Sand box technology in ancient temples.

What is sandbox technology? In 1980, Indian archaeological department in association with NIT Warangal started researching on the Kakatiya constructions for the first time ever. That is when this technology first came into notice later it was named as sandbox technology in 1991 in the archaeological department conference.

Ramappa temple

This technology is used at the level of foundation. In normal constructions we make sure that foundation is strong enough to support the weight of construction. But Kakatiyas used a unique mixture as a foundation material.

This composition is–

Sand +powdered mixture of

1)Granite

2)Jaggery

3)Terminalia Chebala

They used to dig the earth 3m deep and pour this unique sand mixture into this pit forming a box-shaped structure called sandbox. And

into this they built heavy and huge constructions.

This sandbox works like a cushion. This sandbox absorbs stress from all sides. So if an earthquake occurs the intensity is greatly reduced at the level of sandbox before it reaches the construction.

In the event of an earthquake , if the vibrations of the earthquake are so high that they passed through this sandbox and reached the construction, in order to keep the stones used in the construction of walls, pillars, rooftops of the temples together from separating, they used Iron dowels. For this purpose, they made small tunnels like holes in all the rocks used for construction and poured melted iron in them. As a result, these dowels hold the rocks together strongly making the total construction fit like a frame and thus act like a metallic skeleton in the flesh of stones.

Source: http://www.sciencebehindindiancultures.com and UNESCO website

A user at the website says:

• Recent past has shown that the Pashupati Nath temple at Kathmandu Nepal stood rock solid on the ground when the Nepal earthquake damaged old city of Bhaktapur Patan in Katmandu.

• Kedarnath temple had no damage from Himalayan boulders that wiped everything around the temple, even Nandi in front of the temple.

• Kutch quake flattened every thing from multi story houses halls to newly built temples of cement and bricks except ancient temples of Kutch including abandoned temples of Lakhpat area in Pakistan bordering Kutch

• world’s largest hindoo brahma vishnu mahesh (later buddha was added)to temple of Ankor Wat in Cambodia built by its hindoo dynasty and builders floating like on water surrounded by man made water canal as temple boundary no earth quake can touch the temple as it automatically aligns to angle and absorbs all vibration even if a atom bomb were to fall close to temple. The massive vibration would absorb causing no damage

• In Karnataka, India at Talakkad Hindoo temple was excavated buried under sand for hundreds of years and today it looks fully preserved including the sculptures around. imagine it got buried how was it 2 be other than some natural phenomenon. archeology dept. of Indian Government has not been able to dig out anything else but the temple.