The earliest Indian temples were third century B.C.E. Buddhist and hindu meditation sites excavated into the faces of mountains in northwest India,Where the monastic compounds consisted of one or more chapels for worship. The oldest chapels contain representation of the Buddha in abstract,as a focal stupa crafted out of solid stone. Later depictions of the Buddha and the Hindu gods visnu and siva take the form of statuary,accompained by images of Mahayana Buddhist and Hindu divinities.Buddhist and hindu text were also depicted in carved stone and in paintings on shrine walls.Five hundred years later,freestanding Buddhist shrines and Hindu temples across India adopted and adapted the art and archietecture portrayed in these early mountain temples