Asoka Palace for a Deity
" Where there is creation there is progress. Where there is no creation there is no progress. Know the nature of creation."
Once the Aryans settled down in villages the community felt the need for a shrine where they could congregate and hold their sacrifices. The temple grew out of this need for a sanctified area where they could pray and light the holy fires of the yagna. If none of these early temples have survived it is because they were originally built of perishable materials like wood, clay and bricks. One reason for this may have been because stone was scare in the Indo Gamgetic Valley while wood was easily available. Besides, the Vedas stated that brick was more sanctified for rituals than stone.
The evolution of India’s religious architecture is a creative journey that began with these crude wood and brick shrines, evolved to the Buddhist stupa, then rock cut temples and finally to free standing structures of dressed stone. Even when the temples were of wood they were the creation not just of architects bus also the sculptor and with stone these artists finally got the opportunity to create buildings that stood the test of time.
India’s history of building with stone begins with Ashoka. The Mauryans ruled over the Indo-Gangetic region with their capital in Pataliputra and their kingdom was the first known empire in the India subcontinent. Asoka’s power was acknowledged by regions as distant as Taxila in the north and the Deccan in the south. By placing pillars with carved capitals all across his kingdom, he was the first king to leave his mark on the landscape in lasting stone. It all began when he tried to conquer the neighbouring kingdom of Kalinga. There was a terrible battle where thousands died. Surveying the carnage he had caused, a penitent Ashoka gave up war and became a Buddhist and his prodigious building activity had the energy and enthusiasm of a new convert. India’s first creations in stone architecture and sculpture were therefore inspired not by kingly pride but by this religious zeal.
Across the length and breadth of his kingdom, Asoka erected monolithic columns of polished sandstone with his edicts engraved on them and topped by carved capitals. The most familiar is the famous four-lion capital that was discovered at Sarnath and has become the symbol of independent India. He also carved his message on large rocks and excavated caves to create prayer halls but his greatest buildings were the stupas. A stupa is a circular mound built over the relics of the Buddha and later those of great Buddhist teachers, the bhikshus. These stupas were originally built in brick by Asoka and during later reigns covered with dressed stone. Then walkways with railings wre laid around them and figures of the Buddha places by the gateways. Around the stupas grew religious communities of Buddhist monks with prayer halls, monk’s cells, refectories and other monastic buildings.
Built in the 2nd century BC. the stupa at Sanchi is considered the finest. After Ashoka had established a monastery near Vidisa he built the stupa, and over the following centuries many additions were made to it. The most impressive are the four gateways, the toranas, that are justly famous for the quality of their carvings. These are the earliest examples of the stone carver’s art in India, an art that would reach the heights of excellance in temples from Brihadishwara to Konarak.
The gateways and railings at Sanchi were exact copies of existing wooden structures and proved that the art of building in stone was still in its infancy. In these gateways, the sandstone was carved in high relief and they set the standards for religious sculpture on the walls and gateways of temples in later centuries. The toranas are two square columns with three beams laid crosswise on top. Every inch of the surface was covered with carvings that illustrated episodes from the life of the Buddha, stories from the Jatakas and a delightful pageant of nymphs, warriors and monks. Even after so many centuries, this panorama of life in ancient India has an amazing vitality.
The next great empire to hold sway over northern India was of the guptas, from the 4th to the 7th century. One of the few surviving Gupta temples stands near the main stupa at Sanchi. Built entirely of stone it is a simple square structure with a sanctum and a portico supported by carved pillars. Its straight elegant lines and restrained decoration is typical of the classical Gupta style. The Guptas were patrons of the arts and during their reign a major school of sculpture flourished in Mathura. During the earlier Kushan period, Mathura had created the first free standing images of the Buddha. Later Mathura began to produce stone icons of Hindu deities and these were then placed in temples.
From the time of the Mauryans, temples were also carved out of rock. Artifical caves were excavated and then embellished with decorative doorways, figures were carved on the outer walls and stupas chiselled in the interior. The cave temples of Bhaja and Karli in the Deccan were created during the reign of the Satavahanas. The typical layout had a prayer hall with pillars carved on the side and a stupa at one end and other caves nearby had cells for monks. These chaityas were obviously copies of wooden structures with false pillars and roof beams mimicking wooden buildings. Gradually the whole layout became more elaborate with carved pillars, vaulted roofs, ornate windows and entrances. Full size figures of people and animals were placed at the entrances.
