open the doors for an inquiry into social structures, political authority, sectarian traditions and artistic innovation. For instance, epigraphic evidence is cited in about thirty instances (Appendix 1, pp. 278-82). The early torana inscriptions from Bharhut and Mathura mostly record donations by lay followers of different religious faiths. Such donations reveal the active participation of the laity as donors and supporters of religious institutions. The Hoysala temples reveal the names of the artisans who crafted toranas in some instances. In one case, Virabhadra, the father of the present architect Candsiva, was likened to the celestial architect Viswakarman (p. 279). The early medieval is seen as a period when the social mobility of artisans and craft-persons increased, with the growth of patronage structures that supported the erection of monumental buildings. The naming of architects and artisans, and the elaboration of their genealogies reveal the significant status they had attained in society. On the other hand, Rajendra Cola’s grand claim of having captured the Viccadira torana at the entrance of the royal city of the King of Kadaram appears to be adhering to the Arthasastra’s injunctions that the pratoli-torana had to be uprooted when attacking a city. Again, the association of power with the erection of a torana is brought out in a thirteenth century Cahamana inscription, where a military victory was marked by the setting up of a golden torana for the deity in a temple. Reading this against the eleventh century Samaranganasutradhara, not merely is the significance of the torana discussed, the inauspiciousness of its destruction and expiation for this through rituals is prescribed. Medieval inscriptions from western India indicate the gift of mini-toranas as an insignia of honour. The growth of matha institutions of the brahmanical and Jaina orders in this period is known from various sources, and the gifting of such emblems of power suggest the close relationship between royalty and religious institutions of this type.

Finally, Dhar repeatedly iterates that the torana with all its flourishes and twirls across the early historical, early medieval and medieval landscape presents an originality within regional contexts that would have to be linked as much to the ingenuity of the artisan as to the prescriptive authority of silpa texts. While the architectonics of entrances and portals allow for its figuration across a vast time period, its symbolism and significance appears to move from a functional, symbolic element to an ornamental one. One of the few issues I have with this monumental effort is that the sheer volume of information it contains is liable to put off all but the dedicated researcher. Further, the division of chapters according to a spatial spread appears to draw inspiration from the encyclopaedic compendium of temple architecture undertaken by Dhaky and Meister some decades ago. However, this makes it very tedious, as there is an unnecessary repetition of themes such as the evolution of the dvara-torana, et cetera. A minor irritant is the subtitle ‘Indian and Southeast Asian architecture’. Given that it is the regional spread that underlines the organization of the book, ‘South Asian’ may have been a more appropriate usage instead of ‘Indian’.

A more substantive problem: given the tensions that exist between the disciplinary frames of art history and histories of social formations, the author who seems to be aware of the ‘discursive’ fields of analysis that have been opened up particularly through the rendering of the visual archive as ‘text’, prefers not to engage with it without giving reasons for this. Professor Settar’s succinct and thoughtful foreword places Dhar’s work among those that seek to convince rather than confound. He warns against the excessive employment of textual jargon from both Indian and western art traditions. While fully agreeing with his opinion, I think there is scope for Dhar to sharpen the outlines of the historical canvas within which she locates the development and significance of the torana. One of the issues that she seeks to address is the inter-relatedness of ‘text’, ‘image’ and ‘context’, and ‘the reciprocal dialogue between theory and practice and the space for creativity within the textual constructs’. By focussing on primarily the prescriptive texts for the early medieval and medieval contexts, Dhar is unable to suitably bring out the 'creative spaces'. These niggling concerns stem more from my location at the cusp of history and art history. They do not in any way diminish the worth of Dhar’s stupendous effort.

Notes

1 Chris Philo, 'Foucault's Geography', pp. 205-38.

2 G.H.R. Tillotson, 'Introduction', p. 1.

3 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Essays in Early Indian Architecture, edited with an introduction by Michael W. Meister, p. 11.

