To the south-east of Delhi, the second largest city in India, at a distance of about 620 km, there is an amazing Khajuraho temple complex, included on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. Looking at him, one gets the impression that he is taken out of the context of the modern world and is seen by us from the depths of centuries. This effect is created by the pristine nature surrounding Khajuraho temples on all sides, and even wild animals that sometimes appear from the thicket of the forest.
Unanswered Questions
The Khajuraho architectural complex is concentrated on an area of 21 km² and consists of 25 buildings erected during the period of the 9th-12th centuries. It is known that once in antiquity there were at least 85 temples here, but during the excavations conducted, most of them could not be restored. Nevertheless, the remains of their foundations give an idea of the location of all the buildings that once existed here.
The temples of Khajuraho (India), the photos of which are presented in the article, raise many questions among researchers, to which no answers have yet been found. First of all, it is puzzling that only temples were discovered here and there were no traces of secular buildings.
Where did the kingdom surrounding the temples disappear?
If the territory of Khajuraho was part of a certain kingdom (and it could not be otherwise), then where then did the ruins of the palaces of its rulers and those buildings in which the inhabitants settled disappeared? It is hard to imagine that so many temples were erected in a remote and uninhabited area of the country. In addition, one cannot even say with complete certainty that the Khajuraho temples had only a purely religious purpose.
These and many other questions remain unanswered today, since no historical document has been discovered that can shed light on the activities of temples built among the virgin forests of India. Nevertheless, certain information about them was obtained on the basis of archaeological excavations and general information about the history of this state, which gave rise to one of the oldest world civilizations.
Chandell Dynasty Religious Center
The name Khajuraho itself comes from the Sanskrit word kharjura, which means “date palm”. The first mention of this area is found in the notes of the Arab traveler Abu Rihan al-Biruni, who visited it at the beginning of the XI century. In them, he presents it as the capital of the state created by the rulers of the Chandell dynasty, descended from the ancient family of the Rajputs.
Despite the fact that there is no documentary evidence of the creation of Khajuraho temples (as mentioned above), it is believed that their construction dates back to the period between 950-1050. AD, since it was in this historical stretch that the territory on which they were located was the religious center of the state ruled by the Chandell dynasty, while their administrative capital was located in the city of Kalinjar, located 100 km to the south-west.
Temples lost in time
Based on the excavations, it was found that the temple complex, built over a century, was originally surrounded by a high stone wall with eight gates decorated with golden palm trees. A large amount of gold was used to decorate the facades, as well as the interior of the temples, but all this splendor was plundered during the Muslim invasions, repeated several times during the XII-XIV centuries.
In the XIII century, the Chandell dynasty lost its position and was supplanted by other rulers. Together with her, the Khajuraho temples erected with them also lost their significance. In India of that period, new religious centers began to be actively built, while the former was forgotten and for several centuries became the property of a tropical forest lushly growing around it. Only in 1836, the ancient buildings, or rather, the ruins preserved in their place, were accidentally discovered by a British military engineer, Captain T. Burt.
Beautiful Hemavati
History, as you know, does not tolerate emptiness, the lack of documentary information is always compensated by legends. One of them tells about the erection of forest temples, and at the same time explains why in their sculptural design the erotic theme is almost dominant.
So, the legend says that once in the ancient city of Kashi (present-day Varanasi) there lived a certain brahmin priest named Hemraj, and he had a daughter of unprecedented beauty, whose name was Hemavati. One night, finding a secluded place on the river bank, hidden from prying eyes, she decided to swim. In her nakedness, the virgin was so beautiful that the moon god Chandra, admiring her because of the cloud, ignited with passion and, having fallen from heaven, united with her in a love outburst.
This night, filled with high feelings, ended for the girl with pregnancy and fear of universal condemnation, which inevitably subjected any brahmana who allowed extramarital affairs, even with a celestial. The poor thing had no choice but to advise her lover, Chandra, to leave the house and have a baby in the remote wilderness village of Khajuraho. A boy named Chandravarman was born.
Where did Khajuraho temples come from?
