Dravidian Architecture

Dravidian architecture, also called the Southern Indian temple style, is a style of Hindu temple building that developed in southern India and reached its mature form by the sixteenth century. It is distinguished from the temple styles of northern India chiefly by its towers: where northern Nagara style temples build tall shikhara towers that curve inward as they rise, Dravidian temples instead place a shorter, more sharply pyramidal tower called a vimana directly over the garbhagriha, or inner sanctuary. Larger and more recent Dravidian temples are typically dominated less by the vimana than by one or more soaring gopura, or gateway towers, marking the entrances to the temple compound, a feature that developed as a later addition to the style. The style's classic core plan combines a square chambered sanctuary topped by its tower with an attached pillared hall, or mandapa, the whole enclosed within a rectangular walled court; a celebrated early example is the Brihadeshwara Temple at Thanjavur, completed by the Chola king Rajaraja I in 1011 and, at the time, the largest and tallest temple built in India.