[world-vedic] Fwd: Vedic Architecture

[Guest guest]

>Ron Marinelli <macaroni

>Vrindavan Parker <vaidika1008

>FW: Vedic architecture

>Sun, 26 Mar 2000 13:58:17 -0800

>

>Hey Vrindavan....

>

>Here's something interesting I found on the Hinduism Today website from one

>of their past issues. It speaks about that King "Raja Raja" that was

>mentioned in that TV show about South India we were talking about. His

>full

>name was Raja Raja Chota.

>

>Uttamasloka...

>

>Master Builder Uncovers Striking Similarities In Indian and Incan/Mayan

>Sacred Structures

>

>Ancient Architects Employed Analogous Design Doctrines and Masonry Methods

>"Sri V. Ganapati Sthapati," read Deva Rajan's fax to our Hawaii editorial

>office from Machu Picchu high in the rugged Andes Mountains of Peru, South

>America, "has just measured with tape, compass and a lay-out story pole,

>two

>ancient Incan structures at Machu Picchu: a temple and a residence. He has

>confirmed that the layout of these structures, locations for doors,

>windows,

>proportions of width to length, roof styles, degree of slopes for roofs,

>column sizes, wall thicknesses, etc., all conform completely to the

>principles and guidelines as prescribed in the Vastu Shastras of India.

>Residential layouts are identical to those found in Mohenjodaro. The temple

>layouts are identical to those that he is building today and that can be

>found all over India."

>These startling discoveries came during a March, 1995, visit of the master

>builder to the ancient Incan and Mayan sites of South and Central America.

>Ganapati Sthapati is India's foremost traditional temple architect and

>perhaps the first true expert in sculpture and stone construction to

>personally examine these ancient buildings. To do so has been his dream

>since the 1960's.

>

>Sthapati is the architect of the San Marga Iraivan Temple [see page 28]

>being built at Kauai Aadheenam, Hawaii, home of Hinduism Today. To fulfill

>this life-long ambition to visit the Mayan and Incan sites, our publisher,

>Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, arranged for California builders and

>architects Deva Rajan and Thamby Kumaran to accompany Sthapati on a

>three-week trip through South and Central America. "Like boys on holiday,"

>they described their exciting trek of discovery which began 11,000 feet

>high

>in central Peru at the famed Incan site of Machu Picchu which remained

>hidden until 1911.

>

>It is Sthapati's theory that Mayan, the creator of Indian architecture,

>originated from the Mayan people of Central America. In Indian history,

>Mayan appears several times, most significantly as the author of Mayamatam,

>"Concept of Mayan" which is a Vastu Shastra, a text on art, architecture

>and

>town planning. The traditional date for this work is 8,000bce. Mayan

>appears

>in the Ramayana (2000bce) and again in the Mahabharata (1400bce)-in the

>latter he designs a magnificent palace for the Pandava brothers. Mayan is

>also mentioned in Silappathikaram, an ancient Tamil scripture, and is

>author

>of Surya Siddhanta, one of the most ancient Hindu treatises on astronomy.

>

>The fundamental principle of Mayan's architecture and town planning is the

>"module." Buildings and towns are to be laid out according to certain

>multiples of a standard unit. Floor plans, door locations and sizes, wall

>heights and roofs, all are determined by the modular plan. More

>specifically, Mayan advocated the use of an eight-by-eight square, for a

>total of 64 units, which is known as the Vastu Purusha Mandala. The on-site

>inspection by Sthapati was to determine if the Incan and Mayan structures

>did follow a modular plan and reflect the Vastu Purusha Mandala. He also

>intended to examine the stone working technology-his particular field of

>expertise.

>

>Sthapati was born in 1927 into a family whose ancestors, members of the

>aboriginal tribe of Viswakarmas, built the great temple at Tanjore in the

>10th century ce at the request of Raja Raja Chola. He learned the craft

>from

>his father, Sri M. Vaiydyanatha Sthapati and his uncle, Sri M. Sellakkannu

>Sthapati. He spent 27 years as head of the Government College of

>Architecture and Sculpture in Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu, and is responsible

>for India's significant resurgence in the ancient art of stone carving.