This well-produced, well-conceived, and lavishly illustrated study of garlands and gateways as parts of the structure and decorative ornamentation of architecture in South and Southeast Asia is dedicated to Madhusudan Amilal Dhaky, under whose supervision a preliminary version was prepared as a doctoral thesis at the National Museum Institute (NMI), New Delhi. The author completed the manuscript while on a postdoctoral fellowship in Berlin. She follows that eminent scholar’s methodological model, widely surveying existing monuments and coordinating inscriptional, literary, and textual references to establish an appropriate terminology and classification for an architectural and decorative element of great proliferation and importance in southern Asia. Its use and evolution spans more than 2,000 years. Dhaky set a pattern for this type of rigorous analysis of elements of South Asian architecture in his studies The Ceilings in the Temples of Gujarat (coauthored with J. M. Nanavati, 1963);1 The Indian Temple Forms in Karnata Inscriptions and Architecture (1977);2 and most recently, The Indian Temple Traceries (2005).3

Leaf garlands are ritually hung across doorways today, temporary toranas are constructed to welcome godlike politicians, and torii gates lead up to Shinto shrines in Japan. Such gateways and garlands mark a progression to "more sacred" ground (not "profane to sacred"): toward a stupa or Buddha himself; into a sacred compound, temple entry, sanctum doorway; as frame for the enshrined image. Their forms proliferate remarkably, as niches, doors, gates, on temple walls and towers, marking infinite ways to enter divinity. Dhar emphasizes that the "literary and archaeological sources of the early period highlight the auspicious, symbolic, didactic, narrative and ornamental significance of the torana" (29); she acknowledges the liminal function of this architectural frame, separating it from more utilitarian entryways such as city gates, yet gives examples of toranas shown within city gates that help clarify their functions as symbolic markers. Free-standing gates of an early period, however, need not be garlanded, and early garlanded arches "carved with floral or vegetal patterns and animal figures at the ends" (as in Rani Gumpha, Orissa), although "visually similar to toranas," Dhar decides, "derive from the gavaksha (dormer) arch and are not toranas in the strict architectural sense" (9). She does record, however, that these are "termed as nasi-toranas [lit. "nose-gates"] in some Dravidian architectural treatises" (25).

Dhar organizes her study into five chapters, "The Beginnings" (20 pp.), "The Torana in Treatises" (10 pp.), "Southern Representations" (74 pp.), "Northern Representations" (102 pp.), and "Southeast and South Asian Parallels" (60 pp.), with four appendices of inscriptional notices, literary sources, references in treatises, and variants. Within her chapter on the south, she proceeds chronologically but cuts from one region to another among the modern states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. Her chapter on the north separates a brief notice of a few "Eastern Indian Representations" (Orissa, Bihar, Bengal) from an extended discussion of Western and Central India (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh).

Dhar has diligently used the photographic archives of the American Institute of Indian Studies, Center for Art and Archaeology, Gurgaon, also drawing on the resources of the Archaeological Survey of India, French Institute, Pondicherry, and other archives in India and abroad. Her regional overviews are extensive but not comprehensive; where a subregion is not well documented in archives (as, for example, hill regions of Northern India) they are not represented. Her organizing principles are typological within regions; she chooses typifying examples and only hints at many more still in the archives. Examples of torana-garlanded niches from Kusuma and Abaneri in Western India are included, but there is no discussion of eighth-century Osian, perhaps because Dhar does not raise the issue of periods and regions where toranas, as she defines them, did not become the predominant marker of liminal approach.

Gate and garland may need separate definitions. The elaborated architectural pediments of wall niches, or dormer frontons on temple superstructures, could be compared to garlands and gateways as designators of a liminal divide. How these differing solutions intersected may prove to be a useful exercise for future research; they stand side by side on such a seminal temple as the Kailasanatha at Ellora (fig. 3.31). Dhar does accidentally touch on this comparison in her section on eastern India, where architectural forms and decorative garland conventions have more intimately overlapped (figs. 4.134–35), or when she illustrates the fifth-century fronton to a temple at the western Indian site of Darra that fills in its architectural form with composite crocodiles (makaras) spewing forth a torana-like creeper (fig. 1.29); or in some of her Southeast Asian comparisons (fig. 5.48).

Dhar has yet to have the extensive field experience of monuments that underlies Dhaky’s long career of research. It is not clear how many of the sites she documents she has had the opportunity to visit. Her drawing D. 11, made from a photograph of the frame for a sculpture of dancing Ganesha built into the Rampol gate to Chittor Fort, for example, she identifies as "at Rampol in the Chittor District." Her application of typology, however, to images she has carefully culled, is sharply articulated, prudently applied, and exuberantly illustrated. She does comment on where these types may have originated and how they have spread from one region to another, but perhaps not yet in enough detail. Her central example is uniquely pan-Asian in spread, as her chapter on Southeast Asia abundantly demonstrates; the makara-torana is an arc with composite crocodiles on either end extruding voluptuous loops and coils of vines and foliage. This decorative element, more than any other type of torana, has been continually transformed in an exceptional variety of ways.

