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77-731: The Yogini temples of India are 9th to 12th century roofless hypaethral shrines to the yoginis , female masters of yoga in Hindu tantra , broadly equated with goddesses especially Parvati , incarnating the sacred feminine force. They remained largely unknown and unstudied by scholars until late in the 20th century. Several of the shrines have niches for 64 yoginis, so are called Chausath Yogini Temples (Chausath Yogini Mandir, from चौसठ, Hindi for 64, also written Chaunsath or Chausathi); others have 42 or 81 niches, implying different sets of goddesses, though they too are often called Chausath yogini temples. Even when there are 64 yoginis, these are not always

154-469: A bull. Since that time, he has watched over each of Shiva's temples, always looking towards him. Kartikeya , the war-god known as Murugan in Southern India , is mounted on a peacock named Paravani. This peacock was originally a demon called Surapadma , while the rooster was called the angel Krichi . After provoking Murugan in combat, the demon repented at the moment his lance descended upon him. He took

231-470: A central mandapa sacred to Shiva in an open circular courtyard with 65 niches. The niches are now all filled with statues of Shiva, but they once held statues of 64 yoginis and a deity. The hypaethral temple stands alone on top of a rocky hill. The entrance is directly into the circular wall. The outside of the temple is adorned with small niches that once held statues of couples with maidens on either side, but most of these are now lost or heavily damaged. It

308-560: A circular plan with niches for 42 yoginis. The circle is 50 feet in diameter. Some 30 miles from Dudahi, at Badoh in Vidisha district , Madhya Pradesh is the Gadarmal temple of the Mothers , another 42-niche yogini temple, and one of the few that are rectangular. 18 broken images of the goddesses that once fitted into grooves in the temple platform are preserved from the waist down. It is composed of

385-414: A country where torrential rains occasionally fall) would not be very great or more than could be retained to dry up in the ceila sunk pavement. In favor of both these methods of lighting, the interior of the cella, the sarcophagus tomb at Cyrene , about 20 feet (6.1 m) long, carved in imitation of a temple, has been adduced, because, on the tor of the roof and in its centre, there is a raised coping, and

462-608: A divine attribute. The vahana may be considered an accoutrement of the deity: though the vahana may act independently, they are still functionally emblematic or even syntagmatic of their "rider". The deity may be seen sitting or standing on the vahana. They may be sitting on a small platform, or riding on a saddle or bareback. Vah in Sanskrit means to carry or transport. The word also means ' vehicle ' in Sanskrit and other Indian languages In Hindu iconography , positive aspects of

539-555: A doorway made of two squared granite pillars and a lintel stone, and each with a tower roof. 35 of the cells survive. It stands on a 5.4 metre high platform. Three squat images, of Brahmani , Maheshwari and Hingalaja ( Mahishamardini ), survived at the site and are on display in the museum there. The well-preserved 11th century yogini temple at Mitaoli (also spelt Mitavali and Mitawali) in Morena district , Madhya Pradesh , 30 miles north of Gwalior, also called Ekattarso Mahadeva Temple, has

616-401: A hilltop at Lokhari, Banda District , Uttar Pradesh. A set of twenty images, nearly all theriomorphic , the figures having the heads of animals such as horse, cow, rabbit, snake, buffalo, goat, bear, and deer, has been recorded. Dehejia describes these as striking rather than specially artistic. Another set of twenty 10th century images, with careless later inscriptions from the 12th century,

693-561: A large "tank" (artificial lake) at Kaveripakkam , seemingly derived from nearby temples. The image formed part of a large set of yoginis. There is evidence from inscriptions and archaeology that several yogini temples were built in greater Bengal . Dehejia notes that "texts on the Kaula Chakrapuja [worship in the tantric circle] indirectly reveal their Bengali origin in specifying varieties of fish known only in Bengal waters" and that "most of

770-829: A major ritual for the autumn, with fire libations, recitation of the names of the yoginis, and ritual offerings, while all residents of Varanasi should visit the temple in springtime at the festival of Holi to respect the goddesses. Dehejia writes that It seems probable that the Kaula Chakra [tantric ritual circle] was formed within the circle of the Yogini temple, with offerings to the Yoginis of matsya [fish], mamsa [meat], mudra [gesture], madya [alcohol], and finally maithuna [tantric sex] too. Active worship ( puja ) continues in some yogini temples, such as at Hirapur. The small 9th century yogini temple at Hirapur , only 25 feet in diameter,

