Panchayatana puja that incorporates Shiva became popular in medieval India and is attributed to 8th century Adi Shankara, but archaeological evidence suggests that this practice long predates the birth of Adi Shankara. Many Panchayatana mandalas and temples have been uncovered that are from the Gupta Empire period, and one Panchayatana set from the village of Nand (about 24 kilometers from Ajmer) has been dated to belong to the Kushan Empire era (pre-300 CE). According to James Harle, major Hindu temples from 1st millennium CE commonly embedded the "pancayatana" architecture, from Odisha to Karnataka to Kashmir. Large temples often present multiple deities in the same temple complex, while some explicitly include fusion deities such as Harihara (half Shiva, half Vishnu).