gopuram
गोपुरम् gopuramThe towering gateway rising over an entrance in the enclosure wall of a South Indian temple, later dwarfing the vimana that stands over the garbhagriha itself.
Where this term appears
- Nagara, Dravida and Vesara: The Styles of the Hindu Temple Temples
Cut into those walls are the gopuram , the great gateway towers, which in the largest southern temples grow taller than the vimana itself.
- What is a Hindu Temple? Temples
The gopuram is the monumental gateway tower set in the enclosure wall.
- Anatomy of a Hindu Temple: Gopuram to Garbhagriha Temples
Each wall is pierced on its axis by a gopuram , a soaring gateway-tower, often banded with hundreds of brightly painted figures.
- Why do so many temples face east? Temples
The Meenakshi temple at Madurai raises four soaring gopurams to all four directions, a Dravidian city of a temple, yet the eastern entrance is the one that opens before the goddess's own shrine.
- Vijayanagara: The Empire Built to Hold the Line History
The great gateway towers, the gopurams , the pillared halls, the Vitthala temple with its stone chariot and its musical columns, the Virupaksha temple still in worship today, were built and endowed by an empire…