Faculty

Professor Aswathanarayana's interdisciplinary research investigates the relationship between architecture, religion, and music, with a particular focus on the sensory and acoustic dimensions of heritage sacred spaces. Specifically, he examines how sacred architecture shapes and is shaped by religious soundscapes, and how these experiences can be reconstructed, analysed, and preserved using digital tools.

His current work focuses on the acoustic characterisation of seven Hindu temples in Southern India. These spaces engage worshipers through complex sonic elements such as bells, conch shells, and Vedic chanting, necessitating analysis methods that move beyond reverberation-based frameworks developed for Western church acoustics to frequency-based frameworks. Thus, through his work, he aims to develop and define new methods of acoustic characterisation appropriate for Hindu worship spaces as well as uncover the influence of religious sound on the interior architectural design of heritage Hindu temples. 

Methodologically, Professor Aswathanarayana's research combines on-site impulse response measurements with computational simulations and virtual reality (VR) modelling to analyse standard and non-standard acoustical parameters. These tools enable immersive reconstructions that support both scholarly inquiry and heritage preservation. He plans to expand this work in three key directions:

• The creation of immersive VR installations of heritage spaces,
• The integration of AI into room-acoustic modelling workflows, and
• Comparative studies of the acoustics of heritage sacred spaces across South Asian religious traditions.

By broadening the scope of architectural acoustics, his work contributes to emerging discourses in virtual reality, digital humanities, religious architecture, and heritage preservation while fostering collaborative, cross-disciplinary research.

• Aswathanarayana, S., and Boren, B. (2025). Acoustic Analysis of two Hindu temples in Southern India. JASA Express Letters, 5(3), 031601. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0036033
• Aswathanarayana, S., and Boren, B. (2024). Acoustics of two Hindu temples in southern India. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 155(3_Supplement), A129-A129. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0027050
• Aswathanarayana, S., and Boren, B. (2025). Resonating rocks: The acoustics of Hindu cave temples. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 157(4_Supplement), A298-A298.
• Aswathanarayana, S. (2021, May). Comparison of Spatialization Techniques with Different Music Genres II. In Audio Engineering Society Convention 150. Audio Engineering Society.
• Aswathanarayana, S. (2020, Oct). Comparison of Spatialization Techniques with Different Music Genres. In Audio Engineering Society Convention 149. Audio Engineering Society.
• Aswathanarayana, S. (2017, May). Effect of a Known Environment on the Estimation of Sound Source Distance. In Audio Engineering Society Convention 142. Audio Engineering Society.
• Aswathanarayana, S., and Roginska, A. (2014, June). I Hear Bangalore3D: Capture and Reproduction of urban sounds of Bangalore using an Ambisonic Microphone. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), New York.

Forthcoming:

• Towards (Re)-Sounding Purandara in the Vittala Temple (Book Chapter in Asian Sound Cultures II: archives, sources, methodologies, terminologies. Published by Routledge)
• Resonating rocks: The acoustics of Hindu cave temples (Journal article. To be submitted to the special issue, The Past Has Ears: Archaeoacoustics and Acoustic Heritage, of the Heritage Science journal)