Temple Architecture and Sculpture

Chapters 3–5 showed stupas, caves and wall paintings. This chapter — with Chapter 4, the most exam-heavy in the book — turns to the structural temple from about the fifth to the fourteenth century, region by region: central, western, eastern India and the hills; the Dravida south; the experimental Deccan; and finally Buddhist and Jain monuments. It ends with three feature pages: the Mahabalipuram relief, Ravana shaking Mount Kailasha at Ellora, and the Lakshmana temple at Khajuraho.

• Links in this book: Chapter 4 (Ellora, Elephanta, Badami caves) leads in; Chapter 5 covers the paintings on these temples’ walls (Thanjavur, Lepakshi); Chapter 7 covers the bronze images made for them; Chapter 8 turns to Indo-Islamic buildings.
• Links to Themes in Indian History: Theme Four (early temples, Deogarh, Kailashnatha, Mahabalipuram); Theme Seven (Vijayanagara’s temples, Virupaksha, Vitthala); Theme Six (bhakti and the temple).
• UPSC: dozens of Prelims questions — orders of temple architecture (1986, 1995, 2012, 2026), Panchayatana (2014), dynasty–site matches (1983, 1988, 1991, 1997), Pallava rock-cut temples (1982, 1990), Konark (1979, 2006), Hoysala (2001), Gomateshwara (1982, 1994, 2002, 2009); Mains on the Cholas (2013, 2022, 2024), the Pallavas (2024), temple sculpture and social life (2022), the Palas (2020) and Vijayanagara (2026).

• Basic temple: garbhagriha + mandapa + shikhara/vimana + vahana on axis; shrines sandhara, nirandhara, sarvatobhadra; early sites Deogarh, Eran, Nachna-Kuthara, Udayagiri.
• Nagara (north): platform, curving shikhara, amalaka + kalasha, no big walls; sub-types latina/rekha-prasada, phamsana, valabhi. Dravida (south): compound wall, gopuram, stepped vimana, dvarapalas, tank. Vesara: hybrid.
• Central India: Deogarh panchayatana; Khajuraho (Chandelas) — Lakshmana (954), Kandariya Mahadeo; Chausath Yogini. West: Modhera Sun temple (1026, Solanki), surya kund.
• East: Pala/Sena styles; Bengal terracotta and Bangla roof; Odisha — deul, jagamohana; Konark (c. 1240) chariot of 12 pairs of wheels and 7 horses. Hills: Pandrethan, Chamba, Jageshwar.
• South: Pallava Mamallapuram (Narasimhavarman I), Shore temple (Rajasimha); Chola Brihadeswara (Rajaraja, c. 1009). Deccan: Aihole, Badami, Pattadakal (Chalukya), Kailashnath Ellora (Rashtrakuta), Hoysala star plans.
• Buddhist and Jain: Mahabodhi, Nalanda (mahavihara), Sirpur, Ratnagiri, Nagapattinam; Gomateshwara (Sravanabelagola), Dilwara (Mount Abu), Palitana.

Most surviving ancient art is religious, because homes and their contents were of perishable wood and clay; village and forest shrines of local cults, also not of stone, have vanished too. While stupas continued, Brahmanical temples and images began to be built, decorated with Puranic myths, each with a principal image. Shrines were of three kinds: sandhara (with a pradakshinapatha), nirandhara (without), and sarvatobhadra (accessible from all sides). Early sites: Deogarh (Uttar Pradesh), Eran, Nachna-Kuthara and Udayagiri near Vidisha (Madhya Pradesh) — simple structures of a veranda, a hall and a shrine at the rear.

