The 10th or 11th-cen­­tu­ry Lin­gara­ja tem­ple of Bhubaneswar has been described as the truest fusion of dream and real­i­ty. A rare mas­ter­piece, the Lin­gara­ja tem­ple has been rat­ed one of the finest exam­ples of pure­ly Hin­du tem­ple in India by Fer­gu­son, the not­ed art crit­ic and his­to­ri­an. Every inch of the sur­face of the 55 m‑high Lin­gara­ja tem­ple is cov­ered with elab­o­rate carv­ings. Sculp­ture and archi­tec­ture fused ele­gant­ly to cre­ate a per­fect har­mo­ny. Non-Hin­­dus are not per­mit­ted inside. How­ev­er there is an ele­vat­ed view­ing plat­form next to one of the bound­ary walls. To reach the plat­form, face the tem­ple’s main entrance and walk around to the right. There is a laneway lead­ing to the back of the tem­ple and the plat­form. Pho­tog­ra­phy is pro­hib­it­ed inside the tem­ple com­plex, the plat­form offers a good van­tage point to pho­to­graph the tem­ple. Near the tem­ple is ”’Bindu Sarovara”’, a large lake that is reput­ed to have a drop of water each from every holy riv­er of India.