India is a land of wonderful temples and beautiful monuments. One glimpse at their architectural sophistication and you are mesmerized for your lifetime. The 12th century temples of Khajuraho are wonderful examples of medieval artistry. They generate awe among the onlookers both because of their intricate architectural details and explicit erotica depicted on the walls of some of the temples.
The Khajuraho temples through their unique architectural style try to convey the message of reaching out to god without renouncing the worldly duties something, which can be clearly inferred from the nature of sculpture found on the walls. The idol of God rests inside the temples that have their outer wall full of sculpture depicting themes of men and women involved in their daily chores.
The temples of Khajuraho were built within a time period of 100 years. Far removed from the political center of the kingdom, its location minimized the danger of external attack, making Khajuraho the Chandelas spiritual homeland. The earliest temples of Khajuraho were built in coarse granite. However, the most famous ones - including the World Heritage monuments known as the Western Group of temples - are mostly built in fine-grained buff, pink and pale yellow sandstone. The temples belong to different religious sects like Shaiva, Vaishnava and Jain and mark the culmination of the northern Indian or Nagara style of temple architecture.
Khajuraho temples, standing high on the terrace of solid masonary called the adisthana, are unique for not being enclosed within any walls. Built with spiral superstructures, they give a glimpse of the northern Indian shikhara temple style and often to a Panchayatana plan or layout which has four subordinate shrines on four corners and a shrine in the center of the podium which comprises their base.The constituent parts of the temple are not built as separate units but present striking unity.
On the whole the Khajuraho dance festival is bound to make one spellbound, an experience worth remembering for a long times to come.
The Khajuraho temples are aligned east to west with their entrance facing east. The roof of Khajuraho temples comprises of a main shikhara over the sanctum subordinated by secondary shikhars which rise in a graded fashion.this particular style of graded rise of shikhars gives a conical look and a unique character to these temples.
The walls of the templehave canopied windows with balconies to admit air and light into the interior. As a rule there are three main compartments, namely, the garbhagriha, the mandapa and the ardhamandapa or entrance portico, arranged in the fashion of a cross in the design of the temple building. Thus it starts with an arch leading to the oblong porch or ardhamanapa. Next lies a larger closed hall, the mahamandapa that has a corridor around it. This hall leads into the antarala beyond which lies the garbhagriha or the sanctum housing the cult deity. The larger temples have both inner and outer ambulatory passages or sandharas, some with the subsidiary shrines on the four corners making the structure a panchayatna.
Both the interiors and the exterior are beautifully carved. A series of friezes runs right round the temple, from the basement to the projections and the recesses of the walls above. The inside walls, doorways, pillars, pilasters, niches, architraves and ceilings all display a wealth of ornamentation which are very interesting. The themes of these sculptures on the temples of Khajuraho express the myriad aspects of human life, god and goddesses, guardians of the quarters, sensuous and graceful apsaras (nymphs), surasundaris (attendants of higher divinities), salabhanjikas (tree nymphs) in infinite moods and postures. All these are typically Indian in character and thus talk a lot about its culture and way of life in that particular stage in history. These sculptures capture the different moods and emotions of man with sheer perfection.
