Hindu temple

A Hindu temple, also known as Mandir, Devasthanam, Pura, Kshetram or Kovil, is a sacred place where Hindus worship and show their devotion to deities through worship, sacrifice, and prayers. It is considered the house of the god to whom it is dedicated. Hindu temple architecture, which makes extensive use of squares and circles, has its roots in later Vedic traditions, which also influence the temples' construction and symbolism. Through astronomical numbers and particular alignments connected to the temple's location and the relationship between the deity and the worshipper, the temple's design also illustrates the idea of recursion and the equivalency of the macrocosm and the microcosm. A temple incorporates all elements of the Hindu cosmos—presenting the good, the evil and the human, as well as the elements of the Hindu sense of cyclic time and the essence of life—symbolically presenting dharma, artha, kama, moksha, and karma.

The spiritual principles symbolically represented in Hindu temples are detailed in the ancient later Vedic texts, while their structural rules are described in various ancient Sanskrit treatises on architecture (Bṛhat Saṃhitā, Vāstu Śāstras). The layout, motifs, plan and the building process recite ancient rituals and geometric symbolism, and reflect beliefs and values innate within various schools of Hinduism. A Hindu temple is a spiritual destination for many Hindus, as well as landmarks around which ancient arts, community celebrations and the economy have flourished.

Hindu temple architecture are presented in many styles, are situated in diverse locations, deploy different construction methods, are adapted to different deities and regional beliefs, and share certain core ideas, symbolism and themes. They are found in South Asia, particularly India and Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, in Southeast Asian countries such as Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and countries such as Canada, Fiji, France, Guyana, Kenya, Mauritius, the Netherlands, South Africa, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries with a significant Hindu population. The current state and outer appearance of Hindu temples reflect arts, materials and designs as they evolved over two millennia; they also reflect the effect of conflicts between Hinduism and Islam since the 12th century. The Swaminarayanan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey, between the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, was inaugurated in 2014 as one of the world's largest Hindu temples.

A Hindu temple reflects a synthesis of arts, the ideals of dharma, beliefs, values and the way of life cherished under Hinduism. It is a link between man, deities, and the Universal Puruṣa in a sacred space. It represents the triple-knowledge (trayi-vidya) of the Vedic vision by mapping the relationships between the cosmos (brahmaṇḍa) and the cell (pinda) by a unique plan based on astronomical numbers. Subhash Kak sees the temple form and its iconography to be a natural expansion of Vedic ideology related to recursion, change and equivalence.

In ancient Indian texts, a temple is a place of pilgrimage, known in India as a Tirtha. It is a sacred site whose ambience and design attempts to symbolically condense the ideal tenets of the Hindu way of life. In a Hindu temple, all the cosmic components that produce and maintain life are there, from fire to water, from depictions of the natural world to gods, from genders that are feminine or masculine to those that are everlasting and universal.

Susan Lewandowski states that the underlying principle in a Hindu temple is the belief that all things are one, that everything is connected. The pilgrim is welcomed through 64-grid or 81-grid mathematically structured spaces, a network of art, pillars with carvings and statues that display and celebrate the four important and necessary principles of human life—the pursuit of artha (prosperity, wealth), of kama (pleasure, sex), of dharma (virtues, ethical life) and of moksha (release, self-knowledge). At the centre of the temple, typically below and sometimes above or next to the deity, is mere hollow space with no decoration, symbolically representing Purusa, the Supreme Principle, the sacred Universal, one without form, which is omnipresent, connects everything, and is the essence of everyone. A Hindu temple is meant to encourage reflection, facilitate purification of one's mind, and trigger the process of inner realization within the devotee. The specific process is left to the devotee's school of belief. The primary deity of different Hindu temples varies to reflect this spiritual spectrum.

In Hindu tradition, there is no dividing line between the secular and the lonely sacred. In the same spirit, Hindu temples are not just sacred spaces; they are also secular spaces. Their meaning and purpose have extended beyond spiritual life to social rituals and daily life, offering thus a social meaning. Some temples have served as a venue to mark festivals, to celebrate arts through dance and music, to get married or commemorate marriages, the birth of a child, other significant life events or the death of a loved one. In political and economic life, Hindu temples have served as a venue for succession within dynasties and landmarks around which economic activity thrived.

Almost all Hindu temples take two forms: a house or a palace. A house-themed temple is a simple shelter that serves as a deity's home. The temple is a place where the devotee visits, just like he or she would visit a friend or relative. The use of moveable and immoveable images is mentioned by Pāṇini. In the Bhakti school of Hinduism, temples are venues for puja, which is a hospitality ritual, where the deity is honored, and where devotee calls upon, attends to and connects with the deity. In other schools of Hinduism, the person may simply perform japa, or meditation, or yoga, or introspection in his or her temple. Palace-themed temples often incorporate more elaborate and monumental architecture.