The Architecture Was Never About the Dark
You walk in from the street, from noise and heat and the ordinary friction of the day, and within three steps the light is gone. Not dimmed. Gone. The garbhagriha, the womb-chamber at the centre of nearly every Hindu temple, admits no windows. The walls are thick stone. The only source of light is a small oil lamp or a camphor flame placed directly before the deity, and even that throws more shadow than illumination. You are standing in almost total darkness, and your eyes, which have been doing the work of navigating the world since you woke up, suddenly have nothing to do.
