Temples: more than places of worship

Temples were not only places of worship. They were centres of economic, social and political life:

• Jobs: architects, artisans, sculptors, priests, musicians and staff all worked for them.
• Land and wealth: temples received donations and land grants; the Brihadeeswara (Rajarajeshvara) temple at Thanjavur received gold, ornaments and vessels.
• Credit: they lent to farmers, village assemblies and merchants, and paid for irrigation works.
• Learning and arts: they preserved arts such as Bharatanatyam.
• Courts and taxes: some collected local taxes and gave legal penalties.

Because of all this, towns grew up around temples: Thanjavur, Kanchipuram and Puri became important temple towns.

Temples also gave rulers their legitimacy (their right to rule). The deity was seen as the protector of the state, sometimes as the real ruler, with the king as the deity's deputy: Odisha's Gajapati kings ruled as the Rauta, the deputy, of Jagannath; the Kachhwaha rulers of Jaipur ruled on behalf of Govindadevaji; the rulers of Kota saw themselves as representatives of Rama.

Destruction and restoration. Temple building spread widely between the 7th and 13th centuries. From the 11th century, many temples were destroyed, above all in the invasions of the Ghaznavids and Ghurids. Later, from the 12th century, some sites also had mosques built on them. But local rulers, merchant guilds and communities kept maintaining and restoring temples:

• a Hoysala royal temple at Kannanur, turned into a mosque under the Sultanate, was restored as a temple by Kumara Kampana;
• the Kashi Vishwanath temple was rebuilt by Todar Mal (Akbar's revenue officer) and Raja Man Singh; it was demolished under Aurangzeb, and the present temple was built beside the original site by Ahilyabai Holkar in 1780;
• Man Singh also built the Govind Devji Temple at Vrindavan, and the Bundela king Vir Singh the Keshav Dev Temple at Mathura.

Temples that looked like houses. From the 16th century, many temples were built in less visible places, down narrow lanes, with doors not facing the main street, plain outsides and no tall shikhara. They looked like ordinary homes; historians call them haveli temples. Communities changed the form of their temples so they would not be targeted, which is resilience in stone. Examples are in Delhi, Varanasi and Rajasthan, such as the Jagat Shiromani Temple at Amer (built by Queen Kanakwati). Meanwhile Jagat Singh of Mewar built the large Jagdish temple at Udaipur, which scholars see as a response to Shah Jahan's Jama Masjid.