Study On The Hindu Temple Architecture Of South India

Divided into three parts, India consists of North India, Deccan Plateau and South India from north to south. South India lies in the south peninsular of the South Asian Subcontinent, south to the Deccan Plateau.The Vindhya Range and the Satpura Range segregate the invades from the North India to some extant. South India becomes the ancient centre of the Dravidian culture as well as developing a distinctive culture of its own owing to theits unique Geography. Leading in the religion of the India society,Hinduism developed an individual ideological system and reflected in the temple architectures, being its material carrier.However, South India has never becomed a national unity since the ancient time. In the middle ages, South India was always dominated under the main kingdoms as well as several regional kingdoms. These kingdoms devoted themselves to developing the temple architecture style of their own, adding a rare precious wealth to the temple architecture of South India.This paper starts from the reading and arranging of the historical materials such as books and drawings. On the basis of the investigations from the local as well as the histoty and religion developments of the South India, the categories and the style evolutions of the temple architectures have been made according to the analysis on the examples. Some simple analysis has also been made together.This paper is divided into five chapters:The first chapter is an introduction, suggesting the source of the subject, its background, research purpose and significance, research status both home and abroad. The second chapter describes the history and religion developments of the South India, as well as the religion architectures, being the basis of the research on the Hindu temple architecture of South India. The third chapter is the core ideal of this paper, the Hindu temple architectures of South India are classified into three categories, that is the Dravidian Style, the Chakluya Style as well as the Kerala Style. The developments and characteristics of different styles have also been discussed. The fourth chapter analyses the design of the Hindu temple architecture of South India, centring around the location factors, space categories inscapes and the religious ideas. The fifth chapter makes detailed discussions on the decorative arts of the Hindu temple architecture of South India, that is decorative topics, decorative means and decorative elements.