The story, which began with a love affair, led the Hemavati into a remote jungle, where she was forced to retire with her illegitimate son. There she became for him not only a mother, but also a guru (mentor). The Moon God (the father of the boy) predicted that in the future he would become the king ─ the founder of the dynasty and, having achieved power, would build 85 temples on the walls of which scenes of love, the fruit of which he is, would be depicted. That is exactly what happened. Chandravarman grew up, became king, founded the Chandell dynasty and laid the foundation for the construction of temples decorated with numerous erotic compositions.
Masterpieces of nameless architects
The Khajuraho temples erected almost a thousand years ago, the photos of which can only give an idea of their grandeur and beauty, are similar to alien spaceships that descended among the dense forests of Central India. Nearby, each of them amazes with the filigree sophistication of the work of ancient masters and at the same time gives the impression that it is carved from a single monolith by the divine hand of an unearthly sculptor.
All Khajuraho temples are built of sandstone, which is typical for the architecture of many parts of the world, where this material is extracted in sufficient quantities, but in this case, the peculiarity of the buildings is that the ancient builders did not use the mortar. The connection of individual blocks was carried out exclusively due to grooves and protrusions, which required high precision calculations.
The mysteries of ancient technology
Khajuraho temples, the architectural features of which include many columns and various architraves (ledges, borders, etc.), were built using technologies unknown to modern builders and forcing them to build the most fantastic assumptions. The fact is that many construction details carved from a single stone have a weight of up to 20 tons, and at the same time they are not only raised to a considerable height, but also installed with amazing accuracy in the grooves designed for them.
The exterior of the temples
Even a general description of Khajuraho temples allows us to make sure that they are significantly different from other religious buildings of that era in their architectural design. Each of them was erected on a high stone platform strictly oriented to the cardinal points. At the corners of the platforms, smaller shrines are installed, which are dome towers called shikharas. In general, such a composition resembles the tops of a certain mountain range on which the gods live.
The device of the interior of the temples
Inside any of the temples you can get through an elongated passage, richly decorated with a stone garland, composed of voluminous images of mythical animals, plants and love couples. Immediately behind it is the mandala ─ a kind of lobby, also richly decorated with bas-reliefs. In addition, its decoration consists, as a rule, of a carved ceiling and several columns or pilasters ─ vertical ledges of the wall, imitating the appearance of the column.
From the mandala, the visitor passes into the central hall, called the “Maha ─ Mandala”. It occupies the entire internal volume of the building, and in the center of it is usually a square elevation with columns, behind which is the entrance to the sanctuary. Once in this main part of the temple, you can see the statue or lingams (symbolic image) of the deity installed in honor of which the entire structure was erected.
Kandarya Temple in Khajuraho
The largest and most famous building of the complex, which includes 25 structures, is a temple called Kandarya Mahadeva. Its central part, raised up to a height of 30 m, is surrounded by 84 towers, the height of which decreases as they move away from the central axis. This gigantic sanctuary is decorated with 900 sculptures, evenly distributed over its surface.
Platforms surrounded by balustrades with relief images of mythical and real characters, as well as numerous scenes of hunting, labor and everyday life of people of that old era are unusually richly ornamented. However, in most compositions, various erotic scenes dominate, which is why the temple of Kandarya Mahadev in Khajuraho is often called the “Kamasutra in stone”.
The temple complex, which became a symbol of religious tolerance
It is noteworthy that the Khajuraho temples, united by a common architectural concept, are not the property of only one religion or its separate direction. Here, on an area of 21 km², the sanctuaries of the followers of Shaivism, Jainism and Vishnuism are superbly similar in appearance. However, most of them are devoted to Hinduism, which has absorbed the traditions and teachings of various philosophical schools of the Indian subcontinent.
All Khajuraho temple buildings are located in such a way that they comprise three separate groups ─ southern, western and eastern, separated from each other by a distance of several kilometers. There is a hypothesis that in their placement there is a certain sacred meaning, incomprehensible to modern researchers. The structures of the Ankor Wat temple complex in Cambodia and the Mexican temple of the Sun prompt such a thought.