Things You May Not Have Known About Temples

If temples and history are your thing, read on for some lesser-known facts about temples from around the world

In every culture it is often religious buildings that represent a civilization’s highest architectural achievements. Temples, in particular seem to form the bulk of mankind’s dazzling structural legacy; from the carved intricacies of Angkor Wat and Borobudor to the soaring, doric-columned edifices of Greece, almost every region and religion can lay a claim to some breathtaking building or another.

Thanks to their sacred status, and often due in part to their sheer size, many of these temples have withstood the ravages of time, war and development surprisingly well, and, for many tourists, represent a chance to connect with their human past in ways that transcend religion. For others, a temple often marks the apex of a pilgrimage that is very much about faith and belief. Whatever the personal reasons, visiting a temple is often high on the list of every tourist, and particularly so in Asia where temples are an inherent part of everyday life; just like churches in many Western cultures.

When we think of a temple, we tend to think of very famous icons such as Beijing’s Temple of Heaven or perhaps the Temple of Luxor in Egypt, but there are countless examples all over the globe that deserve our attention, and many with a fascinating story attached. Here we reveal some interesting facts that you may not have heard about temples around the world:

Angkor Wat is purported to be the world’s largest temple, surrounded by a moat on an area of land measuring around one square kilometer in size, or about 200 acres. Built as the seat of the Khmer Empire, sometime around the 12th century in the Siem Reap Province, at its peak the extended site would have been the largest pre-industrial city in the world, supporting up to a million people. It is unusual in that it faces west in reverence of the Hindu god Vishnu. Most Khmer temples face east. It was later converted to a Buddhist temple and remains one today.

When is a temple not a temple? Answer: when it’s a shrine. Many people mistake these two entities and it’s true there are similarities and both exist in many of the world’s religions. Essentially, a temple is a building or structure used for a religious or spiritual purpose, usually for prayer or worship (or even sacrifice in days gone by). A shrine, however, can be more of a moveable affair, and is usually dedicated to a specific deity, spirit or exalted figure. Similar to a temple, it’s a place where people come to worship or pay respects and often contains an associated object, icon, figure or significant imagery. However, where a shrine differs is that it can exist as a small area within another structure, such as a church, temple, or commonly a home.

The world’s smallest temple is a relatively new discovery and can be found in Damagou Township, on the southern rim of the Taklimakan Desert, in Northwest China. The tiny temple lay buried beneath a mound of sand for 1,500 years but was discovered by accident in the year 2000 after children began digging around while looking for firewood. Measuring just 2.25 meters long, 2 meters wide and 1.3 meters high, it is part of a complex of three temples situated in what would have been an important stopping-off point on the ancient Silk Road, around the time of the Tang Dynasty. The two much larger neighboring structures were most likely intended for public use, but it is diminutive temple number one, barely big enough for a single monk, that beguiles with its rare frescoes of the North King god and seated broken Buddha figurine, and has assured itself a place in the record books.

Egypt, Greece and Iraq can lay claim to some fairly ancient temples but the oldest temple in the world is situated in Southeastern Turkey. Built on a hilltop, this temple consists of a series of round, stone buildings and large T-shaped stones, some carved with animal reliefs and arranged in rings, similar to Stonehenge. The site was originally dismissed as a Medieval cemetery. Other than stone tools, the site contains no other obvious evidence of human habitation, which has lead experts to conclude that the site was purely religious. Thanks to limited carbon dating and a comparison of the tools to those found at sites nearby, which have been carbon dated to around 9,000BC, experts are now fairly sure Gobekli Tepi is in fact around 11,000 years old. That’s about 8,000 years before Stonehenge and long before humans invented farming, the wheel and even writing.

The winner of ‘most inaccessible and precariously situated temple’ award goes to Paro Taktasng in Bhutan. Known in English as the ‘Tiger’s Nest Monastery’, this graceful Buddhist structure with traditional red and gold upturned roofs would have taken great skill to build on the ground. However, the feat becomes all the more incredible when this temple’s location is taken into account. Perched precipitously on the edge of a steep cliff that rises some 3,000 feet from the floor of the Paro Valley, Paro Taktasng is so remote that it requires a serious hike of several hours, up the mountain, in order to reach it. Originally constructed in the 17th century and destroyed by fire in 1998, this breathtaking temple has now been restored to its former glory, and deservedly acts as the unofficial symbol of Bhutan.

The Shore Temple located at the shore of the Bay of Bengal, at Mahabalipuram in Southern India, has long been the subject of legend. Constructed around 700AD, it is one of the region’s oldest temples, and stories abound that this lone temple was in fact once part of a vast complex with six other temples, giving rise to the its nickname of Seven Pagodas by European sailors who used it as a navigation point. Legend tells how the god Indra grew envious of the dazzling temple complex and sent a flood that submerged all but one: the Shore Temple. Since then, archaeologists and local Tamil fisherman, who have long claimed to spy evidence of the missing temples beneath the waves, have perpetuated the legend of the sunken city anecdotally. In 2002 a team of scientists finally decided to explore below the sea, just off the coast, and indeed found evidence of walls, with a layout that suggested a series of temples and dated them roughly to the same era as the Shore Temple. The 2004 tsunami then exposed more walls and even sculptures such as a large stone lion (now sitting on the beach) which prompted the Navy and Archaeological Survey of India to conduct sonar scans by boat. They detected evidence of two further submerged temples and evidence of another much older structure. It’s likely more evidence will come to light, but for now, it seems the myth of the Seven Pagodas might just be true after all.

In the same region, the world’s richest temple is said to be the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, in Kerala. Built in the 16th century, the outwardly modest temple sits atop six locked vaults, several of which were purported to contain treasure and supposedly remained untouched for over 150 years. However, the extent of just how much treasure these vaults contained was unknown until 2011, when a local lawyer and devotee of the temple brought a court case against the trustees, claiming mismanagement, and requesting disclosure of the vaults.

The case went to the Supreme Court of India, and the trustees of the vaults - the Travancore Royal family - have been forced to open five of them. An astonishing stash of rare antique gold and treasure has been revealed; probably accumulated over hundreds of years and deposited by the family who became wealthy trading pepper with Europe. The haul is reputed to be worth a staggering USD$22 billion at face value, but could be worth much more when antiquity and scarcity are taken into consideration.

Tantalizingly, one final vault, adorned with carved serpents, remains locked. Superstition has it that this vault is filled with snakes, and that calamities will be unleashed if anyone attempts to open it. Despite evidence to suggest the Travancore family permitted its opening back in 2007 for cataloguing purposes - a claim they strongly deny - it seems all previous attempts to open the vault have been unsuccessful due to a combination of terrified employees and a thick steel door and granite pillars.

Whatever is discovered behind the mysterious Vault B (and a decision from the courts on its fate is due to be announced any day) the haul from the other five vaults has catapulted this temple into the spotlight. However, the bigger question of what to do with the treasure remains a highly contentious subject and is likely to endure long after the full extent of the haul is documented and counted.