Torana
A Torana is a - usually freestanding - gatehouse in front of a Buddhist, Hindu or Jain shrine in India or other Asian countries. You marked originally the transition from the profane to the sacred world. In later times its religious implications were lost in many places and they were welcome or honor monuments in the urban fabric.
Origin and Meaning
Although such things have not obtained, one can assume that - made decorated Torana arches in ancient India from mesh of branches or wood and were erected during celebrations (birth, marriage, house warming ) in front of the house - with flowers and evergreen foliage. In some areas or at appropriate occasions this happens - even in the cities of India - today. The festival guests had to pass through this gate; doing evil thoughts and evil spirits were destroyed - a Torana had thus originally a disastrous defensive ( apotropaic ) importance. Probably only in a later phase, such a goal has been primarily regarded as a welcome and good luck sign.
That gatehouses in the later Indian architecture assumed considerable importance, is in the enormous gopurams of southern India (eg, Minakshi Temple, Madurai ) to read. In Bombay was still being built called in memory of the visit of the British King George V in 1911 the Gateway of India Gateway Building in 1924. The British architect Edwin Lutyens, was based on the design of the 42 -meter high memorial arch of India Gate in New Delhi on the model of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Architecture
Toranas are detached in general and not connected to laterally adjoining buildings ( houses or walls ). The classic Toranas rest on two pillars, which carry a multi-section and slightly curved architrave, which formerly wore a rich figural decoration. It was only in later times also full arch forms were possible.
In the later Hindu and Jain architecture of India, the Torana arches in the small entrance hall ( mukhamandapa ) was a temple on (eg, Nagda, Khajuraho, Mount Abu ). In rarer cases, the supports inside the large vestibules ( mahamandapas ) with torana arches were connected (eg Nagda ).
Integrated torana arch at the entrance to the Lakshmana Temple ( Khajuraho )
Torana arches inside the mandapa of the Sas - Bahu Temple, Nagda
Sculpture
As early as 6/7 Century were placed within toranas Buddha figures. In the heyday of Hindu temple building (. 9th-12th century) were initially quite simply modeled niches designed with their gods portraits as toranas and inflated with elaborately carved and highly fragmented architraves or arcs. Such sculpture ensembles present the respective deities within an archway and thus give them a dignified setting. In Tibet, they form under the name Gyab Yol the back of a - formerly decorated with elephants bearing and sedentary birds - throne seat.
Ajanta ( cave XIX), Buddha in a torana
Nagda, torana niche
Nagda, torana niche
Asia
India was the country of origin for the further spread of Toranas South and East Asia, where they are known in other countries and cultures by other names:
Torii of Itsukushima Shrine in Japan
Hongsalmun in Korea