~ The Grandeur of Khajuraho ~

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The Grandeur of Khajuraho

Khajuraho (Hindi: खजुराहो) is a village in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, located in Chhatarpur District, about 385 miles (620 kilometres) southeast of Delhi, the capital city of India.

The Khajuraho group of monuments has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

One of the most popular tourist destinations in India, Khajuraho has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples, famous for their erotic sculpture. The name Khajuraho, ancient "Kharjuravahaka", is derived from the Sanskrit word kharjur meaning date palm.

The art of Madhya Pradesh at once brings in to mind the exuberant art and the creativity immortalized in the figurative molds in the temples of Khajuraho. Viswanatha Temple The temples of Khajuraho are one of India’s major attractions. Once a great Chandella capital, Khajuraho is now a quiet village of over 6000 people. The temples are superb examples of Indo-Aryan architecture, but it’s the decorations with which they are so liberally embellished, that have made Khajuraho famous.

Around the temples are bands of exceedingly fine and artistically carved stonework. There are sculptors, which have shown many aspects of Indian life, 1000 years ago - gods and goddesses, warriors and musicians, real and mythological animals. These temples were built by the Chandellas, a dynasty that survived for five centuries before falling to the onslaught of Islam. Almost all Khajuraho’s temples record a century long burst of creative genius from 950- 1050 A.D.

Basically all the temples follow a three-part layout. You enter the temple through a porch, known as the Ardhamandapa. Behind this is the hall or Mahamandapa, supported with pillars and with a corridor around it. A vestibule then leads into the Garbhagriha, the inner sanctum, where the image of the god to which the temple is dedicated is displayed.

The temples are almost all aligned east to west, with the entrance facing east. Some of the earliest temples were made of granite, or granite and sandstone but all the ones from the classic period of Khajuraho's history are made completely of sandstone.
 
The whole area was enclosed by a wall with eight gates, each flanked by two golden palm trees. 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 8 square miles (21 km²). The temples of Khajuraho suffered destruction by early Muslim invaders between c.1100-1400 AD as various disfigured statues at the temple complex attest.

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

Locals living in the Khajuraho village always knew about and kept up the temples as best as they could. They were pointed out to an English man in late 19th century and the jungles had taken a toll on all of the monuments.

Architecture of the Khajuraho temples

The Khajuraho temples, constructed with spiral superstructures, adhere to a northern Indian shikhara temple style and often to a Panchayatana plan or layout. A few of the temples are dedicated to the Jain pantheon and the rest to Hindu deities - to God's Trio, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and various Devi forms, such as the Devi Jagadambi temple.

A Panchayatana temple had four subordinate shrines on four corners and the main shrine in the center of the podium, which comprises their base. The temples are grouped into three geographical divisions: western, eastern and southern.

With a graded rise secondary shikharas (spires) cluster to create an appropriate base for the main shikhara over the sanctum. Kandariya Mahadeva, one of the most accomplished temples of the Western group, comprises eighty-four shikharas, the main being 116 feet from the ground level.

The Khajuraho temples are made of sandstone, they didn't use mortar the stones were put together with mortise and tenon joints and they were held in place by gravity. This form of construction requires very precise joints. The columns and architraves were built with megaliths that weighed up to 20 tons.

These shikharas – subordinate and main – attribute to the Khajuraho temples their unique splendor and special character. With a graded rise of these shikharas from over the ardhamandapa, porch, to mandapa, assembly hall, mahamandapa, principal assembly hall, antarala, vestibule, and garbhagriha, sanctum sanctorum, the Khajuraho temples attain the form and glory of gradually rising Himalayan peaks. 
The name Khajuraho, or Kharjuravāhaka, is derived from ancient Sanskrit (kharjura, खर्जूर means date palm, and vāhaka, वाहक means "one who carries" or bearer). Local legends state that the temples had two golden date-palm trees as their gate (missing when they were rediscovered).

Khajuraho is one of the four holy sites linked to deity Shiva (the other three are Kedamath, Kashi and Gaya). Its origin and design is a subject of scholarly studies. Shobita Punja has proposed that the temple’s origin reflect the Hindu mythology in which Khajuraho is the place where Shiva got married; with Raghuvamsha verse 5.53, Matangeshvara honoring ‘’Matanga’’, or god of love.

