The Pancha Rathas are five lovely 7th-century rock temples cut from single pink granite outcrops. Being attached to the earth they could not be consecrated, so they were never used for worship.
With beams, lintels, and “thatched” roofs in imitation of earlier, wooden examples, they influenced the design of Hindu temples over the following 1,000 years.
Pancha Rathas is a monument complex at Mahabalipuram, on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, in the Kancheepuram district of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Pancha Rathas is an example of monolithic Indian rock-cut architecture. Wikipedia