These were the years of the rise of Buddhism and monasteries appeared all across the land. Some monastic communities even lived in a series of carved out of hillside and as the art of sculpture developed these caves were more elaborately decorated. The most beautiful of such cave temples and monasteries were created over many centuries at Ajanta. The work carried on from the 2nd century B.C. to the 7th century A.D. and during these nine centuries 28 caves were carved out of a horse shoe shaped patch of the Western Ghats. The interiors were covered with carvings, the walls and ceilings painted with exquisitely drawn murals presenting a panorama of religious life that even today glow in a glorious palette of colours.
At the same time Hindu and Jain rock cut temples were also being built. The most spectacular is the magnificent Kailasanatha temple at Ellora. It was carved during the reign of the Rashtrakuta king, Krishna I in the 8th century. At Ellora the rock cut temple moved to the next stage of evolution. The Kailasanatha temple is not a cave, but an entire temple with spires, walls and gateways carved out of the rockface. The work began at the top of the hill with the craftsmen carving downwards in an extraordinary feat of sculpture. This temple is a magnificent achievement of the sculpture. This temple is a magnificent achievement of the sculptor’s art with the surface decorated with panels of figures and delicate decorative motifs.
In the 7th century the Pallava kings were also carving cave shrines and complete temples from rock at Mamallapuram. Compared to Ellora these were on a smaller scale with simpler decorations. What makes Mamallapuram special is that the carvings on pillars, the figures, the use of spires, gateways and monoliths of animals are the first example of the Dravidian style of temple architecture. Another set of cave temples were discovered at Elephanta. These temples are dedicated to Lord Shiva and have the mammothe figure of Maheshvara, one of the greatest depictions of the god. After Mamallapuram and Elephanta the Indian builder moved to the next stage of temple architecture, of free standing buildings made of dresses stone. The following centuries would be the greatest era of temple building in India.
In India, painting and sculpture have always been looked upon as a craft and not an art. The country has an ancient tradition of craft guilds of sculptors, masons, wood carves and weavers and temples of every religion were built by members of these guilds. This is why the sculpture of Buddhist viharas, Jain and Hindu temples could depict different themes but the style remained the same. As the layout of the temples was laid down in ancient treatises like the Vastu Shastra it stayed virtually the same all across the country but every region added its own touches. One would think that the rigid canons of the shastras would have stifled the originality of these sculptors but it did not. Even though they kept within the precept of the shastras it is amazing how they did not let these strict rules inhibit their creativity. Usually a guild would be hired for a temple and these craftsmen would settle at the site of the building and sometimes when building large complex of temples, they would work there for generations. In this way, through years of trial and error, definite schools of art and architecture evolved in different regions of the land.
Temples were built as a symbol of the heaven on earth, a microscopic representation of the universe and on their outer walls the sculptures created a virtual heaven of dancing nymphs, the apsaras, the many aspects of gods and goddesses, mythical beasts and ornamental flowers and vines. Originally most temples used to be plastered and painted and decorated with precious metals. Many of these temples carried inscriptions about their important patrons and details of grants made by donors and these inscriptions are an important source of information for historians seeking details about ancient dynasties like the Pallavas and Cholas. Gradually two distinct schools of temple architecture evolved-the Nagara style in the north and the Dravidian style in the south. In the north, during the medieval period, Hindu temples faced the concentrated aggression of Muslim kings. Temple were known to posses great wealth, so the motive for attacking them was a convenient combination of a avarice and religious fervour. For centuries Hindu temples in the north were systematically looted and destroyed and few temples of the early years have survived. Today the great temples of the north are just the stuff of legends and it is the south, less effected by invasions, that still preserves the finest temples of this period.
In the south, from the 6th to the 8th century, the kings of the Pallava and Chalukya dynasties were the earliest patrons of temple building. The Pallava temples came up at their leading port of Mamallapuram and at their capital Kanchipuram. The Chalukyan temples stand at Badami and Aihole. " The Chalukyan temples stand at Badmi and Aihole. "These styles show the gradual emancipation of the architect from the techniques of carpentry and cave architecture." The finest examples of this evolving art are the Shore temple at Mamallapuram and the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram. Here we first see the various stages of temple building, the experiments and the slow evolution of the pyramidal tower over the sanctum, the shikhara and the use of carvings on the outer walls.
