Dr. Cathleen Cummings, Associate Professor of Art History, is featured in UAB Magazine this month for her work decoding religious carvings on the eight-century Virupaksha Temple in Pattadakal, India.

As explained in the story, more than a decade of work and almost a dozen trips to India led to her recent book, Decoding a Hindu Temple: Royalty and Religion in the Iconographic Program of the Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal (South Asian Studies Association: 2014).

Dr. Cummings explains how the carvings are not random but have an intent for the viewer. "It seemed like a clear sequence for devotees to follow," she says. "It didn't seem to be random images. There was a particular message that they could take away from it."