>After his retirement in 1988, he continued building temples and founded the

>Vastu Vedic Research Foundation to explore the ancient origins of the

>temple

>craftsmen. He is responsible for the construction of dozens of temples in

>India, plus others in Chicago, Washington D.C., Kentucky, Boston,

>Baltimore,

>San Francisco, and Hawaii in the USA as well as in the UK, Singapore, Fiji,

>Malaysia, Mauritius and the Seychelles.

>

>Machu Picchu

>

>The moment Sthapati approached an ancient Incan residential building at

>Machu Picchu on March 15th, he pointed at the wall and said, "That is a

>thickness of one kishku hasta"-33 inches, a standard measure in South India

>first promulgated by Mayan. He proceeded to measure the buildings in detail

>and discovered each was indeed built on a module-based plan [see photos and

>drawings to right], following the system of Mayan's eight-by-eight squares.

>The module method was followed within small fractions of an inch, according

>to Thamby Kumaran, who was taking the measurements. The buildings were

>oriented toward certain points of the compass, also a principle of Mayan,

>rather than randomly placed. Also the lengths of buildings were never more

>than twice their width, as Mayan stipulated.

>

>From Machu Picchu the three adventurers traveled to Saqsayhuman, an Incan

>site dated from 400 bce to 1400 ce. Here are the famous stone walls made of

>rocks weighing up to 160 tons and fitted together so expertly that a knife

>blade cannot be put in any joint. "Nobody knows how these stones were put

>in

>place," offered their guide when they first arrived on the site. Sthapati

>politely differed, and pointed out the insets chiseled into the base of

>many

>stones, as well as small knobs left on their faces. "These are for the use

>of levers, the exact same system we continue to use in India to move large

>stones. Thirty to forty men can move these very large rocks with this

>method," he explained to the guide's astonishment.

>

>He could see other details of the stone working were identical to what is

>practiced in India, such as the method of quarrying stones by splitting off

>slabs [photo page 14]. So too was the jointing and fitting of stones, the

>use of lime mortar, leveling with a plumb line and triangle, and the

>corbeling for the roofs. Corbeling is the method by which stones are drawn

>in layer by layer until they meet or nearly meet to allow a roof slab to be

>placed on top. Sthapati considers the similarity of this technology to that

>used in India to be very significant. The use of the horizontal lintel and

>the absence of the arch are additional noteworthy points of correspondence

>between the two traditions.

>Land of the Mayans

>

>From the high Andes the threesome flew to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. They

>and forty-five thousand other Mayan aficionados arrived at Chichén Itzá in

>time for the summer equinox on March 21st. At the moment of sunset on the

>equinox, a shadow is cast by the steps of the Pyramid of the Castle [photo

>right and on page one, where the shadow can be seen] upon the side of the

>staircase to the top. The shadow creates the image of a serpent's body

>which

>joins a stone carving of a serpent's head at the bottom of the stair case.

>It is a stunning demonstration of Mayan astronomical and architectural

>precision.

>

>Archeologists, tourists and New Agers all gathered for the event, each with

>their own agenda. Since the publication of The Mayan Factor-A Path Beyond

>Technology by José Arguëlles, the Mayans and their advanced calendar,

>astronomy, philosophy and architecture have enjoyed a wide following in the

>West. Sthapati too has found much of interest in Arguëlles' book.

>

>Standard academia archeologists consider the New Age interest as bordering

>on superstition and refuse to even talk to anyone partial to Mayan

>mysticism. A recent book, Copan and Tikal, the Secrets of Two Cities, by

>Honduran author Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle and archaeologist Juan Antonio

>Valdes of Guatemala, claim that the Mayan pyramids were actually castles

>for

>the wealthy and that what were once thought to be monuments to the Gods

>were

>in fact tributes to the dynasties of various kings. Not likely.