That Dhar extends her study to Southeast and South Asian Parallels is particularly commendable, as she has pulled together traditions that scholars have all too often sought to segregate. With drawings and photographs from the Center for Art and Archaeology, Gurgaon, Dhar has accumulated a wide body of material that can provide comparative studies for a generation to come. Here again the relationship between the "face of glory" (kirttimukha) that comes to crown decorative architectural dormers (single candrashalas, but also trefoil and more complicated pediment forms) as well as torana forms in both regions needs further consideration. Are the kirttimukha-crowned arches over niches at Borobudur (figs. 5.48-49), for example, torana gates or reflections of candrashala pediments (their makaras face outward, rather than spewing the arch), or a bit of both, both gate and garland?

Perhaps more could have been said of the interaction between the frame and its content: a sculpture, temple, doorway, sanctum, or simple void suggesting infinity. What are the meanings of makara and kirttimukha? This is, however, a ripe volume, generous and enriching. For libraries my only concern is that the weight of the book does not seem to be matched by the strength of its binding. It is an addition to Indian architectural studies long needed, foundational, and appreciated.

Dr Parul Pandya Dhar, presently Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Delhi, and formerly Assistant Professor of Art History at the National Museum Institute, has produced an engaging study of the Toranas in Indian and Southeast Asian Architecture. The book derives from her doctoral thesis at the National Museum Institute, completed in 2005, under the guidance of Prof. M.A. Dhaky, the renowned scholar on ancient and mediaeval Indian architecture. Dr Dhar had made a massive attempt to study the whole evolution and development of the Torana in Indian and Southeast Asian art and architecture. She is perhaps the first scholar to pay attention to the analysis of the minute details of the Torana in the whole of ancient and medieval Indian and Southeast Asian art. This study, therefore, has become the first comprehensive work on the subject, and seems to be one of the most innovative research works in the field of ancient and mediaeval Indian art history.

A Torana is an architectural element usually consisting of a pillar-and-lintel structure which forms a kind of "niche" framing a doorway. Originally, basic timber-like pillar-and-lintel Toranas were erected in front of several Buddhist stupas during the Maurya and Sunga periods. As rule, Toranas are set up in front of the sanctum in which the main image is enshrined in order to ensure devotees to receive auspiciousness from the performance of puja.

From an iconographic point of view, Toranas are of strong religious significance since they include several auspicious figures such as the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna, as well as makaras (mythological aquatic creatures usually portrayed with a fish body, an elephant head, and a foliate tail), and for that reason, they are believed to be a source of abundance and prosperity. Toranas whose lintels are decorated with a pair of makaras, called makara-Toranas, became very popular during the mediaeval period, and were usually attached to the doorjambs of Hindu temples.

Dr Dhar’s book focuses mainly on the stylistic evolution of the Toranas, especially of those belonging to the Indian early mediaeval period, from around the sixth to the twelfth centuries AD, both in southern and northern India. The author relates the Toranas found in temples of these two regions with the Torana types as defined in silpasastra texts’. It also includes a ground-breaking account of the influence of the Toranas in Southeast Asian architecture, particularly Javanese and Khmer. Dr Dhar bases her conclusions on her insightful and unique classification of the various types of Toranas, which we summarize in Table 1.

Dr Dhar presents the stylistic evolution of Toranas in Indian art in a systematic and understandable way organizing information on a period-by-period and region-by-region basis. The significant groups of Toranas studied in this book are the Toranas of the Maharashtra-Karnataka region, the Toranas of the Tamil Nadu region, and the Toranas of western and central India. As an example, we would like summarize here Dr Dhar’s analysis of the Toranas of the Maharashtra-Karnanaka.

At Ajanta and Pre-Rashtrakuta Ellora (fifth to sixth centuries AD), the one-arc or two-arc ratna-Torana types were very popular (fig. 1, fig. 3). These types were used both for dvara-Toranas (door frames) and parikara-Toranas (Toranas framing statues). At Badami and Aihole, during the sixth to seventh centuries AD, mukta-Toranas, Toranas framed by twisted strings of pearls, can be found. During that period, such types of Toranas started to be used as kudya-Toranas motifs decorating mostly the outer wall of the temples.