Then came the greatest southern dynasty, the Cholas, who reigned in the Tamil country from the 10th to the 12th century and had a flourishing sea trade with the Far East. In the 10th century Rajaraja the Great built the fabulous Brihadishwara temple dedicated to Shiva at his capital in Thanjavur and his successor Rajendra I built another Shiva temple at Gangaikonda cholapuram. The Brihadishwara was the largest temple of the time with its soaring phramidal tower, highly decorated pillared halls and outer walls covered with carvings. With the temples there was also the simultaneous growth of the art of bronze icons. The free standing Chola bronzes are made even today and these elegant, perfectly proportioned figures of deities and royalty are the finest creation of metal sculptors.
Today what distinguishes a southern temple from one in the north is not just the many tiered shikhara tower but also those mammoth southern gateways, the gopurams. By the 12th century. During the reign of the Pandyan dynasty that replaced the Cholas, temples were enclosed within a wall with a row of cloisters inside. The four cardinal points of this wall were pierced by the oblong pyramidal gopurams. Then the gopurams were covered with a dazzling panorama of deities, human figures and animals painted in vivid colours.
Other local styles were developed under the rule of southern dynasties like the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and Hoysalas. The most beautiful of these are the Hoysala temples at Belur and Halebid that have an unusual style of architecture and carving. The final flowering of temple building in the south would be in the medieval period, during the great Vijayanagar Empire in the 16th century and the rule of the Nayaka kings. The temples of Vijayanagar were the last great temples built in the medieval period and the structures show all the various elements of temple architecture in the south the enclosures called prakaras, shikaras, gopurams, amman shrines for the consort of the deity and the many kinds of pillared halls, the mandapas. In Vijayanagar the temple carvings have a florid exuberance that transforms the pillars and walls into a dazzling panorama of the sculptor,s art. In the ruined city of Vijayanagar the finest temple is the deserted shrine dedicated to Vitthala. Here the delicately carved figures of gods and goddess, the parade of horses and elephants, mythical beasts and lively panels of processions can be enjoyed on their own as examples of fabulous sculpture.
In the east another great school of temple architecture flourished in Orissa in the 13th century. The most interesting temples are in Bhubaneswar, Puri and Konarak. The great Lingaraja temple at Bhubaneswar with its gigantic curvilinear tower, a maze of pillared halls and fine sculpture is a majestic creation. For the pilgrim the most significant Orissan temple is the one dedicated to Lord Jagannath in Puri. This is the site of the famous chariot festival, the Rath Yatra that is held every year. However, architecturally the most beautiful is the haunting ruin of the temple at Konarak. Dedicated to the sun god Surya. Here even though the main tower over the sanctum has collapsed, the marvelous concept of a temple designed like the sun god’s chariot and the profusion of beautiful sculpture makes this one of the greatest temples in the east.
In Central India the Chandella kings patronized another great school of temple building in the 10th and 11th century and the best of the Chandella school are the group of temples at Khajuraho. These temples, like the magnificent Kandariya Mahadeo and Vishwanatha temples, were conceptualized as symbols of heaven and profusely carved both inside and outside. With finely decorated ceilings and walls, the khajuraho temples are famous for their friezes of erotic sculpture and the uninhibited energy of the human figures.
Every temple has its own character and offers an experience unique to itself. Today many of these temples like Konarak and vitthala stand silent and deserted. There is no deity in their dark sanctums, the air no longer carries the sound of prayers and temple bells. Still, among the ruined shikharas and broken sculpture they have the power to evoke an echo of their magnificent past. Others like the Jagannatha temple at puri and the Meenakshi temple in Madurai are still vibrant with life, busy with daily worship and popular festivals. Here the gods and goddesses still accept the adoration of devotees and continue a tradition of worship that goes back millennia in time
Chandogya Upanishad
The king had his palace, the rich had their mansions, the poor their meager huts, but where does the king of all kings live The temple begins from this human need to create a lasting shrine for the godhead. The nomadic Aryans had no need for solid structures as they moved with their herd from one pasture to another. So the earliest temples were probably "crude circles of stone within which man enshrined sacred relics, human or divine. To cap them and mark the holy spot he used a cap-stone which has its counterpart in the shikhara or spire of the fully developed temple."Once the Aryans settled down in villages the community felt the need for a shrine where they could congregate and hold their sacrifices. The temple grew out of this need for a sanctified area where they could pray and light the holy fires of the yagna. If none of these early temples have survived it is because they were originally built of perishable materials like wood, clay and bricks. One reason for this may have been because stone was scare in the Indo Gamgetic Valley while wood was easily available. Besides, the Vedas stated that brick was more sanctified for rituals than stone.
