temple Facts For Kids

Temple is a special building where people come to pray, think, and take part in religious rituals. Temples can belong to many different religions, and each one has its own style and rules. Some faiths use other words for their buildings—like churches, mosques, or synagogues—but these places also help people meet, celebrate, and feel close to what they believe.

A temple usually has a main room for worship and a larger area around it that may hold smaller halls, gardens, or courtyards. Sometimes only priests or leaders may go into the most sacred rooms. The English word itself comes from the Latin word templum, a marked-off sacred area used long ago by priests.

Chinese temples are houses of worship for many beliefs in China, like Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Chinese folk religion. You often see them with bright, tiled roofs that curve up at the corners and layered wooden beams holding everything together. These buildings grew from ancient times and were shaped by emperors and carpenters who knew how to fit wood and tiles without many nails.

Roofs are a showy part: they have glazed ceramic tiles and tiny figures such as dragons or qilins that point the way to the sky. You can find these temples across Mainland China, Taiwan, and in Chinatowns around the world. Which roof creature would you choose for a temple?

Greek and Roman temples began as simple wooden buildings but later became grand stone or marble structures on raised platforms. They had rows of painted columns, sculpted scenes above those columns, and roofs decorated with figures. Most temples faced east so the morning sun could shine on them during important rituals.

Inside a temple the main room, called the cella, held the statue of the god or goddess. In front of the temple people used an altar for offerings. Temples were not only for worship; they could also be places for festivals, meetings, or even keeping the city’s valuables, showing that temples often played many roles in ancient life.

Mesoamerican temples usually sit on top of stepped stone pyramids. Builders stacked wide platforms to make a high base, then put a small temple or shrine on the flat top. You climb steep steps to reach the temple entrance and sometimes a small inner room, called a cella, where priests kept sacred objects.

Walls and steps often tell stories in carvings and painted scenes — for example, about the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl or about how the world began. Famous places with these pyramid temples include Chichen Itza, Tikal, and Uxmal. Imagine climbing those steep steps to look out over the jungle!

Ancient Egyptians thought of a temple as a "mansion of a god", a house where a god lived on earth. People came to temples to speak to the god through prayers and rituals that kept the world in balance. Temples were built so that only some rooms were open to everyone and other rooms were for priests to enter.

Temples often used a path of rooms that led toward the most sacred center. They also played an important economic role: temples stored food like grain and helped care for the land that supported the temple. Some people believed temple buildings were designed to mirror the human body or the order of the cosmos, so each part had meaning.

Freemasonry is a group that began in the 1700s. Its members tell stories and act out lessons inspired by the old story of King Solomon’s Temple, so they call their meeting places Masonic Temples or Lodges. A local group is usually called a Lodge, and members say they are “in Lodge” when they meet.

Some cities have large Masonic Halls or Temples, like Freemasons’ Hall in London, where many Lodges meet. Today, the word “temple” is also used by clubs, groups, and builders to name special meeting places or important buildings, not only ancient houses of worship. What kind of meeting place would you name a temple?

The word "temple" has been used in different ways by many faiths. Long ago, the Jewish people had the great Temple in Jerusalem, called Beit YHWH or “YHWH’s House.” That complex had a very special inner room at its center that only the High Priest entered on rare days. Today the same hill, the Temple Mount, is home to the Dome of the Rock, an important Islamic building from about the year 690.

Over time, Jewish people also used the word for their synagogues, especially in Reform communities and in the United States. In Christianity, some churches — especially larger or older ones — are also called temples. The Latter Day Saint movement has its own temples that are used for particular religious ceremonies; other buildings called meetinghouses are used for regular services. Do you notice how one word can mean different things in different faiths?

In South Asia, many kinds of temples welcome people from different religions. A Hindu temple, often called a Mandir in many languages, usually has a small inner room called the garbhagriha where the main image of a god or goddess sits. Tall towers called shikhara or vimana rise above this inner room, and people walk around the building in a slow circle as a sign of respect.

Buddhist temples can be simple halls or round dome-like buildings called stupas; inside you might find a statue of the Buddha for calm, quiet meditation. Jain temples, sometimes called Derasar, are often carved with many small sculptures and may have a tall column called a manastambha out front. A Sikh temple, the gurdwara, keeps the holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, in the main hall (Darbar Sahib) and serves free food in a community kitchen called the Langar. Gurdwaras have doors on all sides to show they welcome everyone.