Dravida

The southern temple raises over its sanctum a vimana of diminishing storeys, each lined with miniature shrines, ending in a single dome-shaped cap, the shikhara of the southern texts, with the kalasha above. The Pallavas worked out the form first in cut rock, in the rathas of Mamallapuram in the 7th century, then in built stone at the Shore Temple and the Kailasanathar at Kanchipuram around 700. The Cholas carried it to its height: Rajaraja I’s Brihadeeswara at Thanjavur, completed in 1010, has a vimana of about 66 metres with a granite capstone of some 80 tonnes, and his son Rajendra built a second at Gangaikonda Cholapuram.

After the Cholas the emphasis moved outward. The Pandyas, Vijayanagara and the Nayakas of Madurai and Thanjavur ringed the old shrines with walls and gave the gates, the gopurams, towers taller than the sanctum, so that a temple like Madurai or Srirangam reads from outside as a skyline of painted gateways. Inside came pillared halls carved with rearing horses and yalis, long corridors such as the one at Rameswaram, and the temple tank. The Agamas govern the worship and the Mayamata and Manasara the building, and the sthapatis of Swamimalai and Mamallapuram still work to them.