The basic form: (i) the garbhagriha, a small cubicle with a single entrance (later larger) housing the main icon; (ii) the mandapa, a portico or colonnaded hall for many worshippers; (iii) in freestanding temples a mountain-like spire — a curving shikhara in the north, a pyramidal vimana in the south; (iv) the vahana (the deity’s mount) with a standard pillar or dhvaja, placed on the axis before the sanctum. Two broad orders: Nagara (north) and Dravida (south); some scholars add Vesara, a selective mix. As temples grew, more surfaces for sculpture came from additive geometry — rhythmically projecting, symmetrical walls and niches — without breaking the basic plan.

Iconography is the branch of art history that identifies images by their symbols and myths; the myth may stay constant for centuries while its use at a site responds to local social, political or geographical context. Each region and period had its own style. Placement is planned: Ganga and Yamuna at the garbhagriha entrance in a Nagara temple; dvarapalas on the gateways or gopurams of Dravida temples; mithunas, navagrahas and yakshas at entrances as guardians; forms of the main deity on the outer walls of the sanctum; ashtadikpalas facing the eight directions on outer walls; subsidiary shrines for the deity’s family or incarnations; and ornament — gavaksha, vyala/yali, kalpa-lata, amalaka, kalasha — in set places.

In north India the whole temple usually stands on a stone platform with steps; unlike the south it seldom has elaborate boundary walls or gateways. Early temples had one tower; later ones several; the garbhagriha is always under the tallest. Sub-types follow the shikhara: (1) latina or rekha-prasada — square at the base, walls curving inward to a point; (2) phamsana — broader and shorter, roofed by slabs rising on a straight incline to a single point (often used for mandapas while the sanctum is latina); later latina buildings grew complex, with clustered towers like mountain peaks; (3) valabhi — rectangular with a wagon-vaulted roof, an older form also seen in the apsidal chaitya halls.

Temples of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are mostly of sandstone. Among the oldest structural Gupta temples are two modest shrines, each with four pillars supporting a small porch-like mandapa before a small garbhagriha: one at Udayagiri (near Vidisha, part of a Hindu cave complex) and one at Sanchi near the stupa — the first temple with a flat roof, showing parallel developments in Hindu and Buddhist architecture.

Deogarh (Lalitpur district, Uttar Pradesh), built in the early sixth century according to the text, is a classic late Gupta temple in the panchayatana style: a main shrine on a rectangular plinth with four subsidiary shrines at the corners. Its tall, curvilinear latina shikhara makes it an early classic Nagara temple. It faces west (unusual) with Ganga on the left and Yamuna on the right of its doorway. Three reliefs of Vishnu: Sheshashayana (south), Nara-Narayana (east), Gajendramoksha (west). Because of its Vishnu imagery it was assumed to be a Dashavatara temple, though the dedication of the four corner shrines is unknown.

Khajuraho (Chandela kings, tenth century — about 400 years after Deogarh). The Lakshmana temple, dedicated to Vishnu, dated 954: on a high platform reached by stairs, with four smaller temples at the corners; shikharas rising in a curved pyramidal fashion to an amalaka and kalasha; projecting balconies and verandas. The Kandariya Mahadeo temple is the epitome of central Indian temple architecture. Khajuraho is known for erotic sculpture: NCERT explains that erotic expression was given importance alongside spiritual pursuit as part of a larger cosmic whole, and that mithuna images were considered auspicious, placed at entrances, on outer walls, or between mandapa and shrine. Figures are in almost full relief, with sharp noses, prominent chins, long slanting eyes and eyebrows. Most temples are Hindu; some are Jain; the Chausath Yogini temple, earlier than the tenth century, has small square shrines of roughly hewn granite, dedicated to goddesses of the rising Tantric worship; yogini temples (7th–10th c.) existed across Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.

The feature page (pages 100–101). All Khajuraho temples are sandstone, patronised by the Chandellas. The Lakshmana temple, completed by 954 per an inscription at its base, is a panchayatana on a heavy plinth: ardhamandapa (porch), mandapa, mahamandapa and garbhagriha, each with its own roof rising towards the back; projecting balconies for light and air; sculpture on the outer walls and round the circumambulatory path; many erotic sculptures on the plinth wall; a Chaturmukha Vishnu in the sanctum; and corner shrines with Vishnu in three and Surya in one, identified from the lintel images.

