KHAJURAHO TEMPLE

KHAJURAHO TEMPLE.

Ø       The Khajuraho Group of Monuments in Khajuraho, a town in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, is located in Chhatarpur District,

Ø        Khajuraho has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples famous for their erotic sculpture

Ø       The Khajuraho group of monuments has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered to be one of the "seven wonders" of India.

Ø       The name Khajuraho comes from "Kharjuravāhaka", which is a Sanskrit word. kharjura = date palm and vahaka = "one who carries".

Ø        A UNESCO world heritage site in central India, Khajuraho is a famous tourist and archaeological site known for its sculptured temples dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu, and Jain patriarchs.

Ø       Khajuraho was one of the capitals of the Chandela kings, who from the 9th to the 11th century CE developed a large realm, which at its height included almost all of what is now Madhya Pradesh state.

Ø       Khajuraho extended over 21 sq. km and contained about 85 temples built by multiple rulers from about 950 to 1050.

Ø        In the late 11th century the Chandela, in a period of chaos and decline, moved to hill forts elsewhere.

Ø       Khajuraho continued its religious importance until the 14th century (Ibn Batuta was impressed by it) but was afterwards largely forgotten;

Ø       its remoteness probably saved it from the desecration that Muslim conquerors generally inflicted on Hindu monuments.

Ø       In 1838 a British army captain, TS Burt, employed by the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, came upon information that led him to the rediscovery of the complex of temples in the jungle in Khajuraho.

Ø        Of the 85 original temples-most constructed of hard river sandstone-about 20 are still reasonably well preserved.

Ø       Both internally and externally the temples are richly carved with excellent sculptures that are frequently sensual and, at times, sexually explicit.

Ø       The temples are divided into three complexes-the western is the largest and best known, containing the magnificent Shaivite temple Kandariya Mahadev,

Ø       a 31m high agglomeration of porches and turrets culminating in a spire.

History.

Ø       In the 27th century of the Kali yuga, the Mlechcha invaders started attacking North India.

Ø       Some Bargujar Rajputs moved eastward to central India; they ruled over the North eastern region of Rajasthan, called Dhundhar, Later on they called themselves Bundelas and Chandelas.

Ø       being Shiva worshippers. The city was the cultural capital of Chandela Rajputs, a Hindu dynasty that ruled this part of India from the 10-12th centuries. The political capital of the Chandelas was Kalinjar.

Ø       The Khajuraho temples were built over a span of 200 years, from 950 to 1150. The Chandela capital was moved to Mahoba after this time,

Ø       but Khajuraho continued to flourish for some time. Khajuraho has no forts because the Chandel Kings never lived in their cultural capital.

Ø        The whole area was enclosed by a wall with eight gates, each flanked by two golden palm trees.

Ø       There were originally over 80 Hindu temples, of which only 25 now stand in a reasonable state of preservation, scattered over an area of about 20 square kilometres (8 sq mi).

Ø       Today, the temples serve as fine examples of Indian architectural styles that have gained popularity due to their explicit depiction of sexual life during medieval times.

Ø       Locals living in the Khajuraho village always knew about and kept up the temples as best as they could.

Architecture

Ø       The temples are grouped into three geographical divisions: western, eastern and southern.

Ø       The Khajuraho temples are made of sandstone.

Ø       The builders didn't use mortar: the stones were put together with mortise and tenon joints and they were held in place by gravity.

Ø       This form of construction requires very precise joints.

Ø       The columns and architraves were built with megaliths that weighed up to 20 tons.

Ø       Lakshmana temple at Khajuraho, a panchayatana temple. Two of the four secondary shrines can be seen. Another view These temples of Khajuraho have sculptures that look very realistic and are studied even today.

Ø       The Saraswati temple on the campus of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India is modeled after the Khajuraho temple.

Statues and carvings

Ø       The Khajuraho temples do not contain sexual or erotic art inside the temple or near the deities; however, some external carvings bear erotic art.

Ø       Also, some of the temples that have two layers of walls have small erotic carvings on the outside of the inner wall. There are many interpretations of the erotic carvings.

Ø       They portray that, for seeing the deity, one must leave his or her sexual desires outside the temple. They also show that divinity, such as the deities of the temples, is pure like the atman, which is not affected by sexual desires and other characteristics of the physical body.

Ø       It has been suggested that these suggest tantric sexual practices. Meanwhile, the external curvature and carvings of the temples depict humans, human bodies, and the changes that occur in human bodies, as well as facts of life.

Ø       Some 10% of the carvings contain sexual themes; those reportedly do not show deities, they show sexual activities between people.

Ø       The rest depict the everyday life of the common Indian of the time when the carvings were made, and of various activities of other beings. For example, those depictions show women putting on makeup, musicians, potters, farmers, and other folk. Those mundane scenes are all at some distance from the temple deities.

Ø       A common misconception is that, since the old structures with carvings in Khajuraho are temples, the carvings depict sex between deities.

Ø       Another perspective of these carvings is presented by James McConnachie. In his history of the Kamasutra, McConnachie describes the zesty 10% of the Khajuraho sculpture as "the apogee of erotic art": "Twisting, broad-hipped and high breasted nymphs display their generously contoured and bejewelled bodies on exquisitely worked exterior wall panels. These fleshy apsaras run riot across the surface of the stone, putting on make-up, washing their hair, playing games, dancing, and endlessly knotting and unknotting their girdles....Beside the heavenly nymphs are serried ranks of griffins, guardian deities and, most notoriously, extravagantly interlocked maithunas, or lovemaking couples."

Ø       While the sexual natures of these carvings have caused the site to be referred to as the Kamasutra temple, they do not illustrate the meticulously described positions. Neither do they express the philosophy of Vatsyayana's famous sutra.

Ø       As "a strange union of Tantrism and fertility motifs, with a heavy dose of magic" they belie a document which focuses on pleasure rather than procreation. That is, fertility is moot.The strategically placed sculptures are "symbolical-magical diagrams, or yantras" designed to appease malevolent spirits.

Ø       This alamkara (ornamentation) expresses sophisticated artistic transcendence over the natural; sexual images imply a virile, thus powerful, rule.

Ø       Between 950 and 1150, the Chandela monarchs built these temples when the Tantric tradition may have been accepted.

Ø        In olden days, before the Mughal conquests, when boys lived in hermitages, following brahmacharya until they became men, they could learn about the world and prepare themselves to become householders through examining these sculptures and the worldly desires they depicted.

Ø       While recording the television show 'lost worlds' for the history channel at Khajuraho Alex Evans, a contemporary stone mason and sculptor gave his expert opinion and forensically examined the tool marks and construction techniques involved in creating the stunning stonework at the sites.

Ø       He also recreated a stone sculpture under 4 feet that took about 60 days to carve in an attempt to develop a rough idea how much work must have been involved.

Ø      Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone.^[8] These temples would have required hundreds of highly trained sculptors.

Landscape

Ø       The Khajuraho temples are now set in a parkland landscape. When India gained independence from Britain in 1947 the landscape settings was semi-desert and scrub.

Ø       The archaeological park now has something of the character of an English public park, with mown grass, rose beds and ornamental trees.

Ø       This may be popular with visitors but has no relationship with the historic landscape at the time the temples were built. The development of landscape archaeology as an academic discipline raises questions concerning the earlier landscape of Khajuraho and the original relationship between the temple complex and the surrounding area.

Ø      There are no records of what the original landscape might have been, but it is known that a large community of priests used the temple complex and that Indian gardens in the tenth century were predominantly tree gardens. They did not have lawns or herbaceous flowering plants.