their own temples, often side by side with Hindus. The 4th through 6th century marked the flowering of Vidharbha style, whose accomplishments survive in central India as Ajanta caves, Pavnar, Mandhal and Mahesvar. In the Malaprabha river basin, South India, this period is credited with some of the earliest stone temples of the region: the Badami Chalukya temples are dated to the 5th century by some scholars, and the 6th by some others. Over 6th and 7th centuries, temple designs were further refined during Maurya dynasty, evidence of which survives today at Ellora and in the Elephanta cave temples. It is the 5th through 7th century CE when outer design and appearances of Hindu temples in north India and south India began to widely diverge. Nevertheless, the forms, theme, symbolism and central ideas in the grid design remained same, before and after, pan-India as innovations were adopted to give distinctly different visual expressions. The Western Chalukya architecture of the 11th- & 12th-century Tungabhadra region of modern central Karnataka includes many temples. Step-wells are consist of a shaft dug to the water table, with steps descending to the water; while they were built for secular purposes, some are also decorated as temples, or serve as a temple tank. During the 5th to 11th century, Hindu temples flourished outside Indian subcontinent, such as in Cambodia, Viet Nam, Malaysia and Indonesia. In Cambodia, Khmer architecture favoured the Temple mountain style famously used in Angkor Wat, with a prang spire over the sanctum cell. Indonesian candi developed regional forms. In what is modern south and central Viet Nam, Champa architecture built brick temples. Destruction, conversion, and rebuilding Many Hindu temples have been destroyed, some, after rebuilding, several times. Deliberate temple destruction usually had religious motives. Richard Eaton has listed 80 campaigns of Hindu temple site destruction stretching over centuries, particularly from the 12th through the 18th century. Others temples have served as non-Hindu places of worship, either after conversion or simultaneously with Hindu use. In the 12th-16th century, during Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent and South Asia, Hindu temples, along with the temples of Buddhists and Jains, intermittently became targets of armies from Persian, Central Asian, and Indian sultanates. Imagined by these foreign zealots to be mere idols, sacred Forms of various deities were broken, spires and pillars were torn down, and temples were looted of their treasury. Some temples were converted into