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After breakfast we drive to Khajuraho, renowned for its fine temples. In the afternoon we visit the temples. Built between 950 and 1050 AD, they are among the most creative examples of Indian architecture. Only 22 of the original 85 temples survive today. The most popular theme is woman: reflective, playful, and amorous. The carvings also depict gods in cosmic evolution, griffins, nymphs, beasts, demons in revolt and the several emotions of man — fear, doubt, jealousy, ardent love and consummate passion. The western group, contained within a fenced enclosure, is well-maintained as a park. The large Lakshmana Temple is dedicated to Vishnu and is one of the earliest of the western enclosure temples, dating from 930-950 AD. It is also one of the best preserved, with a full five-part floor plan and four subsidiary shrines. The Vahara Temple, dedicated to Vishnu’s boar incarnation (Vahara avatar) faces the Matangesvara Temple and has a huge solid and intricately carved figure of the boar incarnation, dating from around 900 AD. The Kandariya Mahadev Temple is not only the largest but also artistically and architecturally the most perfect. Build between 1025 and 1050 AD; it represents Chandela at its finest. The Mahadeva Temple is small and mainly ruined. However, it houses one of Khajuraho’s best sculptures — a fine sardula figure caressing a lion. The Devi Jagadamba Temple was probably originally dedicated to Vishnu, but later changed to Parvati and then Kali. The Chitragupta Temple is unique in being dedicated to the Sun God, Surya. The Matangesvara Temple, standing next to the Lakshmana Temple, is not within the fenced enclose, because it is still in everyday use, unlike all the old temples.
Every piece of block for these structures was carved at the quarry. The plans must have been very elaborate and well understood by everyone. Now as you can see by the photos there is a lot of explicit sexual acts carved into many stones. Personally I think it was a bunch of workers that decided to get even for all the overtime and poor pay! Probably thought no one would notice until the boss brought the wife over to view the finished product. I am just making that up but the dog scene I just gotta believe that wasn’t on the original plans.
Truely a magnificent group of temples, unearth after many years of deterioration by the British and restores, now a world heritage site.
Some of the pictures are slightly distorted because of the wide angle lens.
