Garbhagriha

Also called: Sanctum sanctorum · Topic: Early Indian Art and Architecture: Stupas, Rock-cut Caves, Temples · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings"

Meaning

The garbhagriha ("womb-house", also called the sanctum sanctorum) is the small, square, dark room at the heart of a Hindu temple. The image of the god, or the linga (a plain upright stone shaft that stands for Shiva), is kept here. It has a single doorway, and the devotee comes through it to worship.

It matters because the earliest temples, from about the 3rd century CE, were nothing more than this one room. Every later part of the temple, such as the tower, the halls and the gateways, was added around it.

Explanation

Background: why a shrine room was needed

• Buddhism had the Bodhisatta, who saves people. But the saviour idea was not unique to Buddhism.
• The same idea grew inside two Hindu traditions:
• Vaishnavism, where Vishnu is the main god.

• Shaivism, where Shiva is the chief god.

• Both were built on bhakti (loving devotion to one god of your own choice).

• Bhakti needed a home for the god.
• Vedic worship was a fire sacrifice in an open place. Bhakti was different: the devotee came face to face with the image of a chosen god.

• So a fixed, protected room was needed to keep that image or linga. This room was the garbhagriha.

• Vaishnava shrines held images of Vishnu and his avatars (forms the god takes when he comes down to earth to save the world from evil). Shaiva shrines mostly held the linga. Shiva was shown in human form only occasionally.

Main features of the garbhagriha

• Shape: a small square room.
• Contents: the image of the god or the linga. This is the most sacred spot in the temple.
• Entry: only one doorway. The devotee enters, worships and comes out.
• Light: it is dark and closed, unlike the open, carved walls on the outside.
• Name: "garbha" means womb and "griha" means house. The room is the "womb" of the temple, the point everything else grows from.
• Reading the image inside: worshippers knew which god it was from clues the sculptor gave:
• headdress (crown type, hair style)
• ornaments (necklaces, ear-rings)
• ayudhas (weapons or auspicious objects held in the hands, such as conch, discus, mace and lotus for Vishnu)

• posture (standing, seated, reclining or dancing)

• The stories behind these clues come from the Puranas.

How the temple grew around the garbhagriha

The order is simple: small and plain first, grand and complex later.

1. A square garbhagriha with one doorway. This was the first form, c. 3rd century CE.
2. Shikhara. A tall tower was built over the shrine room, so it could be seen from far away.
3. Sculpted outer walls.
4. Later additions: assembly halls, huge walls, gateways and water arrangements (tanks, wells, drains). - Some early temples were hollowed out of rock. The whole building was cut from one huge stone instead of being built block by block. - At Deogarh, the garbhagriha has two spaces in front of it: - the ardhamandapa (half-porch) - the antarala (a small passage between the porch and the shrine) [2].

Results

• The garbhagriha stayed the fixed centre of every Hindu temple, however big the temple later became.
• Ordinary people could now worship a god directly at a shrine. They did not need a Vedic sacrifice.
• This went hand in hand with the Puranas, which were read aloud to everyone, including women and Shudras.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the earliest temples, and so the earliest garbhagrihas, date from about the 3rd century CE. This is the same time as Sanchi's final form, so the stupa and the temple existed side by side.
• Deogarh (Uttar Pradesh):
• The Dashavatara temple dates to c. 5th century according to NCERT. ASI/IGNCA material says "the beginning of the 6th century" [2]. Use the NCERT date in the exam. Both dates fall in the Gupta age.
• It has a square plan with ardhamandapa, antarala and garbhagriha [2].
• The roof over the garbhagriha and ardhamandapa has collapsed, so both now stand open to the sky [2].
• It is one of the earliest temples that still has its shikhara [2].
• It stands on the bank of the Betwa river [2].

• The Gupta temples of north India, Deogarh included, are on UNESCO's Tentative List [2].

• Aihole (Karnataka):

• It has more than a hundred temples of the Early Chalukya rulers, built roughly in the 6th–8th century CE [3].
• The Lad Khan temple is among the oldest flat-roofed temples there. It has no shikhara, which shows an early stage [3].

• The Durga temple has an apsidal plan (rounded at one end) [3].

• Mahabalipuram (Tamil Nadu): this Pallava port has rock-cut cave temples, monolithic temples and structural temples, made between the 6th and 9th centuries CE. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site [4].

• Evidence: the standing temple buildings themselves, ASI site records [2][3][4], and the Puranas. The Puranas explain the images kept inside the shrine.

Don't confuse with

• Shikhara: the tall tower built over the garbhagriha. The garbhagriha came first. The shikhara was a later addition.
• Antarala / ardhamandapa: the passage and the half-porch in front of the garbhagriha, as seen at Deogarh [2]. The image is never kept in them.
• Assembly hall (mandapa): a large hall for gathered devotees, added in later temples. The garbhagriha is small and holds only the god.
• Stupa: a solid mound built over Buddhist relics, which people walked around. The garbhagriha is a hollow room that a devotee enters to worship an image or linga.

Prelims Hooks

• Earliest Hindu temples: c. 3rd century CE. Their first form was a square garbhagriha with a single doorway.
• Order of temple growth: garbhagriha → shikhara → sculpted walls → assembly halls, walls, gateways, water works.
• Deogarh (UP), Dashavatara temple: its plan has ardhamandapa, antarala and garbhagriha. It is one of the earliest surviving shikharas and stands on the Betwa [2].
• Lad Khan temple, Aihole (Karnataka): a flat-roofed temple with no shikhara [3].
• The garbhagriha of a Shaiva shrine usually holds a linga. A Vaishnava shrine holds an image of Vishnu or one of his avatars.
• Trap: the first temples were contemporary with Sanchi's final form. They did not come after the stupas ended.

Mains Points

• The garbhagriha was where bhakti took physical form.
• Bhakti needed no priest-led sacrifice, only the devotee and the chosen god.
• A small closed room holding the god's image was the simplest building for this.

• Along with the Puranas read aloud to women and Shudras, it opened worship to ordinary people.

• Temple architecture grew by adding parts around one fixed centre. You can see each stage on the ground:

• flat-roofed Lad Khan at Aihole [3]
• a shikhara over the garbhagriha at Deogarh [2]
• halls, walls, gateways and water works later on.

Aihole's hundred-plus temples show this was a time of experiment, which is why it is called "the cradle of Indian architecture" [3].

• Stupa and temple grew side by side, not one after the other. The first garbhagrihas (c. 3rd century CE) were built while Sanchi took its final form. Both answered the same need for a god who saves: the Bodhisatta and the avatar.

Related concepts

• Puranic Hinduism
• Vaishnavism
• Avatar
• Dashavatara
• Varaha
• Vasudeva-Krishna
• Shaivism
• Linga
• Antarala
• Shikhara

Read more

• Puranic Hinduism and the first temples