Why “gopuram” is a great word
GOPURAM — [Noun] A monumental, often ornate, gateway tower at the entrance of a Hindu temple, especially in Southern India. From Tamil கோபுரம் (kōpuram) and Malayalam ഗോപുരം (gōpuraṁ), from Sanskrit गोपुर (gó-pura), from गो (gó, "cow, earth, or city") + पुर (pura, "city, fortress, or dwelling"), thus originally meaning "city-gate" or "cow-protector." Unlike a shikhara, the curvilinear spire crowning a North Indian sanctum, or a torana, a lighter, freestanding ceremonial arch, a gopuram is a pyramidal ascent of stories, a vertical catalogue of cosmology in stucco and stone. It is the teeming cliff-face of carved deities stacked against the sky; it is the tangible threshold where the mundane world is left behind; it is the first sight of the divine precinct from the dusty street. One passes not merely through it, but under its vast, instructive shadow—an architectural preface to a world of ordered cosmology.