Cosmic Dance in Stone

This book aims to explore, through photographs and illustrations, the architectural spaces designed to transcend the boundaries of space and time. Historians have traced their origins, as have the rulers who helped build them, while photographers have presented them in beautiful imagery. It was necessary, however, to understand the architectural nuances of these fine monuments and the quality of light and space the designers were trying to achieve. It was also the discovery of James Fergusson’s original version of Illustrations of the Rock-cut Temples of India, published in 1845, when he and his team had to travel around the subcontinent without the railways, proper places to stay, or even medical help. He captured in his lithographs the essence of such architecture, maintaining that there is an expression of grandeur and quasi-eternity in a temple cut into the rock, which is far greater than can be produced by any structural building of the exact dimensions. In Cosmic Dance in Stone, there is an attempt to rediscover the quest for eternity and the relationship with the cosmos through the creation of stone structures that give a glimpse of a world beyond this one. The designers, artists, and artisans of a bygone age manifested qualities in a building that are rarely seen today.