Dharmic heritage · sourced, not flattened
The itihāsa of Rāma. Tradition sets its events in the Tretā Yuga, an age mythically far earlier; the Sanskrit text itself was composed and layered over many centuries (roughly 7th century BCE onward). Its position here reflects the text, not a claimed historical event date.
Dharmic heritage · sourced, not flattened
Browse the tradition by era. Every date is marked historical, traditional or contested, with its source alongside it.
One of the world's earliest urban cultures, with planned cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, standardised weights, and ritual bathing structures. Its script is still undeciphered, and the identification of some sites with the Vedic Sarasvatī river remains debated.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · Archaeological Survey of India
The oldest of the four Vedas, preserved orally with extraordinary fidelity. Academic dating places its core hymns around 1500–1200 BCE; tradition regards the Vedas as apauruṣeya (authorless, eternal), so any single 'date' is a scholarly estimate, not a settled fact.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · Encyclopaedia Britannica: Veda
The philosophical culmination of the Vedic corpus — the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya among the oldest — turning from ritual to questions of ātman and brahman. Composition dates are estimated ranges, not fixed points.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
The itihāsa of Rāma. Tradition sets its events in the Tretā Yuga, an age mythically far earlier; the Sanskrit text itself was composed and layered over many centuries (roughly 7th century BCE onward). Its position here reflects the text, not a claimed historical event date.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Explore in BookMyMandir →The vast itihāsa of the Kuru war, containing the Bhagavad Gītā. Tradition places Kurukṣetra at the cusp of the Dvāpara and Kali Yugas; the text grew over roughly eight centuries. We show it by its compilation window and mark the yuga setting as traditional.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
The lifetimes of Gautama Buddha and Mahāvīra reshaped the religious landscape the temple traditions grew alongside. Their exact dates are debated — the Buddha's death is variously placed c. 483 or nearer 400 BCE.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org
A grammar of Sanskrit of such rigour it is still studied as a formal system. Pāṇini is usually placed in the 5th–4th century BCE, though the precise dating is uncertain.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
India's first great pan-Indian empire. Aśoka (r. c. 268–232 BCE) left dated rock and pillar edicts — among the earliest firmly historical records of Indian religious and moral policy.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org
The Purāṇas — encyclopaedic works of myth, cosmology, genealogy and temple lore — were compiled and revised across many centuries, so their dating is a broad range rather than a single year.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
A period of consolidation in art, mathematics and Sanskrit letters. Under the Guptas the first free-standing stone Hindu temples appear, setting the template later dynasties would elaborate.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
One of the earliest surviving stone Hindu temples, its carved panels of Viṣṇu marking the transition from rock-cut shrines to built structural temples in the Gupta era.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · Archaeological Survey of India
Pallava rock-cut and structural monuments by the sea, built under Narasiṃhavarman II. A UNESCO World Heritage group and an early masterpiece of Dravidian architecture.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · UNESCO World Heritage List: Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram
The Advaita philosopher who systematised non-dualism and, by tradition, founded four cardinal maṭhas. The widely-followed traditional dates are 788–820 CE, but scholars dispute them, with several placing him earlier — so the dating is genuinely contested.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
A single temple carved top-down from one basalt cliff under the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Kṛṣṇa I — one of the largest monolithic excavations on earth. Part of the UNESCO Ellora Caves.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · UNESCO World Heritage List: Ellora Caves
The Chandela dynasty's Nāgara-style temples in Madhya Pradesh, renowned for their sculpture. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · UNESCO World Heritage List: Khajuraho Group of Monuments
Rājarāja Chola I's granite masterpiece, its towering vimāna a peak of Chola engineering. Part of the UNESCO 'Great Living Chola Temples' and still in worship.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · UNESCO World Heritage List: Great Living Chola Temples
Tamil poet-saints devoted to Viṣṇu (Āḻvārs) and Śiva (Nāyanārs) whose hymns turned devotion (bhakti) into a mass movement centred on temple worship. Individual dates are approximate.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org
The ācārya of Viśiṣṭādvaita ('qualified non-dualism') and reformer of Śrīvaiṣṇava temple practice. The traditional 120-year lifespan (1017–1137) is a devotional account; he is a firmly historical figure whose exact dates are held by tradition.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
The great Kaliṅga-style temple of Jagannātha, largely built under the Eastern Ganga king Anantavarman Chodaganga in the 12th century — home of the annual Ratha Yātrā.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Explore in BookMyMandir →Founder of the Dvaita (dualist) school, which upholds an eternal distinction between the soul and God, and a major influence on Vaiṣṇava temple theology in Karnataka.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Narasiṃhadeva I's temple to Sūrya, conceived as the sun-god's chariot with carved stone wheels. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · UNESCO World Heritage List: Sun Temple, Konârak
A southern empire that became a great patron of temples; its capital Hampi, with the living Virūpākṣa temple, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of ruins and shrines.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · UNESCO World Heritage List: Group of Monuments at Hampi
The Bengali saint who spread ecstatic saṅkīrtana (congregational chanting of the divine names) and inspired the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
The Awadhi retelling of Rāma's story that became the most beloved devotional text of North India, begun (by its own colophon) in 1574 CE.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org
An ancient site whose vast gopura-crowned complex was largely rebuilt and expanded under the Nāyaka rulers, notably Tirumala Nāyaka — a defining image of Dravidian temple towns.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Sacked most famously by Maḥmūd of Ghaznī in 1024 and rebuilt repeatedly, Somnāth became a symbol of resilience; its modern reconstruction was completed in 1951.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
A reform movement founded in Calcutta that argued for monotheism and social reform, opening the 'Bengal Renaissance' and a century of Hindu self-examination.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
A reform movement calling for a return to the Vedas and against ritual excess, with lasting influence on education and Hindu identity in North India.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Swāmī Vivekānanda's Chicago address introduced Vedānta to a global audience; he founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897, reframing service as worship.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
The rebuilt Somnāth temple was consecrated in 1951, a landmark in newly-independent India's relationship with its temple heritage.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
A large modern temple complex opened in 2005, showing that monumental temple-building in traditional idioms continues into the present.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Temples move online — live darshan, seva booking and panchang in every pocket. BookMyMandir's aim is to reach this moment without extracting from it: to uplift every temple and make every devotee a VIP by 2028, at no cost to the temple's offerings.
Sources: BookMyMandir — docs/VISION.md (first-party mission, not an external claim)
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