ABSTRACT
Given the fact that as we have seen above even the pur3Jftc descriptions of heaven themselves exhibit a wide range, we cannot expect to find an exact correspondence between temple and text. But I would like ultimately to leave you with this suggestion: the temple city, a not infrequent feature of the medieval Indian landscape, was indeed heaven on earth. Like heaven, it was populous and built up, containing numerous buildings which were the abodes of the different gods who lived there. But even more suggestive, I would like to ask us to use our imagination and read the individual temples too as heavens on earth. For if we tum vertical elevation into horizontal exten'lion, the temple like heaven was surrounded by outer solid walls (the base); it was watered by two rivers, whom scholars have thus far seen as guardian deities, but who are a consistent feature of the natural topography in descriptions of heavens. If the temple is heaven, we are also in a better position to understand the presence of the navagrahas or nine planets on the door lintels of so many medieval temples. Like the river goddesses, the navagrahas tended to be seen as guardian figures. In fact in puranic descriptions the nine planets circle the heavens, and their presence on the temple would be a simple topographical marker, telling us that we have entered the lands of the gods.
