There is a well-maintained
Museum managed by the Archaeological
Survey of India, and is
definitely a must-visit, as it has some of the
excavated broken sculptures
and pillars from the temples. We, unfortunately
couldn’t visit the Museum,
because of it’s weekly closure on Friday,
and previously on Thursday,
it was closed for the festival of Dusshera.
One event that one must
be wary of is the over-publicized dance
of the Kandariyas, for which
Hotels sell tickets at Rs 300 per head.
We discovered that this
is only a marketing gimmick, and is actually a
folk-dance show put up by
a local cultural body, and is not unique or
associated in any way with
the legend of Khajuraho. I mean,
why somebody would want
to watch a Bhangra performance
by a local troupe in Madhya
Pradesh!
Khajuraho temples, constructed
with spiral superstructures, adhere to 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. 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 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.
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 garbhagraha, sanctum sanctorum,
Khajuraho temples attain
the form and glory of gradually rising Himalayan peaks..more.......
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