Temples of Gujarat, Rajasthan and western Madhya Pradesh are too many to survey. Sandstone is commonest; grey-to-black basalt appears in some 10th–12th-century sculpture; soft white marble is famous in 10th–12th-century Jain temples at Mount Abu and the fifteenth-century temple at Ranakpur. Samlaji (Gujarat) shows earlier regional traditions mixing with a post-Gupta style, with many grey schist sculptures of the sixth–eighth centuries (dated by style; patronage debated).

The Sun temple at Modhera was built in 1026 by Bhimdev I of the Solanki dynasty. In front is a huge rectangular stepped tank, the surya kund — ‘perhaps the grandest temple tank in India’, about a hundred square metres, with 108 miniature shrines among its steps. An ornamental torana leads to the sabha mandapa, open on all sides. Gujarat’s woodcarving tradition shows in the lavish carving, but the central shrine’s walls are plain: the temple faces east, and at the equinoxes the sun shines straight into it.

The history of temples in the North-East and Bengal is hard to study because many ancient buildings were renovated; terracotta was the main medium (also for plaques of Buddhist and Hindu deities) until the seventh century. Assam: a sixth-century door frame from DaParvatia (near Tezpur) and sculptures from Rangagora Tea Estate (near Tinsukia) show the Gupta idiom; by the 12th–14th centuries the Tai migration from Upper Burma mixed with the Pala style to create the Ahom style around Guwahati. The Kamakhya temple, a Shakti Peeth, was built in the seventeenth century. Bengal: sculpture of the 9th–11th centuries (Bengal, Bangladesh, Bihar) is the Pala style; mid-11th to mid-13th, the Sena style. The Palas patronised Buddhist monasteries; temples express a local Vanga style. The ninth-century Siddheshvara Mahadeva temple at Barakar (Burdwan) has a tall curving shikhara and large amalaka (early Pala). Many 9th–12th-century temples at Telkupi (Purulia) were submerged by dams. Basalt and chlorite pillars and niches influenced the first Bengal Sultanate buildings at Gaur and Pandua. The curved bamboo-hut roof became the Bangla roof, even used in Mughal buildings. Seventeenth-century terracotta brick temples — mixing hut forms, Pala forms and Islamic arches and domes — survive around Vishnupur, Bankura, Burdwan and Birbhum.

Odisha. Temples fall into three orders — rekha deul, pidha deul and khakhara (NCERT: ‘rekhapida, pidhadeul and khakra’). Most major sites lie in ancient Kalinga — Bhubaneswar (Tribhuvanesvara), Puri and Konark — and form a distinct Nagara sub-style. The shikhara, called the deul, is vertical almost to the top and then curves sharply inward; it is preceded by the jagamohana (mandapa). The plan is square, becoming circular in the crowning mastaka, so the spire looks nearly cylindrical. Exteriors are lavishly carved, interiors bare; boundary walls are usual.

Konark. On the Bay of Bengal stand the ruins of the Sun temple, built around 1240. Its shikhara, said to have reached 70 m, fell in the nineteenth century. The jagamohana survives (no longer accessible) and is said to be the largest enclosed space in Hindu architecture. On a high base the walls carry twelve pairs of wheels with spokes and hubs, and seven horses at the entrance stairs, so the temple resembles the Sun god’s chariot. On the southern wall is a massive Surya in green stone; there were said to be three, each of a different stone, on three walls, while the fourth had the door through which the sun’s rays entered the garbhagriha.

