AstronomyOfTempleArchitecture

Nehru Planetarium

Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

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Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bangalore

At 4:00 PM, on the 8th of April 2010

At the seminar room of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

The image shown above is a print of an 18th century watercolour made by Lt. James Hunter. Some of the structures in this watercolour can stilll be identified in the Gavi Gangadharesvara temple at Bangalore.

Almost every temple, mosque and other religious structure in India is likely to be replete with constructions reflecting a basic understanding of positional astronomy and its relation to geography. Very little field work has actually been done in this area, in India, and explorations in this direction are likely to yield many interesting results.

Konark, is well known as a Sun temple. However, the details of the various possible alignments of the temple, wit respect to the annual motion of the Sun, are never talked about.

There are other Sun temples and some Zodiac temples, where positional astronomy related alignments would certainly exist.

There is a wealth of exciting information of this kind waiting to be studied thoroughly, in every Indian corner.

Coming to a specific example, there is the Gavi Gangadharesvara temple at Bangalore. Dr. B.S. Shylaja, Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bangalore, has identified alignments and temple traditions which are related to the winter solstice, in some of the pillar structures of this temple. She has also done other interesting field work in the area of Indian Archeoastronomy.

Nehru Planetarium, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, is organising a talk by Dr. Shylaja, at 4 PM on the 8th of April, at the Seminar room of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.