In South Indian, or Dravida, temple architecture, the vimana is the tower built directly above the garbhagriha, occupying the same structural position as the shikhara of North Indian temples but built to a visibly different profile: rather than a single continuous curving mass, the Dravida vimana rises in a series of distinct, flat, stepped stories called talas, each smaller than the one below it, producing a stepped pyramidal silhouette that reads clearly as a stack of diminishing tiers rather than one unbroken curve. Each tier is typically ringed with miniature shrine forms and sculpted figures, repeating in reduced scale the architectural vocabulary of the temple as a whole, and the vimana is capped, like its northern counterpart, by a crowning finial, an octagonal or domed element in local Dravida terminology also sometimes called a shikhara, a usage that can confuse readers unfamiliar with how the same word shifts meaning between regional traditions.
Unlike in many North Indian temple complexes, where the shikhara over the sanctum is typically the tallest structure on site, South Indian temple compounds frequently give their greatest height instead to the gopurams, the monumental gateway towers on the outer enclosure walls, leaving the vimana over the actual sanctum comparatively modest by contrast.