Temple

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Temple of Hephaestus, an Doric Greek temple in Athens with the original entrance facing east, 449 BC (western face depicted)

For other uses, see Temple (disambiguation).

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites (as in masonry). It is a general term for a house of worship. As a distinct term from those used to describe other religious structures, a temple is often viewed as a dwelling place of a god or gods. Temples have been built by both ancient and modern religions according to a wide variety of traditions in religious architecture. The majority of the main temples, along the major religions, are aligned in the cardinal directions, especially in an east-west axis which symbolically represents the sun's path, the "donor of life". In Judaism, from the Bible, the hebrew term for temple is "sanctuary", "palace" or "hall". A temple is sometimes referred to as a "palace of God".

1 Religious terminology
2 Temple architecture
3 List of religious temples
4 Additional reading
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Religious terminology

Some religions using the term temple, exclusively or alongside specific synonym(s):

Hinduism (Koil/Kovil,Mandir, Devasthana)
Buddhism (Shaolin)
Temple at Uppsala
Greek temple
Temple in Jerusalem
Mormon temple
Roman temple
Reform Judaism's synagogues.

Some religions refer to their temples by a unique word of their own:

In ancient Rome, only the native deities of Roman mythology had a templum; any equivalent structure for a foreign deity was called a fanum.
In Christianity, God is not believed to live in a church but is omnipresent. As 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19 says Christians are the temple of God, considered equivalent to the Temple in Jerusalem. Usually the building is called a church, but may sometimes be called a temple.

St. Peter's Basilica with the entrance facing east, the Roman Catholic Church, Rome, Vatican City, 1506-1626

- In Western Christianity, some "private" temples are called chapels, while major public ones are designated by a term reflecting its ecclesiastical status, such as cathedral (i.e. seat of a diocesan bishop), basilica, or minster, and/or proper to a cultural tradition, e.g. kirk (Scotts, cognate with church) or Dom (Dutch and (German, English cognate Dome only used in architecture).
- In Orthodox Christianity (both Eastern and Oriental) a temple is a church with a base shaped like a Greek cross. See Orthodox temple.
- Protestant denominations installed in France in the early modern era use the word "temple" (as opposed to "church," supposed to be Roman Catholic); some more recently installed Christian denominations use "church."
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) uses both "church" and "temple" to denote different types of buildings. Weekly worship services are held in churches while Latter-day Saint temples are reserved for special ordinances. As of September 2006, they have 123 temples that dot the globe with about a dozen in the planning or building stages.
A Jain temple is called derasar.
A Hindu temple is variously called a mandir (Hindi), a devasthaana or a gudi in (Kannada), a Kovil (Tamil), and a gudi/devalayam/kovela (Telugu).

Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine at the Temple Mount with 4 entrances in the cardinal directions, stands on the site of the First and Second Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, Israel.

An Islamic temple is called a mosque (masjid in Arabic)
In Judaism, the Temple in Jerusalem (Hebrew: בית המקדש, Beit ha Mikdash, literally "House of the Temple") on Temple Mount in Jerusalem was the center of ancient Judaism and the most important holy site in the religion. At the center of the structure was the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest could enter. The First Temple was built in the 10th century BCE under King Solomon to replace the Tabernacle and was destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, marking the beginning of the Babylonian exile. The Second Temple was constructed after the return from the Babylonian exile, from around 536 BCE to 515 BCE. Herod's Temple was a massive expansion of the Second Temple begun under Herod the Great around 19 BCE. It was almost entirely destroyed by Roman troops under Titus in 70 CE during the siege of Jerusalem of the First Jewish-Roman War, leaving only the Western Wall. Some synagogues, especially Reform synagogues, are called temples (as in Temple Emanu-El; Temple Beth-El), but Orthodox Judaism considers this inappropriate as they do not consider synagogues a replacement for the Temple in Jerusalem.

A Sikh temple is called a gurdwara.
A Zoroastrian temple is called a fire temple.
In Cambodia and Thailand, both Hindu and Buddhist temples are known as wats.
Bahá'í temples are known as Mashriqu'l-Adhkárs (Houses of Worship).
A Shintoist temple is called a jinja, or in English a shrine, as opposed to temples (-tera, -dera) as in Buddhism.
Various Far Eastern temples are called pagoda in western languages
Numerous sects, syncretisms and other non-mainstream religious cults also have temples

Many temples face East (sun rises) because they believed that on a particular day the god/godess it was dedicated to would bless it

[edit] Temple architecture

The Angkor Wat Hindu temple in Cambodia, with the entrance facing west, is the largest temple in the world (early 12th century).

Longshan Temple in Taipei City with the entrance facing west; an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan (1738).

In various historical periods, specific architectural styles were maintained strictly for major religious structures. These temple structures, along with military and palace structures, have often been the main surviving studied examples of certain kinds of architecture. In terms of ancient temple architecture, the Most Holy Place was called in Greek Naos or in Latin Cella: the actual interior dwelling of (the most sacred image of) the deity in the center of the religious structure, forbidden to laymen.

The complex of the Temple of Karnak in Egypt is regarded by some as the world's largest religious structure. The distinctive architectural styles reflect the design of these structures as a dwelling place for the Gods rather than as a gathering place for veneration and worship per se. ^[1]

The Ecclesia, the Rosicrucian Healing Temple with the entrance facing east, Oceanside, California, United States, 1920; it's a solar temple dedicated to the coming Age of Aquarius.

In particular, Greek and Roman temple architecture has been a major influence in Western public architecture. See list of ancient temple structures.

[edit] List of religious temples

In Republic of China ( Taiwan ) for non-Buddhist worship:

Long-shan Temple (龍山寺, Long Shan Si)
Bao-an Temple (大龍峒保安宮)
Xanthos, a Greek temple
Meenakshi Temple, famous temple in Madurai, India
Edakkunni Temple, most famous of the 108 durga temples built by Parasurama; known for Kshipra prasadini (i.e. you get whatever you prayed for if you pray daily)