847-455: A rectangular shrine and a tall and massive Shikhara , adjacent to some Jain temples. Vidya Dehejia writes that the yogini temple must once have been hypaethral. The two 42-yogini shrines probably date from sometime between 950 and 1100. Several yogini temples have been lost, whether through deliberate destruction or plundering for building materials. These include the following. There appears to have been an early 10th century yogini temple on

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924-427: A roof ( medium autem sub diva est sine tecto ), render the existence of the hypaethros probable in some cases; and therefore C. R. Cockerell 's discovery in the temple at Aegina of two fragments of a coping-stone, in which there were sinkings on one side to receive the tiles and covering tiles, has been of great importance in the discussion of this subject. In the conjectural restoration of the opaion or opening in

1001-544: A similar feature is found on a tomb found near Delos ; an example from Crete now in the British Museum shows a pierced tile on each side of the roof, and a large number of pierced tiles have been found in Pompeii , some of them surrounded with a rim identical with that of the marble tiles at Bassae. On the other hand, there are many authorities, among them Wilhelm Dörpfeld , who have adhered to their original opinion that it

1078-580: Is a shrine to 81 yoginis. It is the largest of the circular yogini temples, some 125 feet in diameter. Hatley calls Bhedagat the "most imposing and perhaps best known of the yogini temples". The temple had a covered walkway with 81 cells for yoginis around the inside of its circular wall. There is a later shrine in the centre of the courtyard. The 81 images include 8 Matrikas , Mother goddesses, from an earlier time. The temple at Dudahi , locally named Akhada, near Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh , now in ruins, had

1155-434: Is countered by the retort that each totem or vahana, as an aspect of ishta-devata (or an ishta-devata or asura in its own right), has innumerable ineffable teachings, insights and spiritual wisdom ; comparative analysis yields benefit, though knowledge and understanding is not served by collapsing their qualities into homogenous signification . These correspondences are not always consistent. Ganesha, for example,

1232-565: Is documented in the Brahmayamalatantra scripture. Non-yoginis consulted yoginis in "visionary, transactional encounters". The cult led to the building of stone temples from the 10th to perhaps the 13th centuries, across the Indian subcontinent . India's major extant shrines of the 64 Yoginis ( Chausathi Jogan ) are in Odisha and Madhya Pradesh . Alexander Cunningham visited and described them in

1309-422: Is far too clear to leave any misunderstanding as to the lighting of temples (where it was necessary on account of great length) through an opening in the roof. There is one other theory that has been put forward, but which can only apply to non-peristylar temples, that light and air were admitted through the metopes , the apertures between the beams crossing the cella, and it has been assumed that because Orestes

1386-732: Is held in the Denver Art Museum . Yogini images from Shahdol district (anciently Sahasa-dollaka) in Madhya Pradesh have been taken to the Dhubela Museum near Khajuraho, the Indian Museum at Calcutta , and the village temples of Antara and Panchgaon in Shahdol district. The yoginis are seated in the ceremonial Lalitasana pose, and they have haloes flanked by flying figures behind their heads. Dehejia publishes and discusses yogini images of

1463-452: Is in Khurda district , Odisha , 10 miles south of Bhubaneshwar . 60 of the yoginis are arranged in a circle around a small rectangular shrine that may have contained a Shiva image. The circle is reached via a protruding entrance passage, so that the plan of the temple has the form of a yoni -pedestal for a Shiva lingam . At least 8 of the yoginis stand on animal vehicles representing signs of

1540-633: Is not clear why the temple had 65 rather than 64 cells; Dehejia notes the suggestion that the extra cell was for Devi, the consort of Shiva, who has the pavilion at the temple's centre, so the divine couple were then surrounded by the 64 yoginis. She observes that this could also explain the 65th cell at Khajuraho, in which case there would once have been a central shrine to Shiva there also. The 10th century Yogini temple in Bhedaghat (also written Bheraghat ), near Jabalpur in Jabalpur district , Madhya Pradesh ,

1617-621: Is not mentioned in the scriptures, but is where modern-day devotees gather, especially at the Holi spring festival, as prescribed in the Kashikhanda . Legend has it that a yogini temple was built in the south Delhi district of Mehrauli ; tradition places this as the Yogmaya Temple there, without reliable evidence. The region outside the imperial city of Indraprastha , described in the Mahabharata ,

