[9][10] The layout, the motifs, the plan and the building process recite ancient rituals, geometric symbolisms, and reflect beliefs and values innate within various schools of Hinduism.

[19] 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.

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).

[22][23] 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.

Some temples have served as a venue to mark festivals, to celebrate arts through dance and music, to get married or commemorate marriages,[26] the birth of a child, other significant life events or the death of a loved one.

[28] The appropriate site for a temple, suggests ancient Sanskrit texts, is near water and gardens, where lotus and flowers bloom, where swans, ducks and other birds are heard, and where animals rest without fear of injury or harm.

[44][45] In north India, Brihat-samhita by Varāhamihira is the widely cited ancient Sanskrit manual from 6th century describing the design and construction of Nagara style of Hindu temples.

[48] The Vastu-purusha-mandala is a yantra,[32] a design laying out a Hindu temple in a symmetrical, self-repeating structure derived from central beliefs, myths, cardinality and mathematical principles.

Michael Meister suggests that these exceptions mean that the ancient Sanskrit manuals for temple building were guidelines, and Hinduism permitted its artisans flexibility in expression and aesthetic independence.

[58][63] Hinduism has no traditional ecclesiastical order, no centralized religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet nor any binding holy book save the Vedas; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monistic, or atheistic.

[68] These are Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta—which flowered into individual schools of Hinduism, each of which is considered a valid, alternate path to understanding truth and achieving self-realization in the Hindu way of life.

Similarly, "Shilpin", notes Kramrisch, is a complex Sanskrit word, describing any person who embodies art, science, culture, skill, and rhythm and employs creative principles to produce any divine form of expression.

The general education of a Hindu Shilpin in ancient India included Lekha or Lipi (alphabet, reading and writing), Rupa (drawing and geometry), Ganana (arithmetic).

[77][78] Apart from specialist technical competence, the manuals suggest that best Silpins for building a Hindu temple are those who know the essence of Vedas and Agamas, consider themselves as students, keep well verse with principles of traditional sciences and mathematics, painting and geography.

[44] According to Silparatna, a Hindu temple project would start with a Yajamana (patron), and include a Sthapaka (guru, spiritual guide and architect-priest), a Sthapati (architect) who would design the building, a Sutragrahin (surveyor), and many Vardhakins (workers, masons, painters, plasterers, overseers) and Taksakas (sculptors).

[80][81] Burton Stein states that South Indian temples managed regional development function, such as irrigation projects, land reclamation, post-disaster relief and recovery.

[89] John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi state Hindu temples served as centers where ancient manuscripts were routinely used for learning and where the texts were copied when they wore out.

[94] In south India, 9th century Vedic schools attached to Hindu temples were called Calai or Salai, and these provided free boarding and lodging to students and scholars.

[99] According to George Michell, Hindu temples in South India were active charity centers and they provided free meal for wayfarers, pilgrims and devotees, as well as boarding facilities for students and hospitals for the sick.

[111] These vav (literally, stepwells) had intricate art reliefs on the walls, with numerous murtis and images of Hindu deities, water spirits and erotic symbolism.

However, for those who have yet to reach this height of realization, various symbolic manifestations through images, murtis and icons as well as mental modes of worship are offered as one of the spiritual paths in the Hindu way of life.

Some ancient Hindu scriptures like the Jabaladarshana Upanishad appear to endorse this idea[114] शिवमात्मनि पश्यन्ति प्रतिमासु न योगिनः । अज्ञानं भावनार्थाय प्रतिमाः परिकल्पिताः ॥५९॥ - जाबालदर्शनोपनिषत् A yogin perceives god (Siva) within himself; images are for those who have not reached this knowledge.

However, devotees aspiring to a personal relationship with the Supreme Lord, whom they worship variously as Krishna or Shiva, for example, tend to reverse such hierarchical views of self-realization, holding that the personal form of the deity, as the source of the Brahma-jyoti, or the light into which impersonalists, according to their ideals, propose to merge themselves and their individual identities, will benevolently accept worship through an arca vigraha, an authorized form constructed not according to imagination but in pursuit of scriptural directives.

With the start of Gupta dynasty in the 4th century, Hindu temples flourished in innovation, design, scope, form, use of stone and new materials as well as symbolic synthesis of culture and dharmic principles with artistic expression.

[123][124] It is this period that is credited with the ideas of garbhagrha for Purusa, mandapa for sheltering the devotees and rituals in progress, as well as symbolic motifs relating to dharma, karma, kama, artha and moksha.

Imagined by these foreign zealots to be mere idols, sacred Forms of various deities were broken, spires and pillars were torn down, and temples were looted of their treasury.

[134][better source needed] In India, the Place of Worship (Special Provisions) Act was enacted in 1991 which prohibited the conversion of any religious site from the religion to which it was dedicated on 15 August 1947.

One difference is the scope and cardinality, where Hindu temple structures deploy this principle in every dimension with garbhgriya as the primary locus, and each pada as well as zones serving as additional centers of loci.

[171][172] The majority of Hindu temples in Java were dedicated to Shiva, who Javanese Hindus considered as the God who commands the energy to destroy, recombine and recreate the cycle of life.

Ancient Sanskrit texts use many words for temple, such as matha, vayuna, kirti, kesapaksha, devavasatha, vihara, suravasa, surakula, devatayatana, amaragara, devakula, devagrha, devabhavana, devakulika, and niketana.