The present Volume is the latest endeavour to freshly enquire into the relevance and validity of commonly-held categorizations of ancient Indian religious architecture as Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain, often noticed in the extant standard writings on this genre of the art studies. It has been observed that while this may somehow appear true and may also have some sort of relevance primarily from the standpoint of its creators and users, who used to perform some kind of religious rites or indulged in some sorts of religious discourses and debates or even paid their obeisance to the revered deities, seated in the sanctum sanctorum, evidently to earn some spiritual merits, or, even from the perspective of its associated iconography and its lavish symbolism in its exteriors and interiors, but, viewed restrictedly from the architecture’s standpoint, these do not hold true and seem to represent only its peripheral dimensions. Architectural arrangements in these religious spaces, categorized differently, are essentially common, irrespective of their affiliations with Hindu, Buddhist and Jain, and betray the shared concepts amongst them evolved through the millenniums with very few alterations exceptionally to be called as distinct.

The Volume examines critically both the morphological and conceptual contours of these spaces right from the Vedic times to the later periods when the evolution came to its full zenith in the form of temples. How the earliest notions conceived in the making of the Yajña-vedis and chitis percolated in all the shades of later religious architecture has been explicitly elucidated. How a number of trees originally imagined as the resorts of the spirits and divinities got identified with several Hindu deities, Buddhas and the Tirthamkaras as well, and sired the notion of religious pillars to be erected in their honour as their own insignias, has all been elaborately explained to mark the conceptual and morphological affinities inherent in these so-called different religious spaces. The transformation of the rock-cut chaitya-gŗihas, slowly and gradually, into the temple architecture with many of their features not only carried forward but taken to new heights, narrate the same story. The analysis establishes that ancient Indian religious architecture is a narrative of shared concepts, of mutuality, inclusiveness, cross-connections, free exchanges of ideas and their broader adaptations, Interdependence through several points of convergences and conceptual affinities beyond the sectarian boundaries of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. This is also endorsed by the prevalence of common terminologies – stūpa, chaitya, prāsāda, mandira, stambha, yașți, vedikā, etc. among the Hindu, Buddhist and jain forms of architecture, their comparative importance in a particular shade notwithstanding. Thus the Volume provides a new stimulus to the students, scholars and art-historians to take the studies of ancient Indian religious architecture with a new insight and perspective which expose its overall synthesizing and overarching effect that predominantly caused its outflow and evolution in ancient India beyond the sectarian bias.

The Author
An aluminus of the University of Allahabad with meritorious academic records, Dr. Prem Sagar Chaturvedi joined the Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture D. D. U. Gorakhpur University in 1972. He served this institution in several capacities and finally retired as Professor and Head on June 30, 2012. He had the chance of working both as a disciple and colleague under the sage guidance of late Professor V. S. Pathak, an eminent scholar and indologist under whose supervision he obtained Ph. D. degree for his outstanding work Some Aspects of Technology in Vedic Literature. Because of his deep understanding of literary and archaeological sources, Dr. Chaturvedi has gained expertise in several branches of historical discipline. These include Vedic and Buddhist Studies, Ancient Technologies, Art and Architecture, Archaeology and Socio-Religious studies. He is mostly known for his highly acclaimed original work, Technology in Vedic Literature in which by deft-handling of the Vedic, Avestan and Indo-European data, he has drawn the profiles of several prehistoric and protohistoric technologies, such as wood, leather, textiles, ceramics, etc. many of which being extremely fragile by nature could not be procured materially except in some very exceptional situations, and hence, hardly find any allusion in archaeological writings although most of them were synchronously practiced by the early man along with the lithic. He has discussed some more facets of technology in The Vedic Technology, a Chapter contributed to the Volume, The Dawn of Indian Civilization of PHISPC, a dream project envisioned by late Professor D. P. Chattopadhyay and in several other writings in different publications. Besides these, he has exposed quite brilliantly some basic concepts of arts and aesthetics in a number of articles contributed to various journals. He has also authored and edited the volume Archaeological Findings from the Homeland of Buddha in which major archaeological discoveries of the region traversed by Buddha have critically been analyzed and their significance has properly been exposed before the scholarly world so much so that it stands as the most updated and authentic account of the archaeological studies of the region. Dr. Chaturvedi has guided several researches on different areas of history, attended a number of national and international academic meets, delivered lectures in different academic forums and contributed more than sixty research papers in various journals and publications. At present, he is engaged as a Senior Academic Fellow with Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, and is working on the Project History and Culture of Sarayūpāra Region on the Basis of Extant Archaeological Remains.

Contributors
R.N.Misra, an eminent art historian, formerly National Tagore Professor, Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and former Professor and Chairman, School of Studies in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Jiwaji, University, Gwalior (M.P.)

Maruti Nandan Prasad Tiwari was formerly Professor and Head with the Department of History of Art, Banaras Hindu University, and Varanasi.

Prem Sagar Chaturvedi, a Senior Academic Fellow with the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, was formerly Professor and Head, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D. D. U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur (U. P.).

Dhyanendra Narain Dubey is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.

Susmita Pande is Professor and Head in the School of Studies in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Vikram University, Ujjain.

Ashvini Agrawal , Professor of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, Punjab University, is former Dean, Faculty of Arts and Chairman, Department of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, Punjab University, Chandigarh.

Amar Singh was Professor in the Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology, University of Lucknow, Lucknow.

Alok Tripathi, Professor and former Head, Department of History, Assam University, is at present Director, Centre for Archaeology and Museology, Assam University, Silcher.

Chadrashekhar Gupta, formerly Professor and Head, Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Nagpur University, Nagpur.

Rahman Ali was formerly Professor and Head, School of Studies in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Vikram University, Ujjain (M. P.). He was Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and School of Law in the same University.

Piyush Bhargava, Associate Professor, Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology, Lucknow University, Lucknow.

Alok Shrotriya is professor and Head, Department of Ancient Indian History, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak (M.P.).

Pragya Chaturvedi is Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.

Suniti Pandey is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad.

Shitala Prasad Singh is Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.

Hari Narayan Dubey, an expert in Purāņic studies, he has recently retired as Professor, Department of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, Allahabad University.

Vipula Dubey is Professor and Head, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D. D. U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.

Rajawant Rao, Professor, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D. D. U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur,

Iravati was formerly Associate Professor and Head, Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Vasanta P. G. College for Women, Varanasi.

Harsh Kumar, Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, Allahabad University, Allahabad.

Digvijay Bhatnagar, Professor and Head, Department of History, Udaipur University, Udaipur, Rajasthan.

Rekha Chaturvedi, Professor, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D. D. U. Gorakhpur University,.

Tulika Banerjee is an Associate Professor in Mahila P. G. College, Basti, U.P.

Durgananandan Tiwari, Associate Professor in Archaeology and Museology, Sampoornanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi,

Shanti Swaoop Sinha is Associate Professor in the Department of History of Visual Arts and Design, Faculty of Visual Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

Anand Prakash Srivastava, Principal, Sri Ram Kishun P. G. College, Gokul, Karasada, Varanasi,

Atm Prakash Singh is a teacher with keen interest in art studies.

Hari Gopal Srivastav, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, Jawaharlal P. G. College, Maharajganj

Ram Pyare Mishra, Assistant Professor, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University.

Vinod Kumar is a research scholar in the Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.

Rajesh Kumar Dhar Dubey is a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.

Preeti Tiwari is a research scholar in the Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.

Ruchi Srivastava is a research scholar in the Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and Culture, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.