Situated in the heart of India's central state of Madhya Pradesh, Khajuraho is a pleasant 31/2-hour drive from the city of Jhansi, which can be conveniently reached by the Shatabdi Express luxury tourist train from Delhi or domestic flights from Delhi, Agra or Varanasi.
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Khajuraho was during the 10th and 11th centuries the impressive capital of the Chandela kings - who built here some of India's most magnificent temples.
However. following repeated Afghan invasions the city declined in importance after the 12th century. When the Arab traveller Ibn Batuta visited in 1335 he wrote that the famed Chandela capital had been lost to the jungle. It was only after a British Army officer "discovered" the site in 1839 that the temples were reclaimed from wilderness and archaeological restoration began.
Today about 20 of the original 85 temples have been restored and these make up separate western, eastern and southern groups. The southern group, particularly attractive at sunset against the backdrop of the Vindhya mountains, is situated some distance from the main village. The eastern group consists mainly of Jain temples, with sandstone walls covered with sculptures. Although they do not depict battle or erotic scenes, these well-executed stone carvings are attractive in themselves and well worth a visit.
Khajuraho Sound and Light Show
It is the western group of temples, famed for its exotic sculptures, that mainly attracts foreign tourists. Situated in a well-maintained garden, these eight temples were constructed when the Chandelas were at the height of their power - and have today been tastefully restored to their former glory. An impressive sound and light show is staged here every evening, cleverly evoking the life and times of the city in its heyday.
Close to the south entrance, the Varaha temple dedicated to the god Vishnu has an intricately carved 10-tonne statue depicting him incarnated as a wild boar. Near the north gate is a similar pavilion containing an amazing two-metre-long polished sandstone carved statue of the bull, Nandi.
Khajuraho's magnificent temples
These two magnificent temples are the creations that best show off the skills of the Khajuraho's ancient craftsmen.
The towering Kandariya Mahadeva temple is constructed of carefully carved sandstone blocks fitted together without cement of any kind. Built to resemble the Himalayan mountain ranges, its roof rises in a series of seven bands of peaks to a tower more than 30 metres high. Constructed about 1050 AD, at a time when cranes and earth-moving equipment were unknown, it is a testament to the skills of India's architects and engineers of the time. The visitor simply gazes heavenward and asks "How on earth did they manage to do it?"
The 950 AD Lakshmana temple is the best-preserved of the temples. Its outer walls are covered by some of the best of Khajuraho's sculptures - lifelike gods and goddesses, kings and queens, sura-sundaris (heavenly maidens) and animals - as well as ordinary human beings performing all the usual activities of daily living. The figures are shown doing everything that normal human beings are wont to do: hunting, farming, feeding, fighting, applying make-up and making love
Khajuraho Temple Sculptures
Much has been made of the Khajuraho sculptors' choice of themes, where on the same frieze of figures they show a couple in sexual union next to a mother feeding her child, or a hunting group adjacent to a farmer at work. One plausible explanation is that Indian society at the time held the view that Artha (prosperity by right livelihood) and Dharma (morality) were as important as Kama (sexual desire - a natural prerequisite for procreation and the maintenance of the human race).
Showing all these day-to-day activities in detail was simply depicting what most normal people did in life, as real an aspect of art and culture as Edvard Munch drawing a screaming man or Renoir painting a boating party.
Erotic Sculptures
The beautiful sculptured figures are anatomically perfect - here a generously bosomed maiden balancies delicately on one foot while she removes a thorn from the other; nearby another diaphanously clothed woman admires herself in a hand mirror as she deftly applies eye shadow.
Of course there are intriguing erotic sculptures of couples which show the kind of acrobatic activity that makes visitors gaze upwards, just as they do when looking up at the towers of the Kandariya Mahadeva temple, and ask, in a different context: "How on earth did they manage to do it?"
The erotic sculptures make up less than 10 per cent of all the carved figures but are what nearly every visitor notices, and remembers, about this place.
Parvathi temple in Khajuraho
Unusual among the Khajuraho temples is the Parvathi temple, which has three domes: one shaped like the minaret of a mosque, one like a square-tiered Buddhist pagoda, the third like the sikhara tower of a Hindu temple. A later construction, it is thought to demonstrate the basic unity of all religions and the essential oneness of all human beings - because the marvels of art and architecture found here will be admired and long remembered by everyone who has the good fortune to visit Khajuraho.
Sanjiva Wijesinha - Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha, Associate Professor at Monash University medical school, writes on health, travel and medical topics.
