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Constructing the guru: ritual authority and architectural space in medieval India
Art Bulletin, The, March, 2008 by Tamara I. Sears
For nearly three millennia the guru has remained at the nexus of Indic society as a figure revered for his innate wisdom, for his vast knowledge of spiritual texts and practices, and for his status as a living receptacle for divinity. Derived from the Sanskrit word meaning both "dispeller of ignorance" and "heavy" or "weighty," (1) the term guru appeared in Indic traditions as early as the first millennium BCE, the period in which the ancient Hindu Vedas and Upanishads were being consolidated into a distinct written corpus. (2) The guru of this earliest period was an ascetic teacher of the highest priestly, or Brahman, caste whose authority was largely vested in his knowledge of the sacred texts. Members of elite society would spend part of their childhoods living with a guru in a single household, known as a gurukula, or guru's house. Over the centuries that followed, the guru's role evolved to accommodate the changing shape of Hindu theology and practice. New forms of devotionalism and the rise of Tantric and esoteric traditions during the first millennium CE transformed the guru from a high-caste teacher into a figure revered as a manifestation of divinity and as a vehicle for liberation. (3) By the early medieval period (ca. 600-1200 CE), the guru's identity as both a spiritual teacher and a focus for ritualized worship had led to the development of elaborate mathas, or monasteries, throughout the Indian subcontinent (Fig. 1). Because mathas were often royally sponsored landholding institutions, the gurus who headed them became invested with the responsibility of furnishing a range of social and economic services to the larger community. (4)
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Given the importance of gurus in Indic society even today, it might seem natural that the mathas within which they resided would occupy a critical position in the canon of South Asian architectural history. Yet remarkably little has been published on monastic architecture, and relatively few scholars are aware of the corpus of extant material. (5) A few factors may have prevented more vibrant scholarly study. One is simply the paucity of evidence. Inscriptional sources frequently record the construction of mathas and the patronage of the gurus who headed them. (6) But, unlike in the Western medieval world, or even in the case of the famous Buddhist rock-cut monasteries at Ajanta and Ellora, (7) very few Hindu monasteries survive today. (8) Those that remain can be dated no earlier than the ninth or tenth centuries CE, (9) a period that art historians have more frequently thought of as the beginning of a new efflorescence and experimentation in temple architecture.
In studies of temples during this period, most scholars concentrate on the ways in which they provided a mechanism for political legitimation by allowing regional kings to establish their authority as divinely sanctioned by pan-Indic deities, such as Shiva and Vishnu. (10) They tend to overlook how temples also signified new forms of alliances--not only between kings and gods but also between kings and the prominent religious communities that were actively involved in redefining both theological understandings of cosmic reality and the ritual practices that reinforced them. For example, recent reevaluations of early medieval temple architecture and sculpture at famous royally sponsored temple sites, such as Khajuraho, have begun to reveal that gurus and their spiritual counterparts, acharyas (ritual preceptors), actively participated both in the development of temple architecture and the maintenance of temple rituals during this period. (11) The proliferation of guru-centered ritual around larger temple sites is captured by sculpted reliefs depicting gurus enshrined within architectural settings and caught in the act of demonstrating the correct performance of esoteric rituals to groups of ardent disciples (Fig. 2). Similarly, scholars versed in textual traditions have begun exploring the critical part that religious preceptors played in the consolidation of state authority, particularly as rajagurus, or royal preceptors, began taking on increasingly important roles in the administration of state religious activities. (12)
If gurus were actively involved in artistic production and ritual performance at temple sites, then it seems logical that temples would have been accompanied by mathas and their related institutions. Nonetheless, the overwhelming emphasis on temples has often led scholars to overlook the relation between the two types of monuments. (13) It is true that the drab masonry surfaces and boxlike exteriors of the surviving monasteries pale in comparison to the voluptuously sculpted temples that stand nearby. Mathas, however, played an equally critical role in the structure of religious life at sacred sites. Often erected in close proximity to temples, mathas supported ritual activity within the temple and facilitated the social and economic services offered at temple centers. As religious institutions, temples and mathas formed a functional pair, and each should be understood as sanctified spaces built to house holy, living beings. Whereas temples sheltered the sculpted icons that were seen as living embodiments of divinity temporarily fixed in place for the purpose of worship, (14) mathas housed the holy practitioners who officiated over daily services to the gods. In addition, both temples and mathas operated as landholding overlords during a period characterized by the decentralization of authority, thus integrating religious, political, and economic networks that formed the basis for state formation. (15) While much work has been done on temples, far less is known about how gurus and mathas might have contributed to the construction of these networks.