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1694-426: Is sometimes shown with a peacock as his vehicle. Even more rarely, the elephant-headed Ganesh may be seen riding an elephant, or a lion, or a many-headed serpent (See Ganesha's Vahanas ). The vahana , the mount or vehicle of a deity, serves the function of doubling a deity's powers. The vahana also represents the devotee's mind which allows the deity to guide the devotee. Durga the warrioress could not have destroyed

1771-494: The Bhubaneshwar temple site , something Dehejia describes as "quite amazing". The Yogini shrines are usually circular enclosures, and they are hypaethral , open to the sky, unlike most Indian temples. Inside the circular wall are niches, most often 64, containing statues of female figures, the yoginis. Their bodies are described as beautiful, but their heads are often those of animals. Yogini temples normally stood somewhat outside

1848-766: The Chola period , around 900 AD, recovered from northern Tamil Nadu . These include one now in the British Museum , others in the Madras Museum , the Brooklyn Museum , the Minneapolis Institute of Arts , the Detroit Institute of Arts , and the Royal Ontario Museum . The British Museum yogini is ascribed to Kanchipuram ; the collection site is not known, but many sculptures of the same style were recovered from

1925-485: The temple of Jupiter Olympius , which is octastyle . There was no example in Rome . However, at the time Vitruvius wrote (c. 25 AD) the cella of this temple was unroofed, because the columns which had been provided to carry, at all events, part of the ceiling and roof had been taken away by Sulla in 80 BC. The decastyle temple of Apollo Didymaeus near Miletus was, according to Strabo (c. 50 BC), unroofed, on account of

2002-516: The 19th century for the Archaeological Survey of India , and they were then largely forgotten. In 1986, Vidya Dehejia recorded that the shrines were "remote and difficult of access", scarcely explored for a hundred years, and frequented by dacoits , gangs of robbers, who used the temples as places of refuge unknown to the authorities. The well-preserved Chausathi Yogini Temple at Hirapur was only rediscovered in 1953, despite its proximity to

2079-469: The 64 goddesses. The earliest yogini practices were kapalika mortuary rites. The Varanasimahatmya of the Bhairavapradurbhava describes ceremonies of worship involving singing and dancing in the yogini temple at Varanasi, summarised by Peter Bisschop: For men who worship there nothing becomes in vain. Those who stay awake that night, performing the great festival of song and dance, and worship

2156-648: The Greco-Roman interpretation is paralleled in Roman Catholic iconography , in which St. Jerome , most famed for editing the New Testament , is often (though not always) depicted with an owl as a symbol of wisdom and scholarship. Depending on the tribe, Native American religious iconography attributes a wide range of attributes to the owl, both positive and negative, as do the Ainu and Russian cultures, but none parallel

2233-477: The Hindu attributes assigned to the owl as Lakshmi's divine vehicle. Some hold that similar analyses could be performed cross-culturally for any of the other Hindu divine vehicles, and in each case, any parallels with the values assigned to animal totems in other cultures are likely to be either coincidence, or inevitable (as in linking bulls to virility), rather than evidence of parallel development. In dialectic , this

2310-413: The appliances of the present day it would be impossible to keep these clerestory windows watertight. There is, however, still another objection to Fergusson's theory: the water collecting in these trenches on the roof would have to be discharged, for which Fergusson's suggestions are quite inadequate, and the gargoyles shown in the celia wall would make the peristyle insupportable just at the time when it

2387-434: The being, typically an animal or mythical entity, a particular Hindu deity is said to use as a vehicle. In this capacity, the vahana is often called the deity's "mount". Upon the partnership between the deity and his vahana is woven much iconography and Hindu theology . Deities are often depicted riding (or simply mounted upon) the vahana. Other times, the vahana is depicted at the deity's side or symbolically represented as

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2464-449: The boons were granted. While the god Ganesha was still a child, a giant mouse began to terrorize all his friends. Ganesha trapped him with his lasso and made him his mount. Mushika was originally a gandharva , or celestial musician. After absent mindedly walking over the feet of a rishi (sage) named Vamadeva, Mushika was cursed and transformed into a mouse. However, after the rishi recovered his temper, he promised Mushika that one day,