A unique architecture developed in Kumaon, Garhwal, Himachal and Kashmir. Kashmir’s closeness to Gandhara brought strong Gandhara influence by the fifth century, mixed with Gupta and post-Gupta traditions from Sarnath, Mathura, Gujarat and Bengal; pundits and monks travelled between the hills and Banaras, Nalanda and even Kanchipuram. Local wooden buildings with pitched roofs meant that the garbhagriha and shikhara might be latina while the mandapa kept an older wooden form; some temples take a pagoda shape. The Karkota period was the high point in Kashmir: Pandrethan (8th–9th c.), probably a Shiva temple, stands on a plinth in the middle of a tank, with a peaked roof sloping outward for snow, modest ornament — a row of elephants at the base and a decorated doorway. At Chamba, the Lakshana Devi temple’s Mahishasuramardini and Narasimha images show post-Gupta influence and Kashmir’s metal tradition (a yellowish zinc–copper alloy); an inscription dates it to Meruvarman (7th c.). In Kumaon, Jageshwar (near Almora) and Champavat (near Pithoragarh) are classic Nagara.

A Dravida temple is enclosed by a compound wall with a central entrance gateway, the gopuram. The main tower, the vimana, is a stepped pyramid; ‘shikhara’ means only the crowning element — a small stupika or octagonal cupola (equivalent to amalaka and kalasha). Fierce dvarapalas guard the entrance; a large tank often lies inside the complex; subsidiary shrines are built into the main tower or stand separately; clustered towers were not popular. At the most sacred temples the sanctum may have one of the smallest towers, being the oldest part; as towns grew, new and taller walls and gopurams were added — Srirangam (Tiruchirapalli) has seven concentric enclosures. Temple towns — Kanchipuram, Thanjavur, Madurai, Kumbakonam — made temples rich administrative centres controlling land (8th–12th c.). Plan types: kuta/caturasra (square), shala/ayatasra (rectangular), gaja-prishta/vrittayata (elliptical, apsidal, from the chaitya with its nasi), vritta (circular) and ashtasra (octagonal), chosen to suit the deity and often combined.

The Pallavas were active in Andhra from the second century CE and moved south to Tamil Nadu; their history is clearest in the sixth–eighth centuries. Mostly Shaiva, they also left Vaishnava shrines and were influenced by Deccan Buddhism. Early buildings are usually assumed to be rock-cut and later ones structural, though structural building was known throughout. Early works are attributed to Mahendravarman I, contemporary of the Chalukya Pulakesin II. His son Narasimhavarman I (Mamalla), who came to the throne around 640, avenged his father’s defeat by Pulakesin II and began most of the work at Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram). The Shore temple came later, probably under Narasimhavarman II (Rajasimha), 700–728 CE. It faces the ocean to the east but houses three shrines — two to Shiva (facing east and west) and one to Vishnu as Anantashayana — suggesting additions over time. The compound has a tank, an early gopuram and Nandi figures on the walls, worn by salt air.

The Cholas. The Rajarajeswara or Brihadeswara temple at Thanjavur, completed around 1009 by Rajaraja Chola, is called by NCERT the largest and tallest of all Indian temples. Over a hundred important Chola temples survive. Its multi-storeyed pyramidal vimana rises about 70 m (NCERT) to a monolithic shikhara, an octagonal dome-shaped stupika. Here, for the first time, appear two large gopuras with a sculptural programme planned with the temple. Nandis mark the corners of the shikhara; the kalasha alone is about three metres high; hundreds of stucco figures decorate the vimana, some perhaps added in the Maratha period. The deity is Shiva as a huge linga in a two-storeyed sanctum, whose surrounding walls carry murals and sculpture (Chapter 5).

In regions like Karnataka builders used both northern and southern styles; a hybrid, popular after the mid-seventh century, is called Vesara in some ancient texts. By about 750 CE the Rashtrakutas took over the Deccan from the early western Chalukyas. Their greatest achievement is the Kailashnath temple at Ellora, the culmination of a millennium of rock-cut architecture: a complete Dravida building with a Nandi shrine, a gopuram-like gateway, cloisters, subsidiary shrines, staircases and a vimana about 30 m high — all carved from the living rock of one hill. Its sculpture is dynamic, often larger than life.

