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| Khajuraho - the temple architecture |
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In terms of architecture Khajuraho temples form the high peak of the north Indian 'nagara' style.
The temple is erected on a high platform (jagati) where the main temple is often in the centre of four smaller shrines inaccordance to the Panchayatana layout.
The temple body is formed by a basement (adhishsthana) with mouldings and fiezes supporting the sikkhara, the main tower over the garbhagriha where the god is placed, and the additonal rooms aligned in one single east-west oriented axis. These additional rooms, that in the larger temple are up to three, are called Ardhamandap the entrance porch, Mandap the assembly hall, Antaral the vestibule. The bigger temples have balconies added to the mandapa that in such a case it is called Mahamandap.
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Khajuraho
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Sanskrit words garbhagriha refers to the 'dead' center of the temple, where the dead body was buried. Initially this was a tomb, then it became a relic mound. Larger temples, for example in the Kandariya Mahadeo temple, often have a ambulatory that circle around the outer walls of the inner sanctuary. This is usually small and dark, with a number of images on either side of the inner ambulatory while the inner wall of the sanctum is bare.
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Sculpture
Khajuraho temples are obviously famous for the erotic figures, but these are only a small percentage of the many beautiful figures adorning the temple walls and interiors. Temple walls and friezes are inhabited by gods, goddesses, celestial beings, kings, queens, loving couples and adorning maids. Gods in their canonical representations with their vehicles (Vahana) and attendant divinities (avarana devata), including the directional guardians Dikpalas (Dvarapalas).
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Khajuraho
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Worship of female anthropomorphic divinities derives from the ancient Mother Goddess model that transformed into the lotus carrying female deity with heavy breasts and hips. The cult of Goddes of good and prosperity evolved in a wide variety of celestial beings - divine and human. Coexistent with the gods and goddesses, the human figure appears in many guises, the most numerous are the sura-sundaris, heavenly maidens shown in various graceful postures; also manifested as apsaras, they represent scenes of courtly life or, on a more spiritual level, they may be perceived as celestial courtesans. The gandharvas and kinnaras, their female counterparts with human heads and horses' bodies, are heavenly musicians. Along with the surasundaris and dikpalas, mithuna couples guard the shrine against negative forces. (mithuna - male and female couple, maithuna - couple engaged in sexual intercourse). Interspersed with apsaras images and other goddesses is the man riding a Sardula (mythical composite creature). The makara an aquatic beast which resembles a crocodile and is associated with rivers.
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Khajuraho
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Erotic sculpures
Although the presence of erotic motifs in Hindu temple is not an isolated phenomenon, there is a considerable debate as to the purpose of the erotic figures and representations of sexual scenes in Khajuraho temples. However, it is important to note that erotic imagery, like most Indian iconography, is multivalent. Anyhow the Chandellan, like the Orissan school, adopted a sophisticated and frank approach to the expression of these sexual motifs. The Jains also used erotic images for protective purposes.
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The vedic brahmanism favoured family life and deified love in the form of the Divine Couple, the eternal lovers, represented by the marriage of Shiva and Parvati.
The sexual act was intended to depict energies, abundance and fertility, and thus prosperity and auspiciousness and to protect from evil spirits and calamities. For the belief in the greater power inherent in conjoined figures Maithuna were therefore deliberately placed on temples weak junctures, such as between the central sanctum and the adjoining mandapa of the temples of Lakshmana, Kandariya Mahadeo and Visvanatha.
Complex sexual positions seams to conceal a yantra diagram which express deep meaning of union. The west frieze on the south side of the Kandariya Mahadeo temple, for example, shows the interlocking figures with the man standing on his head, a figural reference to the magico-protective and propitiatory yantra of two equilateral triangles.
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Khajuraho
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From the fifth to tenth centuries AD in certain regions of India, tantric sects increased their influence on pleasure-loving aristocrats and the courtly society preoccupied with the glorification of pleasure, far from the ascetic ideals of the Upanishad.
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