2541-438: The central structure is faced with three yogini images and "four naked ithyphallic representations of Bhairava". Around the outside of the temple are nine unsmiling goddesses, locally described as the nine katyayanis , an unusual feature for a yogini temple. The entrance is flanked by a pair of male dvarapala , door guardians. Two additional images near the dvarapalas may be bhairavas. The scholar Shaman Hatley suggests that if

2618-611: The circle of kulayoginis at daybreak, acquire the Kaula knowledge from them ... All Yoginis delight in that abode in the centre of Varanasi. The goddess Vikata stands there, it is the most divine abode. The Kashikhanda section of the Skandapurana , which narrates the myth of the arrival in disguise of the 64 yoginis in Varanasi, states that worship can be simple, since the yoginis only need daily gifts of fruit, incense, and light. It prescribes

2695-656: The clans of the 8 Mothers (matris or matrikas ). Yoginis are often theriomorphic , having the forms of animals, represented in statuary as female figures with animal heads. Yoginis are associated with "actual shapeshifting " into female animals, and the ability to transform other people. They are linked with the Bhairava cult, often carrying skulls and other tantric symbols, and practising in cremation grounds and other liminal places. They are powerful, impure, and dangerous. They both protect and disseminate esoteric tantric knowledge. They have siddhis , extraordinary powers, including

2772-413: The demon Mahishasura without the aid of her vehicle, lion, which was given by her father Himalaya, for the stated purpose. Lakshmi, goddess of fortune, dispenses both material and spiritual riches from her mount, Uluka the owl. Ganesha, remover of obstacles, cannot go everywhere despite his elephant-like strength. However, his vehicle, Mushika the mouse, who can crawl into the smallest crevice or Akhuketana

2849-461: The east and Tamil Nadu in the south. From around the 10th century, Yoginis appear in groups, often of 64. They appear as goddesses, but human female adepts of tantra can emulate "and even embody" these deities, who can appear as mortal women, creating an ambiguous and blurred boundary between the human and the divine. Yoginis, divine or human, belong to clans; in Shaiva , among the most important are

2926-480: The episode known as Amṛtakalaśāpaharaṇam : Garuḍa approached the pot of nectar, and Viśvakarmā who attacked him first was felled to the ground. The dust storm raised by the waving of Garuḍa’s wings blinded everybody. The Devas and Indra, nay, even the sun and the Moon lined up against Garuḍa, but he defeated them all, and entered the particular place where the pot of nectar was kept. Two terrific wheels were rotating round

3003-463: The esoteric Shaiva cult of yoginis." Chapter 9 of the Kaulajnana Nimaya , attributed to the 10th century sage Matsyendranath , describes a system of 8 chakras represented as eight-petalled lotus flowers , the total of 64 petals denoting the 64 yoginis. Hatley comments that "tantric worship of 'circles' of yoginis ( yoginichakras ) appears to predate the temples by at least two centuries, and

3080-441: The evil forces over which the deity dominates. Mounted on Parvani, Kartikeya reins in the peacock's vanity. Seated on Dinka the rat (Mushika), Ganesha crushes useless thoughts, which multiply like rats in the dark. Shani , protector of property, has a vulture, raven, or crow within whom he represses thieving tendencies. Under Shani's influence, the vahana can make even malevolent events bring hope. Garuda , and his story of becoming

3157-493: The form of a tree and began to pray. The tree was cut in two. From one half, Murugan pulled a rooster , which he made his emblem, and from the other, a peacock, which he made his mount. In another version, Karthikeya was born to kill the demon, Tarakasura . He was raised by the Krittikas and led the divine armies when he was 6 days old. It is said that after defeating Tarakasura, the god forgave him and transformed him into his ride,

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3234-407: The gods themselves would bow down before him. The prophecy was fulfilled when the mouse became the vahana of Ganesha. Before becoming the vehicle of Shiva, Nandi was a deity called Nandikeshvara , lord of joy and master of music and dance. Then, without warning, his name and his functions were transferred to the aspect of Shiva known as the deity Nataraja . From half-man, half-bull, he became simply

3311-470: The head of a horse, and holds a corpse, a severed head, a club, and a bell, and so may be Hayanana, "The Horse-headed". This and other Yoginis shown with corpses link the temple to a corpse ritual. Also photographed in 1909 were three three-Matrika slabs; Dehejia suggests that these formed part of a rectangular shrine to the Eight Matrikas accompanied by Ganesh. A well-preserved four-Yogini slab from Rikhiyan

