Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains: Architecture, Religion, and Nature in the Central Himalayas. By Nachiket Chanchani,. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. xiii, 271 pp. ISBN: 9780295744513 (cloth).

Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains: Architecture, Religion, and Nature in the Central Himalayas. By Nachiket Chanchani. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. xiii, 271 pp. ISBN: 9780295744513 (cloth).

The Himalaya generally, and the central region sourcing the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers in particular, is animated by cultural beliefs and practices that constitute a richly textured sacred geography. Although the region is of tremendous importance in the landscape of South Asian pilgrimage and ascetic world renunciation, there has not been a comprehensive study of this sacred geography's cultural history until the publication of this beautifully written, deeply engrossing, and insightfully interdisciplinary book.

As the title, Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains: Architecture, Religion, and Nature in the Central Himalayas, suggests, Nachiket Chanchani takes a broad, panoramic perspective on the way in which temple architecture in the central Himalaya must be understood with reference to the natural landscape of the mountains as well as the historical landscape of the Subcontinent. He explains how, why, and when the central Himalaya came to be regarded as deva bhumī, “land of the gods.” His analysis focuses on the architectural design and construction of temples in the mountains but then pushes inward and expands outward, providing us with carefully crafted interpretations of iconography, inscriptions, engravings, and the various material manifestations of god in wood, water, and stone.

The book comprises five chapters, an introduction and conclusion, and a useful appendix that identifies temple sites in the central Himalaya. In broad terms, the organization of the chapters follows the chronology of early exploration,...