>Native Mayan teachers such as Hunbatz Men, whom Sthapati met while in the

>Yucatan, are taking advantage of the interest to spark a revival of the

>original Mayan religion among the Mayans themselves. Since their brutal

>conquest and forced conversion to Catholicism by the Spaniards in the 16th

>century, Mayans have lived an oppressed and impoverished existence.

>

>Amidst the crowds, Sthapati, Deva and Thamby again unsheathed their tape

>measures and closely examined the Pyramid of the Castle [see diagram

>right].

>It too conformed to the Vastu Vedic principles of Mayan. The temple

>structure at the top was exactly 1/4th of the base. And the stepped pyramid

>design derived from a three-dimensional extension of the basic

>eight-by-eight grid system. The temple room at the top was also modular in

>design, with the wall thickness determining the size of doorways, location

>of columns, thickness of columns and the width and length of the structure.

>

>Most interesting was the name of this structure-chilambalam, meaning a

>sacred space. It is Sthapati's theory that the Mayans worshiped the very

>concept of space, specifically a space made according to the modular

>system.

>This same idea is found in Hinduism in the sacred room in the center of the

>Chidambaram Siva Temple in South India, where space or akasha is

>worshiped-there is no idol. Chidambaram, Sthapati finds suspiciously like

>chilambalam, means "hall of consciousness." The concept of sacred space is

>at the center of the mystical shilpi tradition of India [see sidebar page

>14].

>

>The richly decorated Mayan buildings provided a feast for a sculptor's eye.

>There is a very common feature called a "mask" by the archeologists, but

>known to the Mayans as "Big Nose." A nearly identical face is a common

>feature of Hindu iconography, seen, for example, at the top of the arch

>placed behind a deity. "It is the very same thing in India," chuckled

>Sthapati, "we call it `Maha Nyasa'-Big Nose!" Several other details of the

>sculptures were similar or identical to India, such as the earrings, ear

>plugs, teeth, head dresses, even buckles around the waist. There are bas

>reliefs of priests sitting in lotus posture meditating.

>

>From Chichén Itzá, they traveled on to Uxmal where they observed the snake

>and "bindu" designs on the wall faces [picture right]. They were astounded

>by the thousands of pyramids at Tikal and Uxacturn in Guatemala, all laid

>out to conform to a grid pattern and oriented in astronomically significant

>directions.

>

>As in Mayan buildings, Indians have been using lime mortar for all of their

>stone and brick buildings. This can been seen in the monumental creations

>in

>Mahabalipuram and also in the stone temples of Tanjor and Gangai Konda

>Choleasuram in Tamil Nadu. The outer surfaces were plastered,

>embellishments

>worked out in lime mortar, then painted. This method was strongest among

>the

>Mayas at Tikal and Uaxactún, where all of the structures once had a plaster

>coating painted with many colors.

>

>What is the Connection?

>

>Sri Ganapati Sthapati postulates, after deep thought from his journey to

>the

>land of the Mayans and a lifetime study of South Indian architecture, that

>Mayan, the divine architect of Indian tradition, came from Central America.

>Ancient Tamil literature speaks of lands to the south of India 30,000 years

>ago, at the time of the first Tamil Sangam. According to scientists 160

>million years ago India did lie physically close to Africa, South and

>Central America, but has since moved away as a result of continental drift.

>At that date, it would have been dinosaurs and not Mayans who wandered from

>the Americas to India, but perhaps the time frame for the continental drift

>is not correct. Architecture aside, there are significant similarities

>between Hinduism and the native religions of both Africa and the Americas.

>

>There are other explanations. The simplest is boats. In 1970 the Norwegian

>Thor Hyerdal sailed a reed boat from Africa to the Americas in 57 days

>using

>no modern equipment. The boat, Ra II, was built for him by the Aymaro

>Indians of Lake Titicaca, Peru, neighbors of the ancient Incans. The

>double-hulled catamarans of India are also capable of long sea voyages.

>Historians discount contact between ancient people, but many cultures, such

>as the ancient Hawaiians, had remarkable sea-faring skills.

