Pillared temple hall, c.1550 (photo)

This temple hall dates from the 1560s. It came from the Madana Gopala Swamy Temple in Madurai, South India, which is still in use today. Temples like this were often large complexes. As well as being spaces of worship, their numerous buildings served multiple other purposes. Open-air halls like this example were used for performances, community gatherings, weddings, and other religious ceremonies. They were spaces of celebration, designed to evoke both the human and the heavenly world. The slabs at the top of the hall tell the story of the Ramayana, a Hindu epic, which tells the story of Rama. In 1912, Adeline Pepper Gibson, daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia family, went to Madurai as part of her honeymoon. There, she bought the great stone carvings from the Madana Gopala Swamy Temple authorities. The blocks were sent by cargo ship to Philadelphia but took four years, arriving in the middle of World War I. Adeline Pepper Gibson died from pneumonia in 1919. That same year, her family donated the carvings to the Pennsylvania Museum, later renamed the Philadelphia Museum of Art.