Tag: temple architecture

Popular Essays

The Case of the Missing Temple

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

This article is about the temple of one of the most widespread and important deities of Goan village society, which is also however almost invisible as well as unknown to many Goans. The deity is Maharingan, and the reason for the invisibilation is because Maharingan is a Mahar deity, and Mahars are a community that would be openly called ‘untouchable’ in the past. Today, although such terminology and behaviour are banned by law, they are still treated as outsiders in not just many Goan villages but also in urban Goa. And their temple is a witness of this unspoken but persisting discrimination.

 

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Popular Essays

The Goan Temple: A Unique Architecture on Its Way Out

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

The architecture of Goa is a heterogeneous one, the result of its long and cosmopolitan history as an Indian Ocean port, a part of the Islamicate Deccan, and then of the Portuguese empire. And one of its most distinctive and heterogeneous developments is in the realm of temple architecture. The Brahmanical temples that were built in Goa from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries were creatively inspired by Renaissance Europe (via the churches of Goa), the Bijapur Sultanate, the Mughals (via the Marathas), and the Ikkeri Nayakas, along with the local architecture. These varied vocabularies came together to produce a recognisable architectural ensemble by the end of the 19th century which spread across the region of Goa and beyond.  This is why the Goan temple should be seen as an architectural type in its own right.

 

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