Kamakhya Temple, Dispur, Assam India

The temple consists of four chambers: garbhagriha and three mandapas locally called calanta, pancaratna and natamandira. The garbhagriha has a pancharatha plan  and rests on plinth moldings that are similar to the Surya Temple at Tezpur, above which are dados from a later period of the Khajuraho or the Central Indian type, consisting of sunken panels alternating with pilasters. The sikhara in the shape of a bee-hive, which is characteristic of temples in Lower Assam.  The inner sanctum, the garbhagriha, is a cave below ground level and consists of no image but a rock fissure:

    The garbhagriha is small, dark and reached by narrow steep stone steps. Inside the cave there is a sheet of stone that slopes downwards from both sides meeting in a yoni-like depression some 10 inches deep. This hallow is constantly filled with water from an underground perennial spring. It is the vulva-shaped depression that is worshiped as the goddess Kamakhya herself and considered as most important pitha (abode) of the Devi.

The earliest historical dynasty of Kamarupa, the Varmans (350-650), as well as Xuanzang, a 7th-century Chinese traveler ignore the Kamakhya, when it is assumed that the worship was Kirata-based beyond the brahminical ambit. The first epigraphic notice of Kamakhya is found in the 9th-century Tezpur plates of Vanamalavarmadeva of the Mlechchha dynasty. There is enough archaeological evidence of a massive 8th-9th century temple. There is a tradition that the temple was destroyed by Kalapahar, a general of Sulaiman Karrani (1566–1572), though the latest historical findings favor instead an earlier destruction during Hussein Shah's invasion of the Kamata kingdom (1498) then under Nilambar. The ruins of the temple was said to have been discovered by Vishwasingha, the founder of the Koch dynasty, who revived worship at the site; but it was during the reign of his son, Naranarayan, that the temple reconstruction was completed in 1565. The reconstruction used material from the original temples that was lying scattered about. Banerji (1925) records that this structure was further built over by the rulers of the Ahom kingdom. Many other structures are yet later additions.