History · Ch 4 — Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings — Cultural Developments
Building temples
Building temples
The first temples to house images of gods and goddesses were being built around the same time that the great stupas at Sanchi and elsewhere were taking their final form. This was a major shift in religious practice — instead of only venerating relics or symbols, worshippers now came face to face with the deity in a dedicated home.
The earliest temple was a simple, small square room called the garbhagriha (literally "womb-house"). It had a single doorway through which the worshipper entered to offer worship directly to the image placed inside. Over time, a tall tower-like structure called the shikhara was built directly over this central shrine. The walls of these early temples were often decorated with sculpture.
Later temples became far more elaborate. They added assembly halls for gatherings, massive outer walls and towering gateways, and even arrangements for supplying water. This growing complexity is also discussed in Chapter 7 of the textbook.
The word shikhara means "mountain peak" — the tower was meant to evoke the sacred mountain, the axis of the world.
A unique feature of early temples: rock-cut caves
Some of the earliest temples were not built from blocks of stone but were hollowed out of huge rocks, creating artificial caves. This tradition was very old. Some of the earliest rock-cut caves were constructed in the third century BCE on the orders of Asoka for renouncers of the Ajivika sect. The tradition evolved through many stages and reached its peak much later, in the eighth century, with the carving out of an entire temple — the Kailashnatha temple at Ellora (a name of Shiva). The chief sculptor's amazement is recorded in a copperplate inscription: "Oh how did I make it!"
Key examples mentioned in the text
| Site | Period | Feature |
|---|---|---|
| Deogarh (Uttar Pradesh) | c. fifth century CE | A temple showing remains of the shikhara and the entrance to the garbhagriha; also a famous sculpture of Vishnu reclining on the serpent Sheshnag |
| Mahabalipuram (Tamil Nadu) | c. sixth century CE | An image of Durga, showing how artists depicted movement |
| Ellora | c. eighth century CE | The Kailashnatha temple, carved entirely out of rock |
A closing reflection: can we "see" everything? …
The figure shows an early Gupta-period temple at Deogarh in Uttar Pradesh, dating to around the fifth century CE. This is one of the earliest surviving examples of a nagara-style temple, and the photograph is taken from an angle that lets you see both the main structure and the remains of its tower.
At the centre of the image is the garbhagriha — the small, square sanctum that housed the main image of the deity. The entrance to this shrine is visible as a single doorway, exactly as described in the textbook: an early temple was just this one room, with no elaborate halls or gateways yet. Above the garbhagriha rises the shikhara, the tall, curving tower that became the hallmark of north Indian temple architecture. In this fifth-century example, the shikhara is still relatively low and simple compared to later medieval towers, but its basic form is already present — a gently curved spire that tapers upward.
The temple walls are decorated with sculpted panels. One of the most famous is the large relief of Vishnu reclining on the serpent Sheshnag, which is shown in a separate figure (Fig. 4.26) but is part of the same temple complex. The Deogarh temple is dedicated to Vishnu (it is often called the Dashavatara Temple), and the exterior walls carry narrative panels depicting episodes from Vishnu’s avatars. …
The figure shows a stone relief panel from Deogarh, Uttar Pradesh, carved around the fifth century CE. It depicts the god Vishnu lying on the coils of the cosmic serpent Sheshnag. Vishnu is shown reclining peacefully, with Sheshnag’s many hoods forming a canopy over his head. The serpent’s body is coiled beneath him, serving as both a bed and a protective shelter. This is a classic representation of Vishnu in his anantashayana (endless sleep) pose, where he rests on the serpent in the cosmic ocean between cycles of creation.
The sculpture is part of the exterior wall decoration of a temple at Deogarh — the same site shown in Figure 4.25, which is a small early temple with a shikhara (tower) and a garbhagriha (inner sanctum). The relief panel is carved into the temple wall, illustrating how early temple builders used sculpture to tell stories and display divine imagery. The figure is not a standalone piece; it is integrated into the architecture, meant to be seen by worshippers as they circumambulated the temple.
This image teaches two key points from the chapter. First, it shows the shift from stupa-centred worship to temple-centred worship in the Gupta period (c. 300–600 CE). Temples were now built to house images of gods, and their walls became canvases for narrative sculpture. Second, it demonstrates the growing importance of Vaishnavism (worship of Vishnu) in this period. The choice of Vishnu reclining on Sheshnag is a specific mythological scene — it refers to the god’s role as the preserver who rests between cosmic cycles, a concept central to Puranic Hinduism. …
The figure shows the entrance to an artificial cave at Barabar in Bihar, dating to roughly the third century BCE. The cave is not a natural formation — it was hollowed out of solid rock on the orders of Emperor Asoka, and it was made specifically for renouncers of the Ajivika sect. The most striking feature visible in the image is the polished surface of the cave entrance. This polish is not a later addition; it was part of the original carving, and the Barabar caves are famous for this exceptionally smooth, mirror-like finish achieved on hard granite. The entrance itself is a simple, rectangular doorway cut into the rock face, with no elaborate ornamentation or sculpture around it. The cave interior, though not fully visible in the figure, would have been a single chamber — a plain, austere space suited for the ascetic lifestyle of the Ajivikas.
What this figure teaches is that the tradition of building artificial caves in India is very old, predating the more famous rock-cut temples of later centuries. The Barabar caves represent one of the earliest surviving examples of this practice. They also show that Asoka’s patronage extended beyond Buddhism — he built these caves for a non-Buddhist sect, the Ajivikas, who were known for their strict asceticism. The polished surface is a technical marvel of ancient Indian stone-working, demonstrating that masons of the Mauryan period had mastered the art of dressing and polishing hard stone to a high degree. This cave is not a temple in the later sense (it has no image of a deity, no garbhagriha, no shikhara) but rather a dwelling for renouncers. It thus provides a contrast to the temple-building traditions that would develop centuries later, as described in the textbook section: the early sq …
The Kailashnatha Temple at Ellora is not a built structure in the usual sense — it is a monolithic excavation, carved top-down from a single basalt cliff. The figure shows a vast, free-standing temple complex that was cut entirely out of solid rock, starting from the roof and working downward. This is the culmination of the cave-cutting tradition that began with simple rock-cut cells for ascetics in the third century BCE.
What the image captures is the temple’s central shrine with its tall, pyramidal shikhara (tower) rising above the garbhagriha (inner sanctum). Around this main shrine, the rock has been carved away to create an open courtyard, with subsidiary shrines, pillars, and sculpted panels lining the walls. The entire complex — including the gateway, the mandapa (pillared hall), and the surrounding cloisters — is hewn from the same rock mass, with no separate stones added. The figure also shows the deep, shadowed recesses and the intricate carvings that cover almost every surface: deities, mythical creatures, and scenes from the Puranas. …