Shaiva Mounuments at Pattadakal

Client : Tattva heritage foundation

Book Design

Shaiva Monuments at Pattadakal is a two-volume scholarly documentation developed with Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat, a French Indologist, Sanskrit scholar, and Padma Shri awardee, and Dr. Vasundhara Kavali Filliozat, and published by Tattva Heritage Foundation. The volumes are based on decades of research into texts, inscriptions, architecture, and sculpture, and include an extensively cross-referenced photographic reference.

The design is built around an adaptable grid that connects the two volumes as one integrated system. Book 1 combines the narrative, architectural drawings, captions, and key images, creating the scholarly framework through which the temples are understood. Book 2 extends this system as a photographic reference, presenting the same images at a larger scale for closer visual study. This reciprocal structure makes it easy to move between research, drawing, and photographic detail without losing one’s place.

Within the photographic volume, care was given to the sequence and placement of images. Scale, height, and eyeline were considered in relation to the preceding and following photographs, creating a measured visual rhythm and a stronger sense of the temples’ physical presence.