Temples: the western group
Stranded like a fleet of stone ships amid pristine lawns and flowerbeds fringed with bougainvillea, the western group of temples is Khajuraho’s prime attraction. With the exception of Matangesvara, just outside the main complex, all are now virtually devoid of religious significance, and only spring back to life during Shivratri. Visitors must remove their shoes before entering individual temples. An informative self-guided audio tour is available from the temple booking office, and there’s a nightly sound-and-light show (55min). The site can get to be a bit of a scrum when the tour groups are in, so it’s best to visit before 9am (when the rising sun illuminates the interiors of the temples), or around lunchtime.
Varaha
Just inside the complex a small open mandapa pavilion, built between the tenth and eleventh centuries, houses a huge, highly polished sandstone image of Vishnu as the boar – Varaha. Carved in low relief on its body, 674 figures in neat rows represent the major gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. Lord of the earth, water and heaven, the alert boar straddles Shesha the serpent, accompanied by what T.S. Burt conjectured must have been the most beautiful form of Prithvi, the earth goddess – all that remains are her feet, and a hand on the neck of the boar. Above the image the lotus ceiling stands out in relief.
Lakshmana
Beyond Varaha, adjacent to the Matangesvara temple across the boundary wall, the richly carved Lakshmana temple, dating from around 950 AD, is the oldest of the western group. It stands on a high plinth covered with processional friezes of horses, elephants and camels, as well as soldiers, domestic scenes, musicians and dancers. Among explicit sexual images is a man sodomizing a horse, flanked by shocked female onlookers. The sheer energy of the work gives the whole temple an astounding sense of movement and vitality.
While the plinth depicts the human world, the temple itself, the adhisthana, brings one into contact with the celestial realm. Two tiers of carved panels decorate its exterior, with gods and goddesses attended by apsaras, “celestial nymphs”, and figures in complicated sexual acts on the lower tier and in the recesses. Fine detail includes a magnificent dancing Ganesh on the south face, a master architect with his students on the east, and heavenly musicians and dancers.
Kandariya Mahadeva
Sharing a common platform with other temples in the western corner of the enclosure, the majestic Kandariya Mahadeva temple, built between 1025 and 1050 AD, is the largest and most imposing of the western group. A perfect consummation of the five-part design instigated in Lakshmana and Vishvanatha, this Shiva temple represents the pinnacle of Chandellan art, its ornate roofs soaring dramatically to culminate 31m above the base in a shikhara consisting of 84 smaller replicas.
Kandariya Mahadeva is especially popular with visitors for the extraordinarily energetic and provocative erotica that ornaments its three tiers, covering almost every facet of the exterior. Admiring crowds can always be found in front of a particularly fine image of a couple locked in mithuna (sexual intercourse) with a maiden assisting on either side. One of Khajuraho’s most familiar motifs, it seems to defy nature, with the male figure suspended upside down on his head; only when considered as if from above do the sinuous intertwined limbs begin to make sense.
Devi Jagadambi
North of Kandariya Mahadeva along the platform, the earlier Devi Jagadambi temple is a simpler structure, whose outer walls lack projecting balconies. Originally dedicated to Vishnu, its prominent mandapa is capped by a massive pyramidal roof. Three bhandas (belts) bind the jangha (body), adorned with exquisite and sensuous carvings; the erotica on the third is arguably Khajuraho’s finest. Vishnu appears throughout the panels, all decorated with sinuous figures of nymphs, gods and goddesses, some in amorous embrace. Some consider the image in the temple sanctum to be a standing Parvati, others argue that it is the black goddess Kali, known here as Jagadambi.
Between Kandariya Mahadeva and Jagadambi, the remains of Mahadeva temple shelter a 1m high lion accompanied by a figure of indeterminate sex. Recurring throughout Khajuraho, the highly stylized lion motif, seen here rearing itself over a kneeling warrior with drawn sword, may have been an emblem of the Chandellas.
Chitragupta
Beyond the platform, and similar to its southern neighbour, Jagadambi, the heavily (and in places clumsily) restored Chitragupta temple is unusual in being dedicated to Surya, the sun god. Ornate depictions of hunting scenes, nymphs and dancing girls accompany processional friezes, while on the southern aspect a particularly vigorous ten-headed Vishnu embodies all his ten incarnations. Within the inner chamber, the fiery Surya rides a chariot driven by seven horses. The small and relatively insignificant temple in front of Chitragupta, also heavily restored and now known as Parvati, may originally have been a Vishnu temple, but holds an interesting image of the goddess Ganga riding on a crocodile.
Vishvanatha
Laid out along the same lines as Lakshmana, Vishvanatha, in the northeast corner of the enclosure – the third of the three main western group shrines – can be precisely dated to 1002 AD as the work of the ruler Dhangadeva. Unlike some other temples at Khajuraho, which may have changed their presiding deities, Vishvanatha is most definitely a Shiva temple, as confirmed by the open mandapa pavilion in front of the main temple, where a monolithic seated Nandi waits obediently. Large panels between the balconies once more show mithuna, with amorous couples embracing among the sensuous nymphs. Idealized representations of the female form include women in such poses as writing letters, playing music and cuddling babies. Decorative elephant motifs appear to the south of Vishvanatha, and lions guard its northern aspect.
