The rising sandstone structure in Ayodhya is many things at once: a long-awaited shrine, a political landmark, and a cultural project that has drawn national attention. But as its form becomes clearer, one detail stands out for its quiet but deliberate significance. The Ram Mandir is being built in the Nagara style, the defining architectural language of North India’s classical temples.
This choice is not decorative. It ties the new temple to a lineage that stretches back fifteen centuries, anchoring a modern construction in the aesthetic and spiritual vocabulary of ancient India. In a country where architecture often blends the historic and the contemporary, the Ram Mandir’s design consciously returns to a style shaped during the Gupta period, a time many scholars describe as a golden age for temple building.
The Rising Shikhara
The Nagara style emerged around the fifth century CE and went on to evolve across dynasties and regions. Its most recognisable feature is the curving shikhara, a tower that rises above the inner sanctum. The shikhara is not just an ornamental form. In Hindu cosmology, its ascending lines suggest Mount Meru, the axis of the universe and the mythic abode of the gods. This sense of vertical aspiration is central to Nagara architecture. Temples built in this style seem to grow upward rather than outward, gathering spiritual meaning as they rise.
Across northern and western India, the style diversified into various subtypes. Some temples adopted the simpler Latina form, where the tower curves inward before meeting in a sharp point. Others developed layered, more intricate versions, with rows of mini-shikharas flanking a dominant central tower, as seen in the celebrated temples of Khajuraho. In regions such as Malwa, the Bhumija tradition added geometric patterns of clustered spires, creating a grid-like rhythm across the temple face. And then there were structures with barrel-shaped roofs or broader, pyramidal profiles that still remained firmly within the Nagara family.
Continuity and Grandeur: The Vision for Ram Mandir
The architects behind the Ram Mandir, Chandrakant Sompura and Ashish Sompura, drew from this long continuum. The temple stretches 360 feet in length and rises to a height of 161 feet. Its three shikharas echo the classical form while establishing a visual hierarchy within the structure. A series of five mandapas — halls for prayer, music and ceremony — create a gradual passage toward the sanctum, drawing visitors inward through a rhythm of columns and carved stone.
Those columns form a major visual anchor. Nearly 366 pillars will support the structure, each one carved with floral motifs, deities and scenes from the Ramayana. The carvings continue an old Nagara tradition in which temple surfaces became storytelling canvases. In earlier centuries, these narratives were a bridge between literacy and devotion. At Ayodhya, the storytelling intention remains, though expressed in an updated sculptural language.
The choice of pink sandstone from Rajasthan adds another layer of continuity. Many historic Nagara temples in western and central India were carved from stone that could hold sharp detailing and withstand centuries of weathering. The material at Ayodhya serves the same purpose, ensuring the temple’s longevity while offering a warm, luminous appearance.
A Temple City in the Making
The scale of the complex underscores the ambition of the project. Beyond the main temple, the site will host a museum, a library, a yagyashala, a Vedic learning centre and landscaped pathways. While most modern temple developments include auxiliary facilities, the Ayodhya project imagines an entire cultural precinct. The Trust overseeing the construction expects the complex to handle tens of thousands of visitors daily once complete.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the design is the cultural message it conveys. After decades of debate around the site, the decision to build in the Nagara style shifts the conversation toward heritage and continuity. Rather than adopting a modern hybrid form, the temple returns to the architectural language that once defined classical northern India. In doing so, it places Ayodhya within the same lineage as Konark, Khajuraho, Gwalior and Udaipur — cities where stone, myth and geometry shaped identity.
The Ram Mandir’s design is ultimately a reminder that architecture is never just about form. It is a narrative. A way of saying that ancient ideas still have room to breathe in the present. And as the structure nears completion, the revived contours of the Nagara style stand not only as an architectural choice but as a gesture toward history, memory and the long arc of Indian craftsmanship.
