Following the examination of East Asian wooden traditions in Chapter 16, Chapter 17 moves southwest to the Indian subcontinent. The title cleverly signals the chapter's main mission: to move beyond the single most famous building—the Taj Mahal—and provide a broader survey of India's rich, complex, and spiritually driven architectural history .
The chapter begins by establishing the deep philosophical and religious roots of Indian architecture. Dietsch likely explains that unlike the Western focus on durable stone monuments for public display, traditional Indian architecture was primarily concerned with creating sacred cosmic diagrams, known as vastu purusha mandalas. These geometric plans were used to align temples with the cardinal directions and the cosmos, making the building a physical representation of the universe. The chapter emphasizes that architecture, sculpture, and religion are inseparable in this tradition; every surface of a temple is typically covered with intricate carvings of deities, mythical creatures, and scenes of daily life, turning the structure into a stone encyclopedia of Hindu cosmology.
Next, the chapter likely traces the evolution of the two great classical temple styles of India: the Nagara style of the north and the Dravida style of the south . Dietsch would explain how to distinguish between them. Nagara temples, common in northern India, are characterized by a beehive-shaped tower called a shikhara that curves upward and is capped with a ribbed, cushion-like stone called an amalaka. In contrast, the Dravida style of the south features a towering, multi-tiered pyramid of progressively smaller stories, known as a gopuram, which often forms the elaborate gateway to a temple complex rather than the main sanctuary itself. The chapter also likely covers the rock-cut architecture of sites like Ajanta and Ellora, where entire temples and monasteries were carved directly out of living rock cliffs.
Finally, the chapter addresses the arrival of Islamic architecture beginning around the 12th century. This fusion produced the distinctive Indo-Islamic style of the Mughal Empire. Here, Dietsch finally discusses the Taj Mahal not in isolation, but as the supreme example of this synthesis—combining the Islamic love of domes, arches, and open gardens with Indian decorative motifs like the lotus and intricate marble lattice screens (jali). The chapter concludes by noting that this pluralistic tradition continued into the British colonial era, which introduced Neoclassical and Gothic Revival buildings, before independence spawned a search for a distinctly modern Indian architecture .
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