Libbie (Elizabeth) Mills

Libbie Mills is a Sanskritist whose principal research interest is in the architectural instruction given in North Indian early Shaiva Tantra installation manuals. Her work features the first exposition of what the material holds and, by looking from text to extant buildings, introduces new dating tools, valuable for these texts and for others of their kind.

From the basis of this textual study, she examines domestic and temple building in the modern period, in both South Asia and its diaspora. There are strong connections to be drawn between the procedures taught in the early records that she treats and those followed in modern construction. It is notable that building theory has been enduring and consistent.

The anatomical terminology with which the texts characterize their building plans has drawn her to examine Ayurvedic medical literature.Libbie hopes her work can contribute to a lively conversation around building in its traditional and modern forms.