Brian McAvera, 'Temple'
In: Avtarjeet Dhanjal. Edited by Peter Cross and Gilane Tawadros. London: Institute of international Visual Arts, 1997, pp. 40-44.
The basic structure of a temple, if one thinks of it in terms of a ground plan, is that of a square sanctuary (the Shikara - many of which have a high curvilinear pyramid on top - which often contains a phallic cylinder of stone called the lingam which is the symbol of the creative energy of Shiva). This leads onto a long, rectangular hall called the mandapa which in turn leads to an open porch with four square pillars. The symbolism of the temple resides in the fact that it represents, in schematic form, a plan of the universe, or a diagram of the cosmos (the invisible one inhabited by deities, spirits, etc.). Its origin can be traced to the stupa, originally a tumulus, which was a round, domed brick or stone-built structure that became a hallmark of Buddhism and a potent symbol. It could contain the relics of teachers, saints and even objects used by Buddha. The progression of Dhanjal's public art works can be traced in terms of his conscious or unconscious use of the temple ground-plan, starting with the basic structure of sanctuary, hall and porch as demonstrated by the sculpture at Punjabi University in Patiali, working various permutations upon this structure, and finally simplifying it by going back to the temple origins in the stupa. [66]
As Charles Correa has pointed out, an Indian architect (and, we can add, an Indian sculptor like Dhanjal) 'creates public as well as private spaces that symbolise and incarnate the non-manifest which we glimpse through religion, philosophy and the arts'. [67] These are generated by mythic beliefs 'expressing the presence of a reality more profound than the manifest world around us. In India these beliefs are all-pervading', such as the sacred gesture (a pattern of coloured powder on a doorway called a rangoli) or a yantra (a geometric depiction of cosmic order, painted on wall, shrine or temple). [68] While the British initiated substantial changes in the public realm in terms of administration, law and the like, the private and the sacred remained almost undisturbed. One might view Dhanjal's work as his attempt to introduce the private and the sacred into the public realm, initially staking out this dualism in stark narrative fashion. Indeed, one could see this work as the beginning of the idea of art as ecologically healing. [69] Elements emerged that were to remain common to much of his work: the dramatic stage-set; the invitation to a processional approach in the pathway between two areas; the symbolic or metaphorical use of materials; the relationship between looking from the outside in, and being in the middle of the work. This last would be accentuated physically when he began to introduce one or more seats into the fabric of the work. [70]
[66] In Dhanjal's sculpture at Punjabi University, Patiali, the weathered rock encased by railways is the sancturay , the rock being the equivalent of the lingam; the pathway is the rectangular hall, while the open porch is technologically cut and imprisoned block. First of all in his work at Chandigarh in 1991, and then in his work in Maltings, 1993f.
[67] Charles Correa in 'The Public, The Private, and The Sacred', Daedalus: Another india, Autumn 1989, 93f.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Suzi Gablik, unaware of Dhanjal's work, advanced this idea in The Re-enchantment of Art, (London: Thames & Hudson, 1991).
[70] As in the work for Banbury (1981), Forma Viva (1982) and Margam (1983).