3388-457: The isolated locations of yogini temples made them vulnerable to antique smugglers. Padma Kaimal has written a travel book about the processes by which the yogini statues have been turned from religious images to artworks to be looted, smuggled, purchased, and collected in the western world. Hypaethral The term originates from Latin hypaethrus , from Ancient Greek ὕπαιθρος hupaithros ὑπό hupo- "under" and αἰθήρ aither "sky, air". It

3465-517: The main group of temples, and at the highest point of the site. The iconographies of the yogini statues in the yogini temples are not uniform, nor are the yoginis the same in each set of 64. In the Hirapur temple, all the yoginis are depicted with their Vahanas (animal vehicles) and in standing posture. In the Ranipur-Jharial temple the yogini images are in dancing posture. In the Bhedaghat temple,

3542-502: The meanings invested in the owls by the two different belief systems are not the same, nor are the two goddesses themselves similar, despite their mutual identification with owls. Lakshmi is, among other things, primarily the goddess of wealth, and her owl is a warning against distrust and isolationism, even selfishness. Athena, though also a goddess of prosperity, is primarily the goddess of wisdom, and her owl symbolizes secret knowledge and scholarship. Perhaps due to their shared geography,

3619-498: The middle with his beak and through the hole, his body reduced to such a tiny shape, went nearer to the pot. He destroyed the wheels and the machine, and carrying the pot of nectar in his beaks rose to the sky shielding the light of the sun by his outspread wings. Mahāviṣṇu, who became so much pleased with the tremendous achievements of Garuḍa asked him to choose any boon. Garuḍa requested Viṣṇu that he should be made his (Viṣṇu's) vehicle and rendered immortal without his tasting amṛta. Both

3696-402: The mount of Vishnu , is richly detailed in Hindu texts. Born to Vinata and bearing the power of Kashyapa 's penance, the demigod is anguished to find that his mother is enslaved by the cruel Kadru . When he pleaded with Kadru to free his mother, the latter demanded the nectar of immortality as the price of her liberty. His legend of securing amrita , the nectar of immortality, is described in

3773-495: The multiples of 4 suggest a 64-Yogini total, while the straightness of the slabs implies a rectangular plan (as at Khajuraho). Seven were stolen on various occasions, and the last 3 of the slabs were moved to Gadhwa fort nearby for their safety. The slabs portray the Yoginis on a plain background without the usual attendant figures. They sit in the ceremonial pose of Lalitasana, one leg resting on their animal vehicle. They have "heavy breasts, broad waist[s] and large stomach[s]". One has

3850-452: The opening, the more conspicuous would be the notch in the roof which is so greatly objected to; in this respect, Jacques Hittorf would seem to be nearer the truth when, in his conjectural restoration of Temple R at Selinus , he shows an opaion about half the relative size shown in Cockerell's of that at Aegina, the coping on the side elevation being much less noticeable. The problem

3927-487: The peacock. The animal correspondences of Hindu vehicles are not consistent with Greek and Roman mythology , or other belief systems which may tie a particular animal to a particular deity. For example, the goddess Lakshmi of the Hindus has elephants, or an owl, or (a rare instance of a non-animal vehicle) the lotus blossom as her vehicle. The goddess Athena of ancient Greece also had an owl as her emblematic familiar, but

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4004-408: The pot and they would cut into mince-meat anybody who tried to lay hands on the pot and a machine circled the wheels. Below the wheels were two monstrous serpents with glowing eyes and protruding tongues like flashes of fire, and the serpents never closed their eyes. The very look with those eyes was enough to poison anyone to death. Garuḍa blinded those eyes by raising a torrent of dust, pierced them in

4081-484: The power of flight; many yoginis have the form of birds or have a bird as their vahana or animal vehicle. In later Tantric Buddhism, dakini , a female spirit able to fly, is often used synonymously with yogini. The scholar Shaman Hatley writes that the archetypal yogini is "the autonomous Sky-traveller ( khecari )", and that this power is the "ultimate attainment for the siddhi -seeking practitioner". A Shaiva cult of yoginis flourished roughly between 700 and 1200. It

4158-468: The remarkable congruity in Shaiva textual representations of yoginis and their depiction in sculpture suggest direct continuity" between the practices described in tantric texts and the yogini temples. Hindu tantric practices were secret. However, texts from c. 600 AD describe esoteric rituals, often linked to cremation grounds . Female practitioners of Hindu tantrism, also called yoginis, were seen as embodying

