R. Champakalakshmi

When I saw this, I thought "Oh no! Not another dippy Hindu Temple book!" But it really surprised me. The writing is insightful and gives yet another lense for looking at temples, temple culture, and temple history. It has a nice fusion between architecture, iconography, and cultural significance. Some of the stuff is a repeat, some is a further elaboration of concepts that other books below mentioned, and some is entirely new - including an interesting look at the contrast between Brahmanical and folk traditions, the comparison between the three big gods (Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma) and the goddess (Parvati/Durga/Kali) to the village dieties of the common people. I would definitely recommend this as a first temple book - it is written for a non-Hindu, non-academian, has fabulous pictures of a wide variety of things and people, and does a nice coverage of various topics. Plus, I suspect you won't have to mortagage your soul to buy it!… (plus d'informations)