The third type was designed as a square temple with a low and squat pyramidal shikhara (tower) above as best represented by the  Brick temple at Bhitargaon and the Vishnu temple at Deogarh built entirely of stone, which though with the same simplicity of design as the previous two groups, does show certain developments in having a high platform as base and a tower as the superstructure adding much to the elevation. Instead of plain bare walls, the Deogarh temple has sculpture on the three faces enclosed within pilasters while the Bhitargaon temple has the effect further emphasised by a rectangular offset projection in the middle of each side which results in a cruciform ground-plan. The 2nd and 3rd designs of the initial Gupta temples contain the basic formula which proved highly successful and was to be replicated and adapted thereby crystallising into distinctive temple styles respectively in the North and South throughout the subcontinent for many of the following centuries. The Deogarh temple also represents the arrangement known as the panchayatana, which became popular throughout the subcontinent, even up to the 18th century.

Fourth type was a rectangular temple with an apsidal back and a barrel-vaulted roof above as represented by a temple at Ter (Sholapur district) and the Kapoteshwara Temple at Cezarla (Krishna district). The fifth type was a circular temple with shallow rectangular projections at the four cardinal faces as represented by the solitary monument known as Maniyar Math (shrine of Mani Nag) at Rajgir, Bihar, now in a fragmentary condition. The 4th and 5th temple designs which appear as adaptations of the earlier forms, do not however, seem to have had any marked effect on the subsequent developments.  The Pawaya Brick Temple ruins indicate the remnants of one of the largest temples of the period, of which nothing but the platform has remained. Many of these early Hindu stone temples were dedicated to a single Hindu deity.

To be continued.....