The Indian Temple Traceries by M. A. Dhaky, dean of Indian architectural historians, is a fascinating study of the variety to be found within a single element of the fabric of Indian temples—the jāla or jālaka (Sanskrit), jālī (Hindi), tracery, pierced screen, grill, or lattice. Dhaky’s starting point is the terminology of the Sanskrit architectural treatises, which provide names for the types of jāla but generally do not define them. Providing plausible identifications depends not only on comparing the terms in different texts but on an encyclopedic knowledge of the appearance of jāla through the ages. Dhaky’s analysis is accompanied by 348 illustrations of jāla at Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Islamic, and other structures, from all parts of India (plus a few from Java), ranging in date from the second century BCE to the early twentieth century. Nearly all the photographs were taken by the survey team of the American Institute of Indian Studies and are a demonstration of what an extraordinarily important resource the institute photo archive has become. In Dhaky’s summary chart, thirteen texts are listed along with sixteen different jāla types; each text names anywhere from four to ten types, with a terminology not consistent from text to...