These temples of Khajuraho have sculptures that look very realistic and are studied even today.






'Kamasutra' Endless at Khajuraho  

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

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. Some 10% of the carvings contain sexual themes; those reportedly do not show deities, they show sexual activities between people. 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. A common misconception is that, since the old structures with carvings in Khajuraho are temples, the carvings depict sex between deities.

However the kama arts represent diverse sexual expressions of different human beings. The vast majority of arts depict various aspects the everyday life, mythical stories as well as symbolic display of various secular and spiritual values important in Hindu tradition. For example, depictions show women putting on makeup, musicians making music, potters, farmers, and other folks in their daily life during the medieval era. These scenes are in the outer padas as is typical in Hindu temples.

*NOTE: SOME OF THE SCULPTED IMAGES ON THIS PAGE ARE EROTIC IN NATURE

A view on the famous temples

Between the skies and bushes

A closer look at a temple in Khajuraho

Adinath Temple

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Admiring Khajuraho...The lady Brigade



 

Admiring Khajuraho.

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Chitragupta Temple

Finest Carvings for the Kamasutra

Flowers in Khadjuraho

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Jain Erotica

Jain temple, Khajuraho, India

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Kandariya Mahadev Temple

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the famous south side of the Kandariya-Mahadev temple demonstrates the sheer volume of intricate stone sculpture present on each temple

The feet and the flower

The last ray

This is the largest and most famous of the Khajuraho temples, Kandariya-Mahadev. Built around 1025 AD, it represents the high point of Chandelan architecture

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Uneasy exit. Khajuraho

Unrestored dignity

Visvanatha Temple I

             

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*Original post date June 24, 2009

Further reading

http://www.thefullwiki.org/Khajuraho

http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_Khajuraho.htm

http://www.history.upenn.edu/coursepages/hist086/material/Khajurao.html.

100 photos 1280x960 of Khajuraho

UNESCO World Heritage Site listing

*(Taken from many sources)

wikipedia.org/wiki/

flickr.com

wherewebe.com

*All images and text belong to their respective copyright owners. I intend and believe that all of the graphics used to illustrate this article either are in the public domain or, if copyrighted, appear here as fair use. This page is solely informational and educational and intended for no other purpose than that as well as being not for profit page.

Re-post Additional Comments:

edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Jul 6, '09, edited on Jul 6, '09 There are 35 sandstone temples – Jain, Buddhist, and Hindu – built in the 10th and 11th centuries. The temples are covered inside and out with erotic relief sculptures symbolizing mystic union with the deity. The sexual symbolism is stark. There is pure beauty and no perversion in these temples. The eroticism of Khajuraho is part of the larger Hindu view of the cyclicality of life. 'There are different opinions on why temples were decorated with sexually explicit sculptures. One group argues that the old kings lived in obscene luxury and that they used these for excitement. Another group thinks that it was part of sexual education in ancient India: since most people visited temples, it was an appropriate place for mass communication. Some scholars say that since Hinduism believes in the efficacy of all four paths to Moksha (Dharma, Artha, Yoga, and Kama), these sculptures were provided to assist in the last of these four paths. Since these sculptures are limited to the outer walls of the temples, some people interpret them as a symbolic gate to reaching God. It is possible that at the time just preceding the construction of these sculptures, monastic Buddhism was prevalent, people were losing interest in the householder-life, and the temples were built to attract people to sex and family life and to renew Hinduism. Some others go to the extent of saying that the Khajuraho temples themselves are built upon the model of an ultimate seductress. The steps are like the feet, the Ardhmandapam are the knees, the Mandapam represents the curvaceous thighs, the sanctum-sanctorum is like the ovaries, and since it is very dark where the Linga is installed, it represents the sexual organ, etc. "All of life is God's magic;" we are all parts of divinity; Hindu scriptures argue that to attain moksha, and to dedicate ourselves to dharma and adhyatma, one should first experience sexual fulfillment. The one who wrote the Kamasutra was none less than a sage! When the Gods themselves cannot escape the web of erotic love (Kama), what about us mere mortals? For a long time, the pundits have wondered why it was necessary to decorate a place of worship with sexual material, but if one observes the materialistic thoughts of Hinduism, there is nothing unnatural about them.'- K.L. Kamat petesback wrote on Nov 3, '09 Great set of pics

edit delete reply

nosauvelta wrote on Nov 7, '09

Glad to know
you like them.