>Perhaps the coincidences of stone working are just that, coincidence -a

>favorite "explanation" of archeologists. Stone workers will discover the

>same techniques naturally, without need for outside help, they say, and can

>point to historical incidents of simultaneous discovery. But this

>explanation hardly accounts for the similarities in motifs and modular

>design.

>Another explanation is mystical-that Mayan, who is a divine being in Indian

>histories, appeared to both peoples. He could have conveyed the knowledge

>through visions and dreams.

>

>Sri Ganapati Sthapati is vigorously continuing his research and is open to

>suggestions from Hinduism Today readers. Any information you may have on

>the

>similarities of the two cultures may be shared with him by writing to:

>

>Vastu Vedic Research Foundation, Plot A-1, H.I.G. Colony, 1st Main Road

>(New

>Beach Road), Thiruvalluvar Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, Madras 600 041, India.

>

>Sidebar: The Vastu Vedic Tradition

>

>Text:

>

>V. Ganapati Sthapati spoke eloquently during our interviews of the deep

>mysticism of his tradition. Here is an excerpt from his paper, "Synthesis

>of

>Science and Spirituality in the Vastu Vedic Tradition of Art and

>Architecture."

>The Vastu Shilpa tradition of Indian origin has made a scientific approach

>to the problems of spirit and spiritual realization. This scientific

>tradition of Va-stu perceives Shakti [energy] as all-pervasive and as the

>casual substance for all the manifestations of visual and aural phenomena

>in

>the universe. They have named their Shakti as Paravastu in Sanskrit and the

>universal objects as Vastu. The word Paravastu means the quintessence or

>the

>ultimate substance. This phenomenon of Vastu and Va-stu can be equated to

>gold turned into gold ornaments, the shilpi acting as the agent for the

>transformation. Further, this Vastu is recognized by the Vastu tradition as

>one dwelling in the inner space of individual beings as well as in the

>outside space, the universal being. The science says that it is space,

>because of its self-propelled vibration, that turns into forms-the

>vibration

>force acting as the working agency. To do this is its unquestionable

>nature.

>This agency is designated as Absolute Time, emerging out of space. This is

>analogous to the vibration of the instrument of the vina developing into

>sound space. Here, sound space turns into sound form, and this when set to

>rhythmic vibration turns into musical form.

>

>There is also another space responsible for the sound space. It is called

>luminous space. This pervades the entire universe (cosmos). This is the

>ultimate space wherein lie the Absolute Time and Absolute Energy. This is

>filled with luminous substance (Vastu) consisting of Paramanus, the minute

>particles of space. This luminous space is supersensitive, capable of

>becoming conscious of itself and vibrating into objects that it becomes

>conscious of. This action is its intrinsic nature and responsible for the

>forms that occur in the inner space of individuals as well as in the outer

>space of the universe. The experience of this form, in terms of space, is

>Spiritual Vision. This phenomenon is nothing but abstract science held by

>the Vastu tradition.

>The Vastu tradition designates the inner being as Shilpi and the inner

>manifest subtle form as Shilpa, and as such the whole inner and outer

>universes are filled with shilpas. The gross visual forms are projected

>outside from the inside, by the inner being. This is the transformation of

>the subtle inner form into the gross visual, through the fingers exactly in

>tune with the subtle in terms of time and space. That "the sculptor becomes

>the sculpture and the poet becomes the poem" is therefore a powerful

>Vaignanic statement of the Vastu Vedins, and it is of pure advaitic tone.

>The projected visual form has the touch of a lyric, depending upon the

>individual inner culture.

>

>Sidebar: The Linguistic Similarities

>

>Text:

>

>Chacla in Mayan refers to force centers of the body similar to the chakras

>of Hinduism. K'ultanlilni in Mayan refers to the power of God within man

>which is controlled by the breath, similar in meaning to kundalini. Mayan

>chilambalam refers to a sacred space, as does Tamil Chidambaram. Yok'hah in

>Mayan means "on top of truth," similar to yoga in Sanskrit.

>

>(Two pages of photos in the printed edition show the design, technical and

>symbolic similarities.

>You'll have to to see it all.)

 

____