The mukhamantapa is the feature in this Badami Temple in Dravida style. This was built during the Badami Chalukya period.

Ramayana and Mahabaratha have references to the word Devalaya

The movement to bring back the deity benefitted from support from the local community and the media. Eventually it was returned to India

The Pancha Rathas are monolithic structures carved out of a single rock.

Chavundaraya Basadi at Shravanabelagola. You may notice that there are no sculptures of deities in the Bhitti

Paandas perform the role of a tourist guide and assistant. They take care of the pilgrim during the whole visit to the Kshetra. They guide them when they visit the temples, accompany them to nearby places and take care of their requirements during the visit. They are local and learned persons who are well versed with all the ritualistic aspects of the Kshetra.

The deity was originally made of wood. It was replaced with a new deity made out of 1200 Shaligramas that were specially collected for this purpose. They are moulded into shape with a special kind of mortar made of a compound of lime and granite, covered with a paste of molasses and mustard.

There are 12 Jyotirlingas, Kedarnath, Vaidyanath, Kashi, Somnath, Omkareshwar, Ujjain, Bhimashankar, Triambakeshwar, Srisailam, Grishneshwar, Rameswaram and Dwarka

There are 108 Vaishnava Divya Desams. These are primarily in Tamil Nadu and Kerala while some are in other States including Muktinath in Nepal.

Prambanan in Java Indonesia is a Tri Murti temple. it has devaalayas of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva with their respective Vanahama Mandapas. There are smaller shrines for Agastya and other parivara devatas. The temple has all the 108 dance Karanas carved. It also has the entire Ramayana carved kandawise.

The temple had been destroyed in an earthquake. It was reconstructed and the karana and Ramayana sculptures provided them the idea of the original arrangement of the sculptures which had been dislocated. There are many shrines that are yet to be restored.

An interpretation is that Prambnan is derived from the word Parabhramham. The temple was completed in the mid 9th century.

Druma means tree. Drumila meant a region abundant in trees. The word Dravida is derived from Drumila. It was abundant in trees and there were thick forests.

The Chilkur Balaji temple lost 5 deities due to theft. These have still not been traced. The Purohit of Chilkur Balaji temple made an plea passionately for the holders of the deities to return them to India. He also highlights the apathy with which ASI treats recovered deities.

It was estimated that there were 15,000 serpent groves in the former Travancore and Cochin states alone. Of course there have been many additional ones erected since. One such grove is at Mannarsala, the abode of the snake king and queen, the most important serpent worship centre in Kerala.

Madurai is not one among the five. The five temples are Chidambaram Nataraja temple, Thanjavur Brahadeeswara temple, Sarangapani temple at Kumbakonam, Arunacaleswara temple at Thiruvannamalai and Vrddagirisvara temple at Vriddhachalam.