The Torana in Indian and Southeast Asian Architecture

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 thetorana 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 thetorana. 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 toranais 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-flyingillika-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 oftoranas. 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.