[citation needed] There is also the Smartism sect, which follows Advaita philosophy and practices the "worship of the five forms" (pañcāyatana pūjā) system, popularized by Śaṅkarācārya.
In this system, the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devī, and Sūrya are viewed as five equal forms of one Nirguna Brahman.
It reached a high point about the tenth century, and built temples dedicated to Ganesha, the largest of which is the Ucchi Pillayar Koil (the Columns Hall of a Thousand Pillars), on the Rock Fort of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu.
According to one source, he found an idol of Ganapati not made by human hands, and built the Moragao temple near Pune in the 14th century.
[citation needed] According to another, he experienced visions of Ganapati at the Morgaon shrine, and was entombed alive (Sanjeevan samadhi) in 1651, in a Ganesha temple at his birthplace in Chinchwad.
Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.
[6] However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha.