"A hollowed-out space in living rock is a totally different environment from a building constructed of quarried stone. The human organism responds in each case with a different kind of empathy. Buildings are fashioned in sequence by a series of uniformly repeatable elements, segment by segment, from a foundation upwards to the conjunction of walls and roof; the occupant empathizes with a visible tension between gravity and soaring tensile strength. Entering a great building is to experience an almost imperceptible tensing in the skeletal muscles in response to constructional tension. Caves, on the other hand, are scooped out by a downward plunge of the chisel from ceiling to floor in the direction of gravity; the occupant empathizes with an invisible but sensed resistance, an unrelenting pressure in the rock enveloping him; sculpted images and glowing pigments on the skin of the rock well forth from the deeps. To enter an Indian cave sanctuary is to experience a relaxation of physical tension in response to the implacable weight and density of the solid rock."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Richard Lannoy, quoted in Decolonizing History: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West 1492 to the Present Day. Claude Alphonso Alvares, 1991
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cave_temples_in_Asia
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Cave temples in Asia
1 quote on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Cave temples in Asia →
Related Quotes
"Over the last 20 years or so evidence has grown that the hub of ancient long-distance seafaring was Southeast and eas…"
"Killing people is as easy as killing pigs. Children cry out for help but no one answers them. They are killed with a …"
"In our country it would not be necessary to wash that child; he might be roasted at once."
"Qiaoxian town officials treated me to lunch. On that day, the main course was sautéed pig's liver. I tried very hard …"
"When people do not respect our [traditions], they become enemies, and we don't consider our enemies to be human any m…"
"In time, the Chinese developed a taste for human meat.... T'ao Tsung-yi, a writer during the Yüan dynasty [1271–1368]…"
"You should know that they eat all manner of foul things and any kind of meat, including human flesh, which they devou…"
"One day they Liu Pei and Yüan-tê] sought shelter at a house whence a youth came out and made a low obeisance. They as…"
"They eat man's flesh there just as we eat beef here. Yet the country in itself is excellent, and hath great store of …"
"And when morning came with its sheen and shone, we arose and walked about the island to the right and left, till we c…"