The feature: Ravana shaking Mount Kailasha (left wall of Cave 16, 8th century). In the lower tier the many-headed, many-armed Ravana heaves the mountain, his arms spread in a hollowed chamber, one leg pushed in; above, in three frames, Shiva and Parvati sit at the centre — Parvati leaning towards Shiva in alarm — with attendants, active ganas, and celestials watching in ‘frozen movement’. NCERT stresses pronounced volume, deep recession, light and shade, slender but heavy torsos and figures woven together.

The Chalukyas. Pulakesin I founded the western Chalukya kingdom around Badami in 543; the early western Chalukyas ruled most of the Deccan until superseded by the Rashtrakutas in the mid-eighth century. Early activity was rock-cut, later structural. The earliest is probably the Ravana Phadi cave at Aihole, with a Nataraja amid larger-than-life saptamatrikas (three to his left, four to his right): slim bodies, long oval faces, very tall cylindrical crowns, short dhotis with incised pleats — unlike contemporary western Deccan or Vakataka styles (Paunar, Ramtek). Hybridity was the hallmark. At Pattadakal, the most elaborate is the Virupaksha temple, built in the reign of Vikramaditya II (733–44) by his chief queen Loka Mahadevi; the Papanatha temple is another. Mahakuta (5 km from Badami) and the Swarga Brahma temple at Alampur assimilate northern styles. The Durga temple at Aihole has an apsidal shrine recalling chaitya halls, a later-style veranda and a Nagara-like shikhara. The Lad Khan temple at Aihole seems inspired by wooden-roofed hill temples, in stone.

The Hoysalas. As Chola and Pandya power waned, the Hoysalas of Karnataka, centred at Mysore, became the leading patrons; of about a hundred temples, three are most discussed — Belur, Halebid and Somnathpuram. Their plans grow so many projecting angles that they look like a star (stellate plan). Made of soft soapstone, they are carved with jewel-like detail. The Hoysaleshvara temple at Halebid, built in dark schist by the Hoysala king in 1150, is a double building with a large mandapa for music and dance, each part preceded by a Nandi pavilion; its tower (and Belur’s) fell long ago — miniature versions at the entrances show what they were like. In the bottom frieze of hundreds of elephants with mahouts, it is said no two are alike. Hoysala temples are sometimes called Vesara.

Vijayanagara (‘city of victory’, founded 1336) drew travellers such as Niccolo de Conti, the Portuguese Domingo Paes, Fernao Nuniz and Duarte Barbosa, and the Persian envoy Abd al-Razzaq. Its architecture synthesises Dravida temple building with Islamic styles of the neighbouring sultanates; its sculpture seeks Chola ideals but sometimes shows foreigners. Its ruins of the late 15th–early 16th centuries record an age of wealth and cultural fusion.

From the fifth to the fourteenth century, Buddhist and Jain building was equally vibrant: Ellora has all three faiths; Badami, Khajuraho and Kannauj have two side by side. After the Gupta empire broke up, Magadha (Bihar and Bengal) stayed unified; in the eighth century the Palas rose, and Dharmapala built an empire by defeating the Pratiharas, its wealth from Ganga-plain agriculture and international trade. At Bodhgaya, the first shrine at the Bodhi tree is said to be Ashoka’s; the vedika is post-Mauryan (c. 100 BCE); many niche sculptures are eighth-century Pala; the present Mahabodhi temple is largely a colonial-period reconstruction of a seventh-century design — narrow like Nagara but rising without curving like Dravida.