Matangesvara
The simplicity of the Matangesvara temple, outside the complex gates, shows it to be one of Khajuraho’s oldest structures, but although built early in the tenth century it remains in everyday use. Deep balconies project from the walls of its circular sanctuary, inside which a pillar-like shivalingam emerges from the pedestal yoni, the vulva – the recurring symbol of the union of Shiva. During the annual festival of Shivratri, the great wedding of Shiva and Parvati, the shrine becomes a hive of activity, drawing pilgrims for ceremonies that hark back to Khajuraho’s distant past.
Chausath Yogini
Southwest of Shiv Sagar are the remains of the curious temple of Chausath Yogini – the “Sixty-Four Yoginis”. Dating from the ninth century, it consists of 35 small granite shrines clustered around a quadrangle; there were originally 64 shrines, with the presiding goddess’s temple at the centre. Only fourteen other temples, all in northern India, are known to have been dedicated to these wrathful and bloodthirsty female attendants of the goddess Kali. Around 1km further west lie the ruins of Lalguan Mahadev, a small temple dedicated to Shiva.
Temples: the eastern group
The two separate networks of temples that make up Cunningham’s eastern group
are reached via the two forks of the road east of the town. Although smaller than
the western group temples, they feature workmanship that is equal or better, and are considerably less crowded. One is the tightly clustered Jain group, while slightly north are a number of shrines and two larger temples, Vamana and Javari, both dating from the late eleventh century.
The temples to the north
On the north side of Jain Temples Road a more modern temple is home to a 2m-high image of monkey god Hanuman that may predate all of Khajuraho’s temples and shrines. As the road forks left along the eastern shore of the murky Khajur Sagar lake, at the edge of Khajuraho village, it passes the remains of a single-room temple erroneously referred to as the Brahma temple. It is in fact a shrine to Shiva, as demonstrated by its chaturmukha – “four-faced” – lingam. While the eastern and western faces carry benign expressions, and the north face bears the gentler aspect of Uma, the female manifestation of Shiva, the ferocious southern face is surrounded by images of death and destruction. Crowning the lingam is the rounded form of Sadashiva, Shiva the Infinite at the centre of the cosmos.
The largest of the Khajuraho village temples, Vamana, stands alone in a field 200m further north. Erected slightly earlier than Javari, in a fully evolved Chandella style, Vamana has a simple uncluttered shikhara that rises in bands covered with arch-like motifs. Figures including seductive celestial nymphs form two bands around the jangha, the body of the temple, while a superb doorway leads to the inner sanctum, which is dedicated to Vamana, an incarnation of Vishnu. On the way to the Jain group, the road runs near what survives of a late tenth-century temple, known as Ghantai for its fine columns sporting bells (ghantai), garlands and other motifs.
The Jain group temples
The temple of Parsvanath, dominating the walled enclosure of the Jain group, is probably older than the main temples of Khajuraho, judging by its relatively simple ground plan. Its origins are a mystery; although officially classified as a Jain monument, it may have been a Hindu temple that was donated to the Jains who settled here at a later date. Certainly, the animated sculpture of Khajuraho’s other Hindu temples is well represented on the two horizontal bands around the walls, and the upper one is crowded with Hindu gods in intimate entanglements. Among Khajuraho’s finest work, they include Brahma and his consort; a beautiful Vishnu; a rare image of the god of love, Kama, shown with his quiver of flower arrows embracing his consort Rati; and two graceful female figures. A narrow strip above the two main bands depicts celestial musicians playing cymbals, drums, stringed instruments and flutes. Inside, beyond an ornate hall, a black monolithic stone is dedicated to the Jain lord Parsvanath, inaugurated as recently as 1860 to replace an image of another tirthankara, Adinath.
Immediately north of Parsvanath, Adinath’s own temple, similar but smaller, has undergone drastic renovation. Three tiers of sculpture surround its original structure, of which only the sanctum, shikhara and vestibule survive; the incongruous mandapa is a much later addition. Inside the garbha griha stands the black image of the tirthankara Adinath himself. The huge 4.5m-high statue of the sixteenth tirthankara, Shantinath, in his newer temple, is the most important image in this working Jain complex. With its slender beehive shikharas, the temple attracts pilgrims from all over India, including naked sadhus.
Temples: the southern group
Khajuraho’s southern group consists of three widely separated temples. The nearest
to town, Duladeo, is down the road south of the Jain group, 1.5km from the main town square. Built early in the twelfth century, Duladeo bears witness to the decline of temple architecture in the late Chandellan period, noticeable particularly in its sculpture. Nonetheless, its main hall contains some exquisite carving, and the angular rippled exterior of the main temple is unique to Khajuraho.
Across the Khodar stream and south along a small road leads through the small village of Jatkra from where a path leads west to the temple of Bija Math. The structure lay below a suspiciously large mound of mud until 1998, when an excavation discovered the delicately carved platform. Unfortunately, the temple itself has disintegrated into the debris of ornate sculpture lying strewn around the site.
To get to the third, go back to Jatkra village and head south, past the Ram Spiritual Chai Shop until you get to the main road where you’ll see the tapering temple of Chaturbhuj. A forerunner to Duladeo, built around 1100 AD and bearing some resemblance to the Javari temple of the eastern group, Chaturbhuj is plainer than Duladeo and devoid of erotica. A remarkable image of Vishnu, however, graces its inner sanctum. Either head back through Jatkra, or follow the main road west to where it meets Airport Road.
Top image: Famous indian Madhya Pradesh tourist landmark - Kandariya Mahadev Temple, Khajuraho, India © Dmitry Rukhlenko/Shutterstock