Kīrtimukha across religions and time

The kīrtimukha or ‘Face of Glory’ is one of the most recurring motifs in the Indian figurative vocabulary. Over the centuries, the beastly face has become a formal archetype which has spread throughout Hindu, Jain and Buddhist architecture. The apotropaic element, terrible in its expression, is often depicted at the entrances of religious monuments where, with its gaping mouth, it devours and protects the devotee who crosses the thresholds. Beginning in the 12th century, the Muslim invasions gave rise to a new political regime. The desecration of temples was an integral part of the Islamic conquest, since the temple was the place where the political power of the Hindu kings was legitimized by the deity: destroying it meant destroying the king’s power. Normally, upon completing new territorial conquests, the Muslim Sultan used to order the construction of mosques employing spoils of the destroyed temples. However, since Hindu and Jain architecture was widely inhabited by several figurative elements, which are not allowed within Islamic religious monuments, it was necessary to deface the material before reusing it. Nevertheless, the chisel of Muslim artisans often curiously spared one figurative element: the kīrtimukha. Thus, the ‘Face of Glory’ found its way into the Islamic architecture of the early conquest period. Why is this element the sole survivor of the Indian figurative vocabulary? The paper proposes some hypotheses.