Spirit Temple

The Spirit Temple (魂の神殿, Tamashī no Shinden) is the eighth dungeon from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It lies within the Desert Colossus, to the west of the Haunted Wasteland.

Story
After rescuing four Carpenters from the Gerudo at the Gerudo Fortress, Link is approached by Aveil. She tells him about their leader, Nabooru, whose headquarters are located inside the Spirit Temple. Due to his impressive stealth and swordsmanship, he is made an honorary member of the Gerudo and is given the Gerudo Membership Card.

After traversing the Haunted Wasteland and reaching the Desert Colossus, Link enters the Spirit Temple, but finds no way to proceed beyond the foyer. Exiting the temple, he meets Sheik again. Sheik tells Link that he must travel back in time in order to make it through the Spirit Temple and awaken the Sage. Sheik soon disappears, but not before teaching Link the "Requiem of Spirit." Link then travels back to the Temple of Time, and returns the Master Sword to its pedestal, returning him to the past. Now a child, Link uses the "Requiem of Spirit" to warp back to the Desert Colossus and enter the Spirit Temple. He meets Nabooru, who tells him of a treasure known as the Silver Gauntlets, which bestow great strength upon their wearer; enough to move the giant grey stone that blocks Link's path as an adult. However, Nabooru is too large to get through the tiny passage that leads the way into the temple, and asks Link to do it for her in exchange for a reward. As the Silver Gauntlets are much too big for the hands of a child, she asks that she be given them if Link recovers them. Link travels into the temple and finds the Treasure Chest containing the Silver Gauntlets. Suddenly, a sandstorm begins blowing, and Link sees Nabooru before the Desert Colossus as she is being sucked into a vortex by the evil twin witches Koume and Kotake and disappearing shortly thereafter.

Link is left with no choice but to keep the Silver Gauntlets, travel to the future, and enter the temple. Inside, he obtains the Mirror Shield, and with the help of sunlight and a giant mirror, opens the way to the area where Koume and Kotake dwell. In a small antechamber, Link comes upon a strange Iron Knuckle, which looks different from the other ones. Link defeats this tougher Iron Knuckle, and as its armor falls off, Nabooru is revealed to have been inside the armor suit all along, having been brainwashed by the twin witches, who suddenly appear once more and spirit her away again. They escape into the boss room, where Link battles them. After defeating them, a pillar of light appears, and as Link steps into it, he is transported into the Chamber of Sages. Within the chamber, Nabooru is revealed to be the Sage of Spirit. She gives him the Spirit Medallion and adds her power to his. As Link exits the chamber, Nabooru can be heard saying that she would have kept whatever promise she made in the past, had she known what a handsome man Link would turn into.

Dungeon
The Spirit Temple is located inside a gigantic statue of the Goddess of the Sand, most likely a historical figure in Gerudo legend. The Temple is divided into two nearly symmetrical portions--one accessible only when Link is a child and the other only when he is an adult. The child-Link section consists mostly of puzzles. Each side's whole purpose is to lead to two large hands on the outside of the Temple, each of which contain a treasure for Link. The child Link portion gets Link the Silver Gauntlets, which allow him to access the adult portion, which yields the Mirror Shield. The apex of the Temple design involves entering the top floor access route, to activate the light that shines down into the main room. Link then stands on lowered platform and dissolves the face of the giant statue with the mirror shield to reveal the entrance to the Temple's sacred chamber, where its boss, Twinrova, is located. The Temple's prominent theme seems to take heavily from Egyptian tradition.

Sage

 * Nabooru

Items

 * Silver Gauntlets
 * Bombchus
 * Mirror Shield
 * Heart Container
 * Spirit Medallion

Enemies

 * Anubis
 * Armos
 * Beamos
 * Blade Trap
 * Door Mimic
 * Fire Keese
 * Floormaster
 * Flying Pot
 * Gold Skulltula
 * Green Bubble
 * Keese
 * Lizalfos
 * Like Like
 * Red Bubble
 * Skullwalltula
 * Stalfos
 * Torch Slug
 * Wallmaster
 * White Bubble
 * Wolfos

Mini-bosses

 * Iron Knuckle(x2)
 * Nabooru

Boss

 * Twinrova

Master Quest
In the Master Quest port, several changes have been made to the dungeon, including puzzles and the order in which rooms are visited. Some puzzles include collecting Silver Rupees, using the Song of Time to create Stones of Time that have boxes used to compress switches on them and playing several Ocarina Songs to gain access to a room. Once Link has obtained the Silver Gauntlets to gain access to deeper parts of the dungeon he must use the Hookshot to reach an area that was previously a short cut. It also features several new enemies such as Dinolfos, Gibdos, Leevers and a Club Moblin. Interestingly many of the rooms in this dungeon do not need to be visited in order to reach the boss. These rooms instead hold several Gold Skulltulas that can only be obtained after solving difficult puzzles.

Origin and purpose
The Spirit Temple was built by all-female architects and masons from the Gerudo band of thieves. It is said to hold a vast amount of treasure and secrets, presumably in the form of picture writing that can be seen on its walls inside the game. It was once Ganondorf's hideout. While the Gerudo Desert does appear in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the Spirit Temple is nowhere to be seen. However, the Arbiter's Grounds bear many striking similarities to the Spirit Temple both in architecture (for example, the Gerudo Goddess of the Sand appears at the top of the Arbiter's Grounds and is also a prominent feature of the Spirit Temple) as well as location, and it is possible that they could be the one and same.

Temple Guardian
It is possible that the snake statues found all over the Spirit Temple symbolize the dungeon's patron deity. This statue is never mentioned, but it is seen quite often throughout the temple. Also, all of the other adult dungeons seem to have their own representations, which furthers this concept.

Also, it is possible that the Goddess of the Sand serves this purpose as well, although she seems to be the temple's focal point of worship and not its protector.

Order discrepancy
The Spirit Temple, canonically, is widely considered to be the fifth and final temple in the game before Ganon's Tower, as evidenced by the fact that almost every guide (including Nintendo's) and walkthrough list it as the fifth, and is the fifth and last mentioned by Sheik when he informs Link about the temples in which the sages are found. It is, however, speculated that it may actually be the fourth:

Firstly, the Quest Status Screen displays the Spirit Medallion placed before the Shadow Medallion; when following a clockwise order, the placement of the other medallions matches the order in which they are intended to be obtained in the game; on the same screen, the "Requiem of Spirit" is listed before the "Nocturne of Shadow" in the section in which learned songs are stored. Additionally, it is possible to complete the entire Spirit Temple without having completed the Shadow Temple (and obtained the Hover Boots found therein); in the adult portion of the Spirit Temple, there is an area which seemingly requires the usage of the Hover Boots to obtain a Silver Rupee found hovering in mid-air, but this can also be obtained by using other methods, such as timing Link's jump from the ledge to make him fall onto a boulder, the shock of the impact making it possible for him to get high enough up in the air to reach the Rupee.

Another hint that it may have been originally intended as the second to last temple, is that Sheik does not inform the player that they can return to the past before the Shadow Temple, but rather, before the Spirit Temple. This knowledge should seemingly have been provided before embarking on a certain part of the quest to gain access to the Shadow Temple, in which Link must travel back in time to obtain the Lens of Truth from the Bottom of the Well. Furthermore, the Lens of Truth itself is needed to summon the guide that leads Link to the Desert Colossus in the Haunted Wasteland. This is another indicator implying that the Spirit Temple is likely meant to be the final temple before ascending Ganon's Tower.