At Pattadakal and Ellora 16 (eighth to ninth centuries AD), the design of the Toranas became much more creative. Several innovations were introduced, including the mayura-Torana, which features the head and body of a peacock (fig. 2) and patra-Torana, made exclusively of foliage motifs (fig. 4). At the subsidiary caves of Ellora 16 and Indrasabha (ninth to tenth centuries AD), the Torana frames became slimmer and the four-arc illika-Torana with lotus buds was introduced. At Kukkanur, the foliate tail of the makara turns upwards as earlier noticed at Ajanta and some other sites.

In Later Calukyan and Kakatiya art (tenth to twelfth centuries AD), Toranas are mostly antarala-Toranas, the Toranas found in the antechamber of the sanctum (fig. 5). The number of arcs increased to more than four, arranged in multi-arch loops. Below the arcs, tripurusha images of the Trimurti are represented and above the arcs the eight Dikapalas can be seen (fig. 6).

Dr. Dhar also briefly considers the relationship between the castes and the Toranas as specified in the silpasastra texts. While citra-Toranas, Toranas framed by human or animal figures, and mukta-Toranas were considered fit for high caste people, patra-Toranas were deemed suitable for the Sudras. According to Dr Dhar, this may be the reason why, in temples, the patra-Toranas became less popular than the citra-Toranas and mukta-Toranas.

Despite the absence of architectural treatises in Southeast Asia, in her book, Dr Dhar also endeavours to match the Indian Torana types with various types of South East Asian lintels, such as those of the Khmer and Javanese. As Mireille Benisti (Benisti 1970 or 2003) has studied, Gupta and Post-Gupta artistic elements, both architectural and sculptural, inspire much of Pre-Angkorian art, suggesting an early Indianisation of the region between the sixth and eighth centuries. South Indian architecture, especially Pallava and Early Western Calukya architecture, exerts a significant influence on Pre-Angkorian temple architecture, including the use of south Indian makara-Torana type motifs. Dr Dhar’s research on the evolution of the Indian Toranas helps clarify its influence on Pre-Angkorian lintels. The "decorative lintel"— as formerly termed by French scholars (fig. 7) — corresponds, actually, to the dvara-Toranas of Indian art.

According to Dr Dhar, the two-arc Torana, known as Thala Borivat Style (fig. 8), is reminiscent of the fifth-to-seventh-century makara-Torana of southern India, such as those of early western Calukya and Pallava temples, whereas the four-arc Torana (known as Sambor Prei Kuk Style, fig. 9) is reminiscent of the illika-Torana mentioned in the treatises of western India. Lintels in early Cambodian art (fig. 10) can be associated with the ratna-Torana and patra-Torana types. Last, the proliferation of the foliate motif in the Kompong Preah lintels (fig. 10) reminds Dr Dhar of the foliate patra-Toranas found at Virupaksha temple in Pattadakal, Karnataka, and at temples in the Pandya region of South India.

We have only two critiques. We feel that the book would be more complete if a discussion of the iconography of the auspicious symbols of the Toranas were added as an appendix. Furthermore, whereas the book is profusely illustrated with photographs and drawings, the glossary, filled with Sanskrit terms and glosses on their meaning, badly lacks illustrations that would facilitate the understanding of architectural terms.

Thus, the book is certainly a must for scholars, while students and those who have an interest in the history of Indian and Southeast Asian architecture may find it somewhat challenging to read, but it will definitely be worth the effort.

1. The silpasastra texts are a group of treatises or handbooks on religious and secular architecture. These texts focus mainly on the elements, the proportions as well as the meaning of the iconographical components of the constructions. The most famous Indian silpasastra texts are the Samaranganasutradhara, the Aparajitapriccha, the Silparatnakosa, the Mayamata and the Manasara. These texts originate from different parts of the subcontinent, for instance western India for the Aparajitaprccha, and southern India for the Mayamata and the Manasara.

