Before Glorifying Mughal Architecture, Take a Look at Indian Ancient Masterpieces

One of the most awe-inspiring examples of human craftsmanship and spiritual intention stands quietly in Ellora, Maharashtra—the Kailasa Temple, carved around 776 CE under the patronage of the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I. This temple, hewn top-down from a single basalt rock, is not merely an architectural structure—it is a cosmic statement. With no scaffolding, cranes, or modern tools, ancient Indian engineers executed this vertical excavation with astonishing precision. The excavation removed an estimated 400,000 tonnes of rock, all while preserving proportion, symmetry, and cosmic alignment.

And yet, popular narratives often begin India’s architectural history with the arrival of the Mughals in the 16th century. Such a view ignores not just the Kailasa Temple, but thousands of years of spiritual, architectural, and engineering brilliance embedded across the subcontinent. While Mecca’s architecture remained simple and largely unadorned even in the 1950s, India had long achieved sacred geometry, grand temple cities, and celestial alignment in stone.

This is not merely about comparing structures—it’s about understanding that Bharat’s architectural DNA predates Islamic, Persian, and even some classical Greco-Roman influences. It is high time we reject colonial narratives that define our civilizational worth only from the point of invasion.


Unlike palaces or forts, Indian temples were never meant to impress—they were built to transform. A temple, according to Hindu scriptures and Vaastu Shastra, is a living organism. From the garbhagriha (womb chamber) to the vimana (tower), every part is designed as a spiritual technology—a yantra of sound, space, light, and vibration.

Ancient rishis, using texts like the Agamas and the Shilpa Shastras, crafted temples aligned with the Earth’s magnetic fields, the movement of the planets, and the subtle energies of the human body (chakras). For example:

• The Konark Sun Temple is not just shaped like a chariot—it functions as a solar observatory with 24 intricately carved wheels that also act as sundials.
• Brihadeeswarar Temple in Thanjavur, built in the 11th century, houses a vimana over 216 feet tall, topped with a single 80-ton granite stone—a feat still debated by modern engineers.
• The Meenakshi Temple is structured like a mandala—symbolizing the cosmic order—mapped into the physical world through architecture.

The sacred layout of these temples followed the Vastu Purusha Mandala, a metaphysical map of the cosmos. Every devotee who entered was not just walking through a hall—they were passing through layers of consciousness, designed to elevate their mind, body, and spirit.

In contrast, Islamic architecture, including Mughal structures, is largely geometric and aesthetic. While beautiful, it lacks the mystical engineering, energetic function, and symbolic cosmology of pre-Islamic Hindu temples.


It is important to acknowledge that Mughal architecture, though refined and grand, was neither original to India nor rooted in her soul. The domes, arches, charbaghs, and minarets hailed from Timurid and Persian models, themselves inspired by earlier Mesopotamian and Byzantine designs. What the Mughals did bring was a fusion, often using Indian artisans trained in temple building, but applying their skills to Islamic frameworks.

Even the famed Taj Mahal—hailed globally as an Indian wonder—was built by Indian craftsmen, some of whom had temple-building lineages. The white marble, the lotus motifs, the chhatris (domed kiosks), and even the layout of the Taj are deeply Indian in flavor. Yet the spiritual purpose of Mughal structures remained imperial—not transformative.

Moreover, many Mughal and earlier Sultanate constructions involved the destruction or repurposing of Hindu temples. The Qutub Minar complex, for instance, contains pillars taken from 27 demolished Jain and Hindu temples. The Gyanvapi site in Kashi, and Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura, stand as painful examples of this architectural erasure.

So, when people say “Mughals gave India architecture,” we must ask: What did they build that wasn’t built on top of what they first destroyed?

The crediting of Mughal architecture as “India’s first real sophistication” is not an innocent historical mistake—it’s a colonial design. British historians like James Fergusson, and institutions like the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) under colonial control, deliberately promoted Islamic monuments while neglecting or mislabeling Hindu temples as crude or non-artistic.

Terms like “idolatry,” “barbaric,” “dark paganism,” and “exotic primitiveness” were used for Indian temples. Meanwhile, Mughal tombs were described as “refined,” “harmonious,” and “enlightened.” This was not about art—it was about civilizational gaslighting. The invader was glorified, the native demonized.

This British narrative crept into schoolbooks and still lingers. Many Indians still parrot that “Mughals gave India the Taj Mahal,” without ever visiting the Chennakesava Temple of Belur or the Hoysaleswara Temple of Halebidu, which house carvings and engineering beyond anything the Mughals ever achieved.

It is time to decolonize our gaze. To reclaim Kanchipuram, Badami, Bhubaneshwar, Ujjain, Thanjavur, Ellora, Hampi, and more—not as ruins, but as testimonies of a living civilization that once led the world in both sacred and secular knowledge.

Our temples are not museum pieces. They are encoded philosophies in stone, built by yogis, mathematicians, and saints—not by emperors seeking glory, but by rishis seeking the divine. The granite that sings in Chidambaram, the shadowless vimana of Thanjavur, the floating pillars of Lepakshi—all reveal a consciousness that was spiritually elevated and scientifically precise.

Let us not allow invader-glorifying textbooks or Bollywood revisionism to tell our children that India was primitive before the Mughals. Let us teach them that our civilization built temples that could align your spine with the cosmos and monuments that didn’t just house gods—they radiated their presence.

We do not dishonor other cultures by honoring our own. But we must stop apologizing for pride in our heritage.

To reclaim truth is not arrogance—it is restoration.

India’s architecture did not begin with the Mughals—it transcends them by centuries, if not millennia. From the Vedic fire altars to the towering vimanas, from carved monoliths to celestial observatories, our ancestors did not just build—they sanctified space and encoded the cosmos into stone.

Let us reclaim this with pride. With facts. And with devotion.