So much attention has been given to the spiritual aspect of Indian art that it may seem a cliché to search for the sacred in its diverse and many works, yet an important element of Parul Pandya Dhar’s recent book, The Torana in Indian and Southeast Asian Architecture, is how it makes a compelling case for just such quests. This is not, however, because the author makes “meaning” to be the most important criteria of her study. Rather, it is Dhar’s careful and wide-ranging consideration of the forms of toranas, which she defines as arched portals or festoons, that demonstrates how they are something more than simply part of functional doorways. By examining the different ways in which they are depicted in reliefs, described in texts, and manifested in actual examples, she emphasizes their shifting visual forms. The fact that Dhar can chart shifts in the configuration of torana over large spans of time and vast expanses of geography helps to make clear the important symbolic nature of its vocabulary. Indeed, as increasingly recognized, the nature of making is itself meaningful, since meaning does not lie outside of form, but is created by the very manner of producing form.

Dhar’s methodology carefully follows the groundbreaking path of her PhD supervisor, the renowned scholar M. A. Dhaky. Dhar also makes clear her debt to earlier investigators whose reports and archives enabled her expansive study of torana forms. In particular, she cites the Archaeological Survey of India, the Institut Français de Pondichéry, and the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in Gurgaon, all of which have invaluable archives as well as long histories of supporting necessary meticulous documentation of India’s surviving monuments. But it is the work of Dhaky that is of greatest significance for her well-conceived study, and she especially acknowledges his aid in reading and interpreting various unedited or untranslated Sanskrit texts that help to define a vocabulary appropriate for elements found in South Asia’s architectural traditions. Using such texts in conjunction with inscriptional and literary evidence as well as with depicted and actual examples in the study of South Asian architecture characterizes Dhaky’s own work, which drove the development of the archive created by the Center of Art and Archaeology at AIIS while he was its director. Dhar’s volume is a significant demonstration of the further investigations that such archives allow as well as the necessity of the continued development of such archives, not only to add new examples but to also be able to consider known works in various contexts.

Among Dhar’s innovative approaches is her discussion of torana forms depicted in sculptures that correspond with actual examples of toranas, undermining a frequent scholarly practice of treating architecture and sculpture as distinct modes. As she notes, this separate treatment of sculpture and architecture not only masks the creative depth of Indian artistic practice, it also undermines a recognition of the shared nature of artistic vocabularies to be found in Islamic monuments created in the Indian subcontinent. To be sure, there are distinct forms in these Islamic buildings, but the continuation of many elements or deliberate transformations are frequent. One intriguing example Dhar cites is found in the Adina mosque in West Bengal dating from the late fourteenth century (206). Here walls are articulated with an engaged trifoliate torana that she notes is quite like framing forms used on Indian temples in the region, although the motif crowning the apex is ornate abstraction rather than the symbolic kirttimukha (gorgon face) seen in the temples.

The book is divided into five chapters and is profusely illustrated with many detailed photographs and finely rendered drawings that are crucial components of Dhar’s arguments. The first chapter deals with the earliest evidence, much of it depicted in reliefs rather than actual examples. After the second chapter, “The Torana and Its Treatises,” Dhar considers material typologically within broad regional perspectives: “Southern Representations,” “Northern Representations,” and “Southeast and South Asian Parallels.” The last is an important corrective to many who view Southeast Asian traditions as totally separate from those of South Asia. The book also includes four appendices and a useful glossary. The appendices are preceded by several pages of text labeled as overview, but some of this prose might have been more usefully integrated earlier in the volume, as it clearly articulates Dhar’s rationale for the study. She notes that while the torana likely shared elements with other types of gateways in Indian architecture, differences in the forms and function of toranas set them somewhat apart. It is here that concepts so provocatively cast by the late anthropologist Victor Turner in terms of the significance of liminal spaces could prompt future comparative study with traditions outside of South Asia (e.g., Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974). The book’s appendices list relevant passages in inscriptions and other verbal texts, yet it is unfortunate that except for inscriptions Dhar only provides Sanskrit transliterations; even rough translations would have made these appendices far more useful to the many who might use this volume who are not Sanskrit literate. This is a criticism that has dogged the AIIS’s magnificent volumes of their encyclopedia of Indian temple architecture.

The Torana in Indian and Southeast Asian Architecture establishes a base from which other studies can now emerge. Indeed many of the examples that Dhar uses could themselves form the basis of an individual study. Such investigations could chart in even greater detail and with further examples the nature of the regional developments she has outlined; or inquiry could be made into the relationship between a torana and what it frames. More might be said, for instance, regarding the development of shared vocabularies of forms among the different religious traditions that flourished in South Asia, including Islam. In any event, it is no small contribution that Dhar eschewed grouping Indian monuments in a sectarian manner. Too often the separate treatment of Indian religious traditions has obscured the shared nature of many elements. From another perspective, further reflection might also be given to the differences in the many distinct geographic locales that make up the Indian subcontinent. In studies such as this that are so wide ranging, there is a tendency (if not a necessity) to collapse difference. A fuller consideration of specific historical contexts for the creation of toranas might also be developed.

That these are valuable questions to be considered is a testament to the importance of Dhar’s study. But perhaps what Dhar has demonstrated most significantly is the necessity for close visual study of many examples; while others scholars have done so, it needs to be repeatedly demonstrated, and is of immense value for those who have long looked at South Asian art as well as for those who have not. For the latter group this volume is an exceedingly handsome presentation of an aspect of South Asia’s architecture; it is a lovely book to peruse. For the former group it is a wonderful reminder of the profit to be had in rigorous analysis.