Shikhara

Shikhara (IAST: Śikhara), a Sanskrit word translating literally to "mountain peak", refers to the rising tower in the Hindu temple architecture of North India, and also often used in Jain temples. A shikhara over the garbhagriha chamber where the presiding deity is enshrined is the most prominent and visible part of a Hindu temple of North India.
In South India, the equivalent term is vimana; unlike the shikhara, this refers to the whole building, including the sanctum beneath. In the south, shikhara is a term for the top stage of the vimana only, which is usually a dome capped with a finial; this article is concerned with the northern form. The southern vimana is not to be confused with the elaborate gateway-towers of south Indian temples, called gopuram, which are often taller and more prominent features in large temples.
It is argued that stylistic aspects seen on Buddhist architecture like the stupa may have been influenced by the shikhara, a stylistic element which in some regions evolved to the pagoda.
Shikhara can be classified into three main forms:
The early history of the Hindu shikhara is unclear, but the Buddhist Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya has a straight-sided shikhara tower over 55 metres (180 feet) high, with an amalaka near the top. The current structure dates from the Gupta Empire, in the 5th–6th century CE. When the temple acquired its shikhara tower, today considered more characteristic of Hindu temples, is uncertain. However, the current structure of the Mahabodhi Temple may represent a restoration of earlier work of the 2nd or 3rd century CE.
Ernest Havell traced the origin of shikhara to Ancient Mesopotamia and referred to the royal fortress palaces of similar forms depicted in the stele of Naram-Sin. A plaque from Kumrahar dated 150-200 CE, based on its dated Kharoshthi inscriptions and combined finds of Huvishka coins, already shows the Mahabodhi Temple in its current shape with a stepped truncated pyramid and a stupa finial on top, together with devotional images of the Buddha and the elephant-crowned Pillar of Ashoka next to the entrance. It is thought that this shape of a truncated pyramid was derived from the design of the stepped stupas which had developed in Gandhara, as seen in the stupas of Jaulian, with an elongated structure formed of a succession of steps with niches containing Buddha images, alternating with Greco-Roman pillars, and topped by a stupa.
By at least 600 CE in Odisha, and perhaps somewhat later in the Deccan Plateau and West India, the Latina form of the shikhara is well-established, with an amalaka disk-stone at the top, and then a kalasha urn. There is often a sukanasa feature over the entrance door.
The forms with smaller subsidiary spires begin in the 10th century, and from then on tend to predominate. The Khajuraho Group of Monuments has several early forms from early in the century, though Latina ones reappear after about 1050, in examples like the Vamana Temple. The bhumija spire probably first appears around 1000-1025, with other temples begun in the 1050s, such as the Shiv Mandir, Ambarnath.
Shikharas form an element in the many styles of Hindu temple architecture, of which the three most common are Nagara, Vesara, and Dravidian:
In every style of shikhara/vimana, the structure culminates with a "kalasha", or urn for offerings, or water-pot, at its peak.