4235-453: The roof shown in Cockerell's drawing, it has been made needlessly large, having an area of about one quarter of the superficial area of the cella between the columns, and since in the Pantheon at Rome the relative proportions of the central opening in the dome and the area of the rotunda are 1:22, and the light there is ample, in the clearer atmosphere of Greece it might have been less. The larger

4312-586: The roof, one on each side, and pointed out that the great Hall of Columns at Karnak was lighted in this way with clerestory windows; but in the first place the light in the latter was obtained over the flat roofs covering lower portions of the hail, and in the second place, as it rarely rains in Egyptian Thebes , there could be no difficulty about the drainage, while in Greece, with the torrential rains and snow, these trenches would be deluged with water, and with all

4389-488: The roofs of temples, and if, in the framed ceilings carried over the celia, openings were left, some light from the Parian tile roof might have been obtained. It is possibly to this that Plutarch refers when describing the ceiling and roof of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis , where the columns in the interior of the temple carried a ceiling, probably constructed of timbers crossing one another at right angles, and one or more of

4466-410: The same. The extant temples are either circular or rectangular in plan; they are scattered over central and northern India in the states of Uttar Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh , and Odisha . Lost temples, their locations identified from surviving yogini images, are still more widely distributed across the subcontinent, from Delhi in the north and the border of Rajasthan in the west to Greater Bengal in

4543-463: The site. It is rectangular, unlike the other yogini temples, but like them is hypaethral. There is no sign of a central shrine; the central deity, whether that was Shiva or the Goddess, was apparently housed in the niche, larger than the rest, opposite the entrance. It was constructed with 65 shrine cells (10 on the front, 11 at the back including the one for the central deity, and 22 on each side), each with

4620-560: The spaces was left open, which Xenocles surmounted by a roof formed of tiles. In his 1849 Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art: More Especially with Reference to Architecture , the architect James Fergusson put forward a conjectural restoration in which he adopted a clerestory above the superimposed columns inside the cella; in order to provide the light for these windows, he indicated two trenches in

4697-413: The superhuman yoginis. Activities included Prana Pratishtha , the ritual consecration of images, such as of yoginis. Present-day rituals of this type can last three days, with a team of priests, involving ritual purification, an eye-opening ceremony, worship (yogini puja ), invocation of protectors, and the preparation of a yantra diagram containing a yogini mandala and an array of areca nuts for

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4774-628: The temple is seen as a tantric mandala embodied in stone, Shiva is surrounded by 4 yoginis and 4 bhairavas of an inner circuit, and sixty yoginis of an outer circuit. The Chausathi Yogini Pitha in Ranipur-Jharial , near the towns of Titilagarh and Kantabanjhi in Balangir district , Odisha, is a larger hypaethral 64-yogini temple. 62 of the yogini images survive. At the centre is a shrine with four pillars, holding an image of Nateshwar , Shiva as Lord of Dance. The similar-sized image of Chamunda in

4851-524: The temple may once have been housed with Shiva in the central shrine. Ranipur-Jharial was the first of the Yogini temples to be discovered; it was described by Major-General John Campbell in 1853. The 9th or 10th century yogini temple at Khajuraho , Madhya Pradesh, lies to the southwest of the western group of temples in Khajuraho, near Chhatarpur in Chhatarpur District , and is the oldest temple on

4928-578: The texts containing lists of Yoginis were written in Bengal". 12th century texts including the Varanasimahatmya of the Bhairavapradurbhava suggest that there was a circular hypaethral yogini temple in Varanasi (also called Benares and Kashi) in the 11th century. Several yogini-related sites have been identified in the city. Just above the Chaumsathi Ghat cremation ground is Chaumsathi Devi temple; it

5005-406: The vastness of its cella, in which precious groves of laurel bushes were planted. Apart from these two examples, the references in various writers to an opening of some kind in the roofs of temples dedicated to particular deities, and the statement of Vitruvius, which was doubtless based on the writings of Greek authors, that in decastyle or large temples the centre was open to the sky and without