The rich art treasures of India and Southeast Asia are unveiled in this impressive book through one single architectural ornament, the torana (arched portal or festoon). The author has presented toranas of important monuments, both religious and secular: temples, stupas, caves, forts, palaces, mosques, and others. She has traced the torana from early available representations since the 3rd century bce till late medieval times, the 15th-I6th-century temples of Jaisalmer, the Taj Mahal, and interestingly even the 19th-century grave of Major John Stuart (Hindu Stuart) in Kolkata. Apart from examining in detail the toranas of different regions of India, she presents parallel expressions from regions beyond India: Cambodia, Thailand, Champa, Indonesia, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Professor S. Settar in his Foreword to the book compliments this massive attempt which covers nearly the entire history of the torana motif. He points out that Dhar writes "without abandoning Indian textual terminology", but always ascertaining its meaning first.

In her art-historical study of the torana, the author has minutely analysed toranas giving details of motifs and styles, and at the same time indicated their wider links and spread in different regions of India and Southeast Asia. Dhar has critically interpreted material on toranas from the Vastu texts of central and south India, the Jain Agamas, Samhitas, Puranas, the epics, and Sanskrit literature. She says: "The literary and archaeological sources of the early period highlight the auspicious, symbolic, didactic, narrative, and ornamental significance of the torana!" Dhar’s main emphasis is on "visual processes of form and transformation of the torana within the framework of its shifting contexts". She has demonstrated the shifts in the configuration and context of the torana during ancient and medieval times. She tries to show how the manifestation of the torana in the stupa complex differs from that in the cave temples, which in turn varies from the way it appears in structural temples. Subtle variations in the rendition of the torana and its repertoire in different regions of India are worked out. She records the parallels between the torana and the dvara (door), pointing to a transitional link between the Bharhut-Sanchi toranas and the dvara-toranas of the Gupta temples. In the earlier toranas of 2nd-1st century bce, shalabhanjikas (dryads) are employed as bracket figures. The author makes the significant observation that as the 5th-century toranas became more akin to temple doorframes, the torana-shalabhanjikas, such as those at Sanchi, assumed the role of the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna, as at Tigowa and Nachna. Or, we may say that the figures of Ganga and Yamuna were sculpted in the form of shalabhanjikas.

When analysing the toranas, the author says that there is a tendency towards a progressive increase in the number of arcs of the torana, resulting in two basic designs, the andola (undulating, wave-like) and the illika comprising successive loops, emulating the gait of a caterpillar. From the 9th century these basic designs find a myriad expressions in different parts of India. Dhar has employed textual terminology (giving meanings) in the classification of various types of toranas and, to make it easy for readers, has illustrated these different types in drawings and photographs. There are the andola-toranas seen at Nagda, Abu, Ranakpur, etc., the illika-toranas, found at Modhera, Khajuraho, Kiradu, Lakkundi, and many other sites, the pratoli-toranas of the fort-gates of Dabhoi, Gwalior, the parikara-toranas (image-frames), and so on. There are the antarala- (vestibule), dvara- (door), and kudya- (wall) toranas, named according to their placement in monuments. There are free-standing toranas preserved at Badoh, Gyaraspur, Gurgi, Bhubaneswar, Alampur, and other sites. The author points out the correspondence of the toranas in architecture with classifications in Vastu texts at a number of sites. For instance, the innovations witnessed on the Kailasanatha temple of Kanchipuram are according to classifications in the Dravidian Vastu texts. Dhar says that the new forms of toranas that evolved at Ellora during the 8th and 9th centuries such as the ratna-, andola-, hamsa-, and illika-toranas later transformed into intricate patterns on the walls and lintels of the temples of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The book presents over two dozen types of toranas found in South and Southeast Asian monuments. The subject matter and vocabulary of motifs are shared by the Indian and Southeast Asian sculptors, but some motifs such as garuda-nagas, for instance, are more prolific in Cambodia and undergo transformations and acquire distinct characteristics. In Nepal also this theme is recurrent, but its portrayal is different from that of Cambodia. The Cambodian toranas with single and dual arcs bear the closest affinity to the 5th-7th-century toranas from Ajanta, Jogeshwari, Magathana, Ellora, and Badami. However, the arrangement of festoons underneath the Cambodian toranas is not assertively encountered on Indian toranas. In Indonesia, the kalamukha, with leonine face and flame-like locks, endowed with protective function, is prominently placed at the apex of toranas,. The author notices correspondences with eastern and southern India in the development of the Indonesian torana, but also points out its distinctive features and individuality.