Nalanda is a mahavihara — a complex of monasteries — only partly excavated. Xuan Zang records that Kumaragupta I founded a monastery in the fifth century. Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana were taught; monks came from China, Tibet, Central Asia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma and carried home small sculptures and illustrated manuscripts, shaping Buddhist art across Asia. Nalanda’s stucco, stone and bronze sculpture grew from Sarnath Gupta art; by the ninth century a distinct Nalanda school emerged — precise, ordered, uncrowded, three-dimensional, with detailed back slabs and delicate ornament. Nalanda bronzes (7th/8th–12th c.) outnumber those of all other eastern sites. Early images show Mahayana deities (standing Buddhas, Manjushri Kumara, Avalokiteshvara, Naga-Nagarjuna); in the late 11th–12th centuries, as a tantric centre, Vajrayana deities (Vajrasharada, Khasarpana Avalokiteshvara); crowned Buddhas mostly after the tenth century. Sirpur (Chhattisgarh, 550–800) is an early Odisha-style site with Hindu and Buddhist shrines. Later monasteries flourished at Lalitagiri, Vajragiri (Udayagiri) and Ratnagiri (Odisha), and the port of Nagapattinam remained Buddhist into the Chola period, with Chola-style bronzes and stone images (10th c.).

Jain sites. Jains built across India except in the hills; the oldest pilgrimage sites are in Bihar. In the Deccan, Ellora and Aihole; in central India, Deogarh, Khajuraho, Chanderi, Gwalior. At Sravanabelagola (Karnataka), the granite Gomateshwara (Bahubali), about 18 m (57 ft) high, was commissioned by Chamundaraya, general and minister of the Ganga kings of Mysore. The Jain temples at Mount Abu, built by Vimal Shah, have plain exteriors and exuberant marble interiors, deeply undercut into lace-like patterns, with unique ceilings and graceful brackets. The Shatrunjaya hills near Palitana (Kathiawar, Gujarat) carry scores of temples.

Closing points. Silver and gold images were melted down; wood and ivory perished; paint faded — so survivals are a fraction. These projects needed architects, builders, sculptors and painters together. Temples became spaces for music and dance, and from the tenth century large landowners with administrative roles; bhakti and tantra transformed all three religions.

Mahabalipuram, a Pallava coastal town, has rock-cut and structural temples mostly of the seventh and eighth centuries. The great relief, about 30 m long and 15 m high, uses a natural cleft as a channel for water, collecting in a tank in front. Readings differ: the Descent of the Ganga; Arjuna’s penance (from Bharavi’s Kiratarjuniya, popular at the Pallava court); or a prashasti praising the Pallava king, who may have sat enthroned in the tank before it. A shrine is prominent, with ascetics and worshippers; above it an emaciated bearded figure stands on one leg, arms raised — Bhagiratha (who prayed to bring the Ganga to earth) or Arjuna (who sought the pashupata weapon). Beside him Shiva shows the varada (boon-giving) gesture; a dwarf gana below may personify the pashupata weapon. Figures are slender and animated; life-like elephants, a pair of deer under the shrine, and a cat standing on its hind legs in mock penance, undisturbed by rats around it — a witty symbol of the ascetic’s steadiness.

One map exercise, three comparison or drawing tasks and one essay. Try each first.

Numbers

One-liners

• Temple = garbhagriha + mandapa + shikhara/vimana + vahana on axis.
• Nagara: platform, curving shikhara, amalaka + kalasha, no walls; Dravida: walls, gopuram, stepped vimana, stupika.
• Ganga–Yamuna at Nagara doors; dvarapalas at Dravida gates; dikpalas on outer walls.
• Deogarh: panchayatana, west-facing, Sheshashayana–Nara-Narayana–Gajendramoksha.
• Khajuraho: Chandelas; Lakshmana (954, Vishnu), Kandariya Mahadeo; mithunas; Chausath Yogini.
• Modhera: Solanki Bhimdev I, 1026, surya kund, equinox sunlight.
• Odisha: deul + jagamohana; Konark chariot; Puri, Bhubaneswar.
• Pallavas: Mahendravarman I (rock-cut), Narasimhavarman I Mamalla (Mamallapuram), Rajasimha (Shore temple).
• Cholas: Brihadeswara (Rajaraja, c. 1009), two gopuras, monolithic stupika.
• Kailashnath, Ellora: Rashtrakuta, Dravida, carved from one rock.
• Chalukyas: Aihole (Durga, Lad Khan), Badami, Pattadakal (Virupaksha by Loka Mahadevi).
• Hoysalas: star plan, soapstone; Belur, Halebid, Somnathpuram.
• Bodhgaya, Nalanda (Kumaragupta I; mahavihara); Gomateshwara (Chamundaraya); Dilwara (Vimal Shah).

