Dravidian Architecture

This book is the product of extensive study and research of the architecture of the southern part of the country that extends between the Coromandel Coast from Lake Pulicat to Cape Comorian. The book considers the land that is entirely occupied by the Tamils. It is with a view to stimulate interest in one of the subjects comprised in the term Archaeology, and direct that interest into fruitful fields of work that this little handbook has rendered into English and published in the present form. Dravidian architecture style is an architectural idiom in Hindu temple architecture that emerged in the southern part of the Indian subcontinent or South India and in Sri Lanka, reaching its final form by the sixteenth century. Mentioned as one of three styles of temple building in the ancient book Vastu shastra, the majority of the existing structures are located in the Southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Various kingdoms and empires such as the Cholas, the Chera, the Kakatiyas, the Pandyas, the Pallavas, the Gangas, the Kadambas, the Rashtrakutas, the Chalukyas, the Hoysalas, and Vijayanagara Empire among others have made substantial contribution to the evolution of the Dravidian architecture. This book is very useful.