Within a quarter century, the Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh (c. 525 CE) expanded upon the concept of the unmanifest becoming manifest, featuring an elaborate symbolic program celebrating the multiple manifestations of the deity, in this case Vishnu. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
The amalgamation of ideas and the combination of the architectural vocabulary of latina and kutina (the two common morphological types of temple architecture, also sometimes erroneously called North Indian and South Indian respectively) temples are seen at the site of Mahakut. Image courtesy: Dineshkannambadi (Wikimedia Commons)
An open-air ambulatory was provided for each tier, hidden in the recession of the next storey by the parapet enclosure of the kutas and the shalas. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
This transition is vividly illustrated in Cave 1 at Udayagiri, where the sanctum is excavated from living rock, while the porch in front is constructed with dressed masonry.
Cave 5, in particular, features a complex iconographic program aimed at legitimizing the royal patron as the conduit between humanity and the divine, represented by Vishnu in his boar form, while the cosmic waters threatening the human world fill the ground. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons