TERRACOTTA TEMPLES OF INDIA
Terracotta or Baked Clay has been in constant use from the pre-historic times, and is considered as among the oldest building materials. The absence of stone or any other building material did not prove to be a deterrent to the architects and artisans of the times. Rather, they baked tales in clay tiles, narrating episodes from mythology and life, breathing life into bricks to give rise to a new form of temple architecture that lead to the construction of terracotta temples that were elaborately and intricately clad in high quality square panels of terracotta reliefs. The use of bricks in construction obviously meant that the routine column-beam style of building, characteristic of most early Islamic structures, could be adopted. In West Bengal and scattered to nearby areas, while terracotta objects have been in regular use from ancient times since the Indus Valley Civilization, exquisite terracotta temples gained popularity during the Hindu Revival period under the Krishna bhakti mo