An architectural question, feature found in India, Thailand, even China

[Kyriakos]

Recently i got to create a few buildings i could never model before, due to the old modelling program being hard to use. Blender is good for this kind of thing, since it lets you choose how many edges an object has.

And i run across this image on the web, of an indian temple:

The roof posed a problem, since it is quite un-western, and at first i did not know how to make it. But then i thought that i could try a sphere, with four edges... Turns out it is EXACTLY that.

And it got me thinking, how could the ancient indians have thought of a 'sphere' morphed into an object that retains some parts of a sphere, but has four edges, as important enough to feature on many of their temples?

Anyone got information about this? I do not know much about the relation between a circle and a square, apart from the famous image by Michelangelo, but this is not exactly that, since here you do not have a circle but a sphere, and also not a square per se, but a cube. So i am very interested in reading what those signify, and why their unison was deemed as holy (apparently; since it exists as the tower to many temples) by the ancient indians.

Also the Thai use this form sometimes, as in the celebrated Angkor Wat.

There are three chinese pagodas of the Tang era which, again, have a variation of this.

 

[Cutlass]

If it's a half-sphere squared off like that, then what it really is is an arch with a second arch at right angles to it. I think just about any of the ancient peoples who built with stone understood arches.

 

[Kyriakos]

However it does not seem to be common (or found at all?) In Europe. And i think it is not a very intuitive shape to begin with, which is why i wondered if it had any special significance.

 

[Cutlass]

I can't speak to significance. I don't have any insist to the cultures. But it's also not unique to that region. Though it's not as common, some of the Spanish Mission architecture looks a little like that. And I've seen a it used a few other places.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's possible that it was originally played some structural role, and just became How A Temple Should Look, so they were retained even when they stopped being structurally necessary. You get a lot of that in traditional architecture, the most famous example being the way Greek temples had lots of features derived from wooden construction techniques that hadn't been used for centuries.

 

[Tee Kay]

Also the Thai use this form sometimes, as in the celebrated Angkor Wat.

You mean Khmer