The evolution of India’s religious architecture is a creative journey that began with these crude wood and brick shrines, evolved to the Buddhist stupa, then rock cut temples and finally to free standing structures of dressed stone. Even when the temples were of wood they were the creation not just of architects bus also the sculptor and with stone these artists finally got the opportunity to create buildings that stood the test of time.
From Stupas to Rock Temples
In ancient Hinduism god was everywhere and you prayed to him wherever you were- at home, by a sacred river, under a holy tree. Worship was through sacrifice and homes had their own sacred fires and shrines and no need was felt to build temples. So the oldest religious buildings of ancient India that have survived are not Hindu but Buddhist. It is the Buddhists who began the tradition of building temples and also carving icons of stone to be worshipped. The Buddist buildings included monasteries, viharas, prayer halls, chaityas and the circular mounds of the stupas that were first built by the Mauryan king Ashoka in the 2nd century B.C.E.India’s history of building with stone begins with Ashoka. The Mauryans ruled over the Indo-Gangetic region with their capital in Pataliputra and their kingdom was the first known empire in the India subcontinent. Asoka’s power was acknowledged by regions as distant as Taxila in the north and the Deccan in the south. By placing pillars with carved capitals all across his kingdom, he was the first king to leave his mark on the landscape in lasting stone. It all began when he tried to conquer the neighbouring kingdom of Kalinga. There was a terrible battle where thousands died. Surveying the carnage he had caused, a penitent Ashoka gave up war and became a Buddhist and his prodigious building activity had the energy and enthusiasm of a new convert. India’s first creations in stone architecture and sculpture were therefore inspired not by kingly pride but by this religious zeal.
Across the length and breadth of his kingdom, Asoka erected monolithic columns of polished sandstone with his edicts engraved on them and topped by carved capitals. The most familiar is the famous four-lion capital that was discovered at Sarnath and has become the symbol of independent India. He also carved his message on large rocks and excavated caves to create prayer halls but his greatest buildings were the stupas. A stupa is a circular mound built over the relics of the Buddha and later those of great Buddhist teachers, the bhikshus. These stupas were originally built in brick by Asoka and during later reigns covered with dressed stone. Then walkways with railings wre laid around them and figures of the Buddha places by the gateways. Around the stupas grew religious communities of Buddhist monks with prayer halls, monk’s cells, refectories and other monastic buildings.
Built in the 2nd century BC. the stupa at Sanchi is considered the finest. After Ashoka had established a monastery near Vidisa he built the stupa, and over the following centuries many additions were made to it. The most impressive are the four gateways, the toranas, that are justly famous for the quality of their carvings. These are the earliest examples of the stone carver’s art in India, an art that would reach the heights of excellance in temples from Brihadishwara to Konarak.
The gateways and railings at Sanchi were exact copies of existing wooden structures and proved that the art of building in stone was still in its infancy. In these gateways, the sandstone was carved in high relief and they set the standards for religious sculpture on the walls and gateways of temples in later centuries. The toranas are two square columns with three beams laid crosswise on top. Every inch of the surface was covered with carvings that illustrated episodes from the life of the Buddha, stories from the Jatakas and a delightful pageant of nymphs, warriors and monks. Even after so many centuries, this panorama of life in ancient India has an amazing vitality.
The next great empire to hold sway over northern India was of the guptas, from the 4th to the 7th century. One of the few surviving Gupta temples stands near the main stupa at Sanchi. Built entirely of stone it is a simple square structure with a sanctum and a portico supported by carved pillars. Its straight elegant lines and restrained decoration is typical of the classical Gupta style. The Guptas were patrons of the arts and during their reign a major school of sculpture flourished in Mathura. During the earlier Kushan period, Mathura had created the first free standing images of the Buddha. Later Mathura began to produce stone icons of Hindu deities and these were then placed in temples.
From the time of the Mauryans, temples were also carved out of rock. Artifical caves were excavated and then embellished with decorative doorways, figures were carved on the outer walls and stupas chiselled in the interior. The cave temples of Bhaja and Karli in the Deccan were created during the reign of the Satavahanas. The typical layout had a prayer hall with pillars carved on the side and a stupa at one end and other caves nearby had cells for monks. These chaityas were obviously copies of wooden structures with false pillars and roof beams mimicking wooden buildings. Gradually the whole layout became more elaborate with carved pillars, vaulted roofs, ornate windows and entrances. Full size figures of people and animals were placed at the entrances.
