The Shikhara and Its Southern Counterpart, The Vimana

The shikhara developed gradually from simpler stepped temple roofs of the Gupta period into the tall curvilinear towers characteristic of mature medieval Nagara temples from roughly the seventh century onward, reaching some of its most refined expressions in temples such as the Kandariya Mahadeva at Khajuraho and the Lingaraja Temple at Bhubaneswar, where clusters of smaller subsidiary towers are grouped around the main shikhara to build up an increasingly complex silhouette.

In South Indian, or Dravida, temple architecture, the equivalent tower over the sanctum is called a vimana rather than a shikhara, a difference of regional terminology and form rather than of underlying function: the Dravida vimana is built in distinct flat, stepped, pyramidal stages rather than the Nagara tower's continuous curving profile, and it is often, though not always, shorter relative to the gateway towers, or gopurams, that dominate the outer walls of major South Indian temple complexes. The distinction between shikhara and vimana is one of the clearest diagnostic markers used to classify an unfamiliar Hindu temple by regional school at a glance, and the Vesara style of the Deccan region deliberately blends elements of both traditions, producing towers that combine Nagara curvature with Dravida stepped massing in a single hybrid form.