Traps to avoid

• Shikhara in the south = only the crowning cupola; the tower is the vimana.
• Deogarh: caption 5th c., text early 6th c.; ‘Dashavatara’ is a popular, unproven name.
• Gajendramoksha: Vishnu rescues the elephant from a crocodile — not ‘suppresses an asura in elephant form’ as NCERT’s box says.
• Lakshmana temple: Dhanga (p. 74) vs Yashovarman (p. 101) — begun by Yashovarman, inscription of 954 in Dhanga’s reign.
• Konark’s jagamohana is the assembly hall, not the dance hall; the stone chariot photo is Hampi.
• Papanatha (Pattadakal) has a Nagara-type shikhara; Virupaksha is Dravida (UPSC 2026).
• Mahakuta and Alampur are early western Chalukya, not ‘eastern Chalukyan’.
• Shore temple = Rajasimha; Mamallapuram’s main works = Narasimhavarman I.
• Gomateshwara = Bahubali, not a tirthankara (UPSC 2002).
• Vishnupur (Bengal) ≠ Bishnupur (Manipur).
• Modhera (Gujarat, Solanki) ≠ Konark (Odisha) — two different sun temples.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Styles: Nagara north (1986); Nagara/Dravida/Vesara = temple styles (1995, 2012); Panchayatan = a temple style (2014); Nagara shikharas — Huchimalligudi and Deogarh, not Malegitti or Pattadakal’s Virupaksha (2026).
• Dynasty–site matches: Shore temple–Pallava, Kailasa–Rashtrakuta, Khajuraho–Chandela (1983); Amaravati–Satavahana, Aihole–Chalukya, Thanjavur–Chola, Halebid–Hoysala (1988); Khajuraho, Brihadeshwar, Hoysalesvara, Seven Pagodas (1991); Gupta–Deogarh, Chandela–Khajuraho, Chalukya–Badami, Pallava–Panamalai (1997); Konark, Halebid in 1990’s list; Aihole, Sravanabelagola (1987).
• South: Mahabalipuram–Pallavas (1982), Pallava rock-cut temples (1990), Hoysala at Halebid and Belur (2001). East: Konark ‘Black Pagoda’ (1979), its wheel (2006). Jain: Bahubali (1982, 1994, 2002, 2009), Palitana (2008). Others: Chausath Yogini, Morena (2021); Palas and Buddhism (2006); Arjuna’s penance (2014).

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• Cholas — GS1 2013 (high-water mark of temple architecture), 2022 (Gupta and Chola contributions), 2024 (art and architecture): Thanjavur’s scale, vimana, gopuras, sculptural programme, temple as economic centre; add bronzes (Chapter 7) and murals (Chapter 5).
• Pallavas — GS1 2024: rock-cut to structural (Mahendravarman I, Mamalla, Rajasimha), rathas, Shore temple, the great relief, Kailasanatha at Kanchi (Beyond NCERT).
• Temple sculpture and social life — GS1 2022: dance and music friezes (Khajuraho dance class), mithunas, processions of elephants (Halebid), foreigners in Vijayanagara sculpture, land-owning temples.
• Palas — GS1 2020: Nalanda, Vajrayana, bronzes, Bodhgaya, monasteries in Odisha. Vijayanagara — GS1 2026: Dravida plus Islamic synthesis (with Theme Seven).

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