Hello, Pete.
Welcome to my site :-)

delete reply

hallihuduga wrote on Feb 26, '10

so experimentation was encouraged even then...

	edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Mar 3, '10 Kamasutra as we understand, deals with the science to attain the best carnal ecstasy. The objective of Kamasutra was to educate methods and purpose of attaining sexual satisfaction. Khajuraho temple walls have most sexual poses inscribed in ancient text of Kamasutra....
	delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Feb 26, '10 not easy while standing... even then

edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Mar 3, '10 Not easy, yes, but in ancient Indian Art and ritual practices, everything were based on the reality of life involving Karma (destiny) and Kama (carnal ecstasy) together. The belief was fulfillment of both functions was the way to attain moksha (spiritual way to heaven). Therefore, sex was as sacred as other holy rituals - any position would not be difficult as it may seem.

delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Feb 26, '10 back breaking...

	edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Mar 3, '10 back breaking, so it seems - but, it is good physical exercise.
	delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Feb 26, '10 69?

	edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Mar 3, '10 69... What better way but to give and receive simultaneously- having the best of both worlds.
	delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Mar 3, '10 indeed.... some how 69 is more of giving and taking than missionary which is some how dominating than sharing

delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Mar 3, '10 yes... but kamasutra is comprehensive..not just posses ( asanas)

delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Mar 3, '10 well.. some additions... Karma just means literally.. JOB.. belief was that each one was born to do a karma as assigned to him by his caste, context directions of elders/ teachers ( gurus) etc..u do your JOB well u get rewards.. Kama is a larger word than just sex.. Kama is passionate desire for anything sex, food, for fine art... Karma was and Kama was set for each stage of life and they were different for each stage 1. shishava... before two years from birth 2. Balya ..from 2- 7 3. vidyarthi.. 7 to 14 or 18 from birth... at this stage one must have a kama ( desire) for knowledge, stay at the guru's gurukul ( guru's place of stay).. grass hut away from human settling to enable Guru to teach and to do penance. one stayed away from parents and lived very ascetic life this stage karma was to follow Guru's instructions without question, serve him and his wife devotedly 4. gruhastha ashrama... family life .. kama is to produce children, karma is to take care of spouse and children and be responsible and serve the desha ( country ) and uphold dharma ( religion) .. collection of artha ( property and money) 5. sanyasa.. or vanaprastha.. to give up all worldly desires,, actually go to forest or Himalayas and do penance .. search of truth search of god.. search of answers... to attain Moksha.. moksha literally means freedom,,, freedom from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth and soul ( atma) joins big soul ( paramatma - god)

edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Mar 3, '10 Good additional info, Halli :-) Thanks... I never thought Karma can be regarded as mere job. I see it as either striving to do good or be the Devil's tool and thus Lady Justice scales tip, a verdict is reached, the judgment is reaped...

delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Mar 3, '10 Karma .. ad verbatim .. means job.. just that... a JOB ... then if u do a good job it is called sukarma.. bad / evel job is kukarma... so when a hindu goes through a bad phase in life he blames his karma.. meaning that he did a eveil thing and now he is getting punished and when he suddenly gets riches ( of any type ,, not just money he ascribes to again his karma..

	edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Mar 5, '10 Thanks, Halli :-) Now enlightened as to the true meaning of Karma, not fate or predestination, but 'doing' or action...
	edit delete reply nosauvelta wrote on Mar 5, '10 On that note, may we all live our lives with the intention to propagate the process of Sukarma: good actions, good results.....

	delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Mar 3, '10 when i say job i mean deed, action... not employment
	delete reply hallihuduga wrote on Mar 5, '10 su karma is not just doing 'good jobs' it also means doing ones jobs with dedication.. 'job ' as a father, lover, son, employee, citizen... work itself is worship...