Hindu temple building, for which the fifth-century brick temple at Bhitargaon is a prototype, begins to make a significant impact in India on the accession of the Hindu dynasties beginning in 647.

A shelter for the deity's image rather than a place of public assembly, the Hindu temple's form often symbolizes the world mountain.

The oldest and the most important type of Hindu temple, the nagara, is conical or convex in shape, and crowned with a spire known as a sikhara.

Another type, the dravida, consists of a series of ascending terraces, or “bhumis,” representing the hierarchy of the divinities; on each terrace is a stupika, or "little stupa."

A third type, the “vesara,” is typically a barrel-vaulted hall derived from Buddhist chaitya halls.