5082-406: The vehicle are often emblematic of the deity that it carries. Nandi the bull, vehicle of Shiva , represents strength and virility. Dinka the mouse, vehicle of Ganesha , represents speed and sharpness. Parvani the peacock, vehicle of Kartikeya , represents splendor and majesty. The hamsa , vehicle of Saraswati , represents wisdom, grace, and beauty. However, the vehicle animal also symbolizes

5159-410: The yoginis are seated in lalitasana , the royal position, and are surrounded by cremation-ground scenes complete with "flesh-eating ghouls " and scavenging animals. Hatley, following Vidya Dehejia , suggests that the yogini temples relate to the tantric yogini-chakra. This is a " mandala of mantra -goddesses surrounding Shiva / Bhairava , installation of which ... was central to the ritual of

5236-437: The zodiac , including a crab , a scorpion , and a fish , suggesting a link with astrology or calendrical work. The scholar István Keul writes that the yogini images are of dark chlorite rock , about 40 cm tall, and standing in varying poses on plinths or vahanas; most have "delicate features and sensual bodies with slender waists, broad hips, and high, round breasts" with varying hairstyles and body ornaments. He states that

5313-568: Was advised in one of the Greek plays to climb up and look through the metopes of the temple, these were left open; but if Orestes could look in, so could the birds, and the statue of the god would be defiled. The metopes were probably filled in with shutters of some kind, which Orestes knew how to open. Vahana Vahana ( Sanskrit : वाहन , romanized :  vāhana , lit.   'that which carries') or vahanam ( Sanskrit : वाहनम् , romanized :  vāhanam ) denotes

5390-410: Was apparently solved in another way at Bassae , where, in the excavations of the temple of Apollo by Cockerell and Baron Hailer von Hallerstein , three marble tiles were found with pierced openings in them about 18 inches by 10 in.; five of these pierced tiles on either side would have amply lighted the interior of the cella, and the amount of rain passing through (a serious element to be considered in

5467-644: Was called Yoginipura, the yogini city. Indraprastha has been identified with Delhi . The circular plan of the Mitaoli temple is popularly supposed, without reliable evidence, to have inspired the architecture of India's Parliament House, the Sansad Bhavan , which was designed by the British architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker in 1912-1913, and completed in 1927. A 10th century buffalo-headed Vrishanana yogini

5544-509: Was described by the Roman architect Vitruvius in his treatise De architectura , written for the emperor Caesar Augustus probably about 15 BC. Hypaethral is in contradistinction to cleithral , a term applied to a covered temple. The hypaethros or hypaethral opening is the term Vitruvius (iii. 2) used for the opening in the middle of the roof of temples , an example being found in Athens in

5621-619: Was once a yogini temple at Hinglajgarh. Some 150 miles north of Khajuraho on the south bank of the River Yamuna , in the Banda District, Uttar Pradesh, are the fragmentary remains of what seems to have been a rectangular 64-Yogini temple in the Rikhiyan valley. This is part of a complex of other temples, unlike the solitary Yogini temples such as Mitaoli. When the site was photographed in 1909, ten four-Yogini slabs were present. Dehejia states that

5698-469: Was only through the open doorway that light was ever admitted into the celia, and with the clear atmosphere of Greece and the reflections from the marble pavement, such lighting would be quite sufficient. There remains still another source of light to be considered, that passing through the Parian marble tiles of the roof; the superior translucency of Parian to any other marble may have suggested its employment for

5775-400: Was required for shelter. No drainage otherwise of any kind has ever been found in any Greek temple , which is fatal to Fergusson's view. Nor is it in accordance with the definition open to the sky. English cathedrals and churches are all lighted by clerestory windows, but no one has described them as open to the sky, and although Vitruvius's statements are sometimes confusing, his description

5852-542: Was rescued from Nareshwar (also called Naleshvar and Naresar) in Madhya Pradesh, a site which still has some twenty small Shaivite temples, to the Gwalior Museum , some fifteen miles away. The site of Hinglajgarh, on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan , was cleared of statuary for the building of the Gandhi Sagar Dam . The rescued statues contain enough fragments of yogini images for Dehejia to state that there

5929-656: Was stolen from a museum in Uttar Pradesh and smuggled to France. The image was identified as one of those published in Dehejia's book, and the collector Robert Schrimpf was contacted by the National Museum, Delhi. His widow donated the sculpture to India in 2008, and it was returned in 2013, described as "priceless" by the Deccan Herald and welcomed "home" to the National Museum with a special exhibition. The newspaper noted that

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