Southeast of Delhi, the second largest city in India, at a distance of about 620 km, is the amazing temple complex of Khajuraho, included on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. Looking at it, one gets the impression that it is torn 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 that surrounds the temples of Khajuraho on all sides, and even wild animals that sometimes appear from the thicket of the forest.
Questions not answered
The architectural complex of Khajuraho is concentrated on an area of 21 km² and consists of 25 buildings erected in the period of the 9th-12th centuries. It is known that once in ancient times there were at least 85 temples here, but during the excavations, 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.
Temples of Khajuraho (India), photos of which are presented in the article, give rise to many questions among researchers, which have not yet been answered. First of all, it is puzzling that onlytemples and there were no traces of secular buildings.
Where did the kingdom surrounding the temples disappear to?
If the territory of Khajuraho was part of a certain kingdom (and it could not have been otherwise), then where did the ruins of the palaces of its rulers and those buildings in which the inhabitants settled disappear? It is difficult to imagine that such numerous temples were erected in a remote and uninhabited region of the country. In addition, one cannot even say with complete certainty that the temples of Khajuraho had only a purely religious purpose.
These and many other questions remain unanswered today, because so far not a single historical document has been found that can shed light on the activities of the temples erected among the virgin forests of India. Nevertheless, certain information about them was obtained based on the results of archaeological excavations and general information about the history of this state, which gave birth to one of the world's oldest civilizations.
Chandella Dynasty Religious Center
The very name Khajuraho comes from the Sanskrit word kharjura, meaning "date palm" in translation. 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 11th century. In them, he presents it as the capital of the state created by the rulers of the Chandella dynasty, who came from the ancient Rajput family.
Despite the fact that there is no documentary evidence of the period of the creation of Khajuraho temples (as mentionedabove), there is an opinion that their construction dates back to the period between 950-1050. AD, since it was during this historical period that the territory on which they are located was the religious center of the state ruled by the Chandella dynasty, while their administrative capital was located in the city of Kalinzhar, located 100 km to the southwest.
Temples lost in time
Based on the excavations, it has been established that the temple complex, built over a whole century, was originally surrounded by a high stone wall with eight gates decorated with golden palms. A large amount of gold was also used to decorate the facades, as well as the interior of the temples, but all this splendor was looted during the Muslim invasions, which were repeatedly repeated during the XII-XIV centuries.
In the 13th century, the Chandella dynasty lost its position and was forced out by other rulers. Together with her, the Khajuraho temples erected under them also lost their significance. In India of that period, new religious centers began to be actively built, while the former one was forgotten and for several centuries became the property of the tropical forest that had grown wildly around it. Only in 1836, the ancient buildings, or rather, the ruins that remained in their place, were accidentally discovered by a military engineer of the British army, 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 aboutconstruction of forest temples, and at the same time explains why erotic themes occupy almost the dominant place in their sculptural design.
So, the legend tells that once in the ancient city of Kashi (now Varanasi) there lived a brahmin priest named Hemraj, and he had a daughter of unprecedented beauty, whose name was Hemavati. One night, having found a secluded place on the river bank, hidden from prying eyes, she decided to swim. In her nakedness, the maiden was so beautiful that the moon god Chandra, admiring her from behind a cloud, was inflamed with passion and, falling from heaven, united with her in a love impulse.
This night, filled with high feelings, ended for the girl with pregnancy and fear of universal condemnation, which any Brahmin woman who allowed an extramarital affair, even with a celestial being, was inevitably exposed to. The poor thing had no choice but, on the advice of her lover Chandra, to leave the house and give birth to a child in a remote, remote village of Khajuraho. A boy was born, named Chandravarman.
Where did the temples of Khajuraho come from?
The story, which began with a love affair, led Hemavati to the dense 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 God of the Moon (the boy's father) predicted that in the future he would become a king - the founder of a dynasty and, having reached power, would build 85 temples, on the walls of which scenes of love would be depicted, the fruit of which he is. That's just how it ishappened. Chandravarman grew up, became a king, founded the Chandella dynasty and began the construction of temples, decorated with numerous erotic compositions.
Masterpieces of nameless architects
The temples of Khajuraho, erected almost a thousand years ago, photos of which only in general terms can give an idea of their grandeur and beauty, are like alien spaceships that have landed among the dense forests of Central India. Up close, each of them amazes with the filigree refinement of the work of ancient masters and at the same time creates the impression that it was carved from a single monolith by the divine hand of an unearthly sculptor.
All the temples of Khajuraho are built of sandstone, which is typical for the architecture of many parts of the world where this material is mined in sufficient quantities, but in this case, the peculiarity of the buildings is that the ancient builders did not use mortar. The connection of individual blocks was carried out exclusively due to grooves and protrusions, which required high accuracy of calculations.
Mysteries of ancient technologies
The temples of Khajuraho, whose architectural features include many columns and various architraves (ledges, borders, etc.), were built using technologies unknown to modern builders and forcing them to make the most fantastic assumptions. The fact is that many details of the structure, 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 amazingprecision into the grooves intended for them.
External view of temples
Even a general description of the temples of Khajuraho allows you to make sure that they are significantly different in their architectural design from other religious buildings of that era. Each of them is erected on a high stone platform strictly oriented to the cardinal points. At the corners of the platforms, there are smaller sanctuaries, which are domed towers called shikharas. In general, such a composition resembles the peaks of a certain mountain range, where the gods live.
Arrangement of the interior of temples
You can get inside any of the temples through an oblong passage, richly decorated with a stone garland made up of three-dimensional images of mythical animals, plants and love couples. Immediately behind it is a mandala ─ a kind of vestibule, also richly decorated with bas-reliefs. In addition, its decoration usually consists of a carved ceiling and several columns or pilasters ─ vertical projections of the wall, imitating columns in their appearance.
From the mandala, the visitor goes to the central hall, called "maha ─ mandala". It occupies the entire internal volume of the building, and in the center of it is usually placed a square platform with columns, behind which is the entrance to the sanctuary. Once in this main part of the temple, you can see the statue or lingam (symbolic image) of the deity installed there, in whose honor the entire structure was erected.
Kandarya Temple in Khajuraho
The biggest andthe famous building of the complex, which includes 25 buildings, is a temple called Kandarya Mahadeva. Its central part, raised up to a height of 30 m, is surrounded by 84 turrets, the height of which decreases as they move away from the central axis. This gigantic sanctuary is adorned with 900 sculptures evenly distributed over its surface.
The platforms are also unusually richly ornamented, 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 ancient era. However, in most compositions, various erotic scenes dominate, which is why the Kandarya Mahadev temple in Khajuraho is often called the “Kama Sutra in stone.”
The temple complex, which has become a symbol of religious tolerance
It is quite remarkable that the temples of Khajuraho, united by a common architectural concept, do not belong to any one religion or its separate direction. Here, on an area of 21 km², outwardly similar sanctuaries of followers of Shaivism, Jainism and Vishnuism perfectly coexist. However, most of them are devoted to Hinduism, which has absorbed the traditions and teachings of various philosophical schools of the Indian subcontinent.
All the temple buildings of Khajuraho are located in such a way that they form three separate groups ─ southern, western and eastern, separated from each other by a distance of several kilometers. There is a hypothesis that in such their placementa certain sacred meaning is laid, incomprehensible to modern researchers. The structures of the Ankor Wat temple complex in Cambodia and the Mexican Temple of the Sun suggest such an idea.