Professor M.A. Dhaky, to whom the book is aptly dedicated, pioneered the intensive study of specific architectural features such as ceilings, pranalas (water-chutes), and traceries. Parul’s in-depth research enriches this area of study, which has yet to receive its due share of attention in the Indian context as it has from scholars in the history of medieval European architectural ornament. The methodology followed in this book, we hope, will help scholars to investigate other such architectural ornaments in their context and historical development.

Precisely and fluently written, supported by stunning photographs and drawings arranged in a well-planned layout, the book is a superb publication for which both author and publisher deserve to be complimented.

Parul Dhar has achieved the rare feat of writing a scholarly book that is a visual treat and at the same time is replete with meticulous references and extensive documentation. It is a massive attempt without being overbearing. The book is dedicated to her mentor, Prof. M A Dhaky and Parul Dhar’s scholarly approach and formidable depth of enquiry bears the indelible mark of his influence.

The book comprises five chapters. After a brief introduction, the first two chapters discuss the early examples and descriptions in literary sources. The next three chapters cover the southern Indian, northern Indian and south-east Asian regions. Each chapter in turn deals with differences seen chronologically over the centuries in that region.

Full fifteen pages are devoted to four appendices: 1. inscriptional notices 2. Literary sources 3. References in treatises 4. Variants in treatises. Each appendix has important source material which makes the book even more valuable to scholars.

Ms Dhar has avoided excessive application of Indian textual terminology, and yet has clearly defined each term before proceeding to use simpler terms which make reading smoother and the meaning clear. Focusing on a single architectural entity, the torana, she manages to convey to the reader the sense of wonder she has felt about the intricate relationship between form and function, symbol and significance, structure and ornament.

The first chapter has beautiful illustrations of rare artifacts such as Begram ivories in the Kabul museum, relief sculpture on shrine of the double-headed eagle at Sirkap in the Gandhara region along with those from Pitalkhora, Amaravati, Kausambi and Mathura, spanning the early eras, first century BCE to the first century.

In the second chapter, she explores the treatises for a deeper understanding of the torana--the meaning of the term, its role as an architectural element and its purpose. The notes at the end of the chapter provide interesting information such as the fact that the illika-torana is so called because illika literally means caterpillar; the illika-torana seems to copy the arc-like gait of the caterpillar.Her eye for detail and beauty is remarkable. When discussing the southern representations, she has illustrated the better known early examples in Ajanta, Kanheri and Jogeshvari in Maharashtra, but it is the small Buddhist cave at Magathana which captures her imagination. She calls it ‘perhaps the most elegant and intricately carved sixth century torana from the Deccan region’.

Few would have noticed the illika-torana above the well known yaksa in the Indra Sabha sculpture at Ellora. Ms Dhar places on record her admiration for fluidity of the rendering of this torana..

She appreciates the torana at Belur Cennakesava temple with the added observation that ‘the Hoysala style revelled not so much in the grandiose as in the intricate, the opulent and the ornate.’

She illustrates the different types of toranas such as Citra-, Ratna-, Patra-, in the Tamilnadu region and notes that very few patra toranas are seen. The texts also say that a patra torana is apt for the dwelling of the sudra whereas citra and makara toranas s are fit for gods and nobles. Ms Dhar traces this to the plausible rationale that torana-malas (garlands) of leaves would be considered the humblest.

The study of styles and details allows her to question whether one illika-torana pieced together from fragments in the Nehru Gallery of Art at the VAM in London is more likely to be from Kiradu than Palitana, as stated in the museum records.

The northern Indian documentation continues upto later developments seen in medieval Islamic architecture. She notes that although the torana is not a utilitarian device like a pillar or a doorframe, its potential to embellish led local sculptors to device ingenious ways of using it in the Indo-Islamic structures.

In the fifth chapter, she looks at the Southeast and South Asian parallels with profusely illustrated and carefully studied details. The conclusion is that the form of torana took on newer shades of meaning and fresher expressions from region to region.

In the overview, Ms Dhar has pointed out how the central and western Indian toranass are different from their southern counterpart and attributes this partly to the differences in the exterior wall definitions of the two regions. She notes that the original intent and significance of the torana underwent many changes in keeping with the regional context.

The glossary and bibliography are extensive and very useful. The book is an excellent source of information and analysis. The chapters dealing with the main regions (Southern Indian, northern Indian and Southeast and South Asian) have hundreds of magnificent photographs and drawings. The book would be a very valuable addition to any library.