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over thousands of years. But when, under the influence of Westerners, we can began to doubt that for the first time, our temple doors were made bigger and windows were installed. We modernized the temples; but in doing so we converted them into ordinary houses.
The acoustics and the architecture of a temple have a deep connection.
There is a specific stipulation as to the angle at which a sound is to be made. There are stipulations for making a sound while standing and while sitting. It is even stipulated which sounds can be made only while lying down, because the impact of the sound will have a certain affect when made standing, and will change again when made while you are sitting down. It is also clarified which sounds should be made together and which are to be made separately. So it is interesting to note the confusion that was created when vedic literature was translated into Western languages.
Western languages emphasize the linguistic rather than the phonetic, whereas the vedic view gives more importance not so much to the meaning of the written or spoken word as to the special sound it should produce, and the composition of that sound. Hence the Sanskrit language is phonetic, not linguistic; the emphasis is more on the sound than on the word. And so, for thousands of years it was felt that these valuable scriptures should not be written down, because it was natural that no sooner would it be written down than the emphasis on sound would be lost. The insistence was that the knowledge be passed on by word of mouth, rather than in writing, because in writing words down -- they would be mere words, and the subtle sensations associated with the sound would be lost and so become meaningless.
If we write down the word Rama, those who are reading it will say the word in many different ways. Someone will put more emphasis on "r" and someone else, more emphasis on "a," and still somebody else will put more emphasis on "m." It will depend on the individual reader. So as soon as a word is written down, the effect of sound is destroyed. Now, to understand the effect of the sound of those words, a whole decoding exercise to pronounce the words
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