Architecture is a constant rediscovery of constant human values translated into space. Aldo van Eyck This volume has its origins in a project initiated by a small group of architects and social scientists to write a new history of Indian architecture from an indig- enous perspective – a collective, multidisciplinary effort to rethink the categories through which the discipline has been approached so far and to integrate the sci- ence of architecture with its humanist, animating spirit. Replacing the formalism that has, by and large, predominated in studies of ancient Indian buildings – which are usually analyzed in and of themselves, isolated from their surroundings – the twin analytic this inaugural volume adopts is that of meaning and community. A word about these here to introduce the set of chapters that follow. A project such as the one this volume represents – a new history of indigenous Indian architecture – throws up a host of challenges. Fundamental among these is the problem of definition and that too of terms and concepts crucial to how the project was conceived. In particular, the words ‘indigenous’ and ‘history’ itself are found to be somewhat elusive, if not fraught. While ‘indigenous’ implies originat- ing or occurring naturally in a particular place, in this case native or inherent to India, there could be fears that ‘natural-ness’ or ‘native-ness’ would tend to elide some of the rich diversity in the country that was generated over the centuries by processes including (though not only) immigration and import, as it were, of a number of social groups and non-Indic cultural traditions. However, as this vol- ume will show, while India’s cultural diversity is undeniable, it need not disable any effort to understand unities – recurrent orienting principles of thought or pat- terns of praxis or symbols of signification that equally characterize Indian history 1 INTRODUCTION Towards a semantics of architecture Shonaleeka Kaul 15040-2052-001.indd 1 15040-2052-001.indd 1 3/12/2019 1:22:26 PM 3/12/2019 1:22:26 PM