These were the years of the rise of Buddhism and monasteries appeared all across the land. Some monastic communities even lived in a series of carved out of hillside and as the art of sculpture developed these caves were more elaborately decorated. The most beautiful of such cave temples and monasteries were created over many centuries at Ajanta. The work carried on from the 2nd century B.C. to the 7th century A.D. and during these nine centuries 28 caves were carved out of a horse shoe shaped patch of the Western Ghats. The interiors were covered with carvings, the walls and ceilings painted with exquisitely drawn murals presenting a panorama of religious life that even today glow in a glorious palette of colours.
At the same time Hindu and Jain rock cut temples were also being built. The most spectacular is the magnificent Kailasanatha temple at Ellora. It was carved during the reign of the Rashtrakuta king, Krishna I in the 8th century. At Ellora the rock cut temple moved to the next stage of evolution. The Kailasanatha temple is not a cave, but an entire temple with spires, walls and gateways carved out of the rockface. The work began at the top of the hill with the craftsmen carving downwards in an extraordinary feat of sculpture. This temple is a magnificent achievement of the sculpture. This temple is a magnificent achievement of the sculptor’s art with the surface decorated with panels of figures and delicate decorative motifs.
In the 7th century the Pallava kings were also carving cave shrines and complete temples from rock at Mamallapuram. Compared to Ellora these were on a smaller scale with simpler decorations. What makes Mamallapuram special is that the carvings on pillars, the figures, the use of spires, gateways and monoliths of animals are the first example of the Dravidian style of temple architecture. Another set of cave temples were discovered at Elephanta. These temples are dedicated to Lord Shiva and have the mammothe figure of Maheshvara, one of the greatest depictions of the god. After Mamallapuram and Elephanta the Indian builder moved to the next stage of temple architecture, of free standing buildings made of dresses stone. The following centuries would be the greatest era of temple building in India.
Creating a Heaven on Earth
From the Gupta period there was a resurgence of Hinduism and a creative floodgate opened with an extraordinary rise in temple building all across India. Great dynasties and powerful kings ruled over the land and they would seek the blessing of deities by building a temple. They hoped for divine favours un matters of the state and were ensuring a good birth in their next life. The move you spent on the temple, the greater the punya gained. For these kings the greatest symbol of their power was a temple and their endeavour was fired further by competition between rival kings. These temples would also influence the architecture all across eastern Asia. In Indonesia and Cambodia it is the Indian concept of beauty, its tradition of architecture and the evolution of its sculpture that inspired the temples of Borobudur and Angkor Vat.In India, painting and sculpture have always been looked upon as a craft and not an art. The country has an ancient tradition of craft guilds of sculptors, masons, wood carves and weavers and temples of every religion were built by members of these guilds. This is why the sculpture of Buddhist viharas, Jain and Hindu temples could depict different themes but the style remained the same. As the layout of the temples was laid down in ancient treatises like the Vastu Shastra it stayed virtually the same all across the country but every region added its own touches. One would think that the rigid canons of the shastras would have stifled the originality of these sculptors but it did not. Even though they kept within the precept of the shastras it is amazing how they did not let these strict rules inhibit their creativity. Usually a guild would be hired for a temple and these craftsmen would settle at the site of the building and sometimes when building large complex of temples, they would work there for generations. In this way, through years of trial and error, definite schools of art and architecture evolved in different regions of the land.
Temples were built as a symbol of the heaven on earth, a microscopic representation of the universe and on their outer walls the sculptures created a virtual heaven of dancing nymphs, the apsaras, the many aspects of gods and goddesses, mythical beasts and ornamental flowers and vines. Originally most temples used to be plastered and painted and decorated with precious metals. Many of these temples carried inscriptions about their important patrons and details of grants made by donors and these inscriptions are an important source of information for historians seeking details about ancient dynasties like the Pallavas and Cholas. Gradually two distinct schools of temple architecture evolved-the Nagara style in the north and the Dravidian style in the south. In the north, during the medieval period, Hindu temples faced the concentrated aggression of Muslim kings. Temple were known to posses great wealth, so the motive for attacking them was a convenient combination of a avarice and religious fervour. For centuries Hindu temples in the north were systematically looted and destroyed and few temples of the early years have survived. Today the great temples of the north are just the stuff of legends and it is the south, less effected by invasions, that still preserves the finest temples of this period.
In the south, from the 6th to the 8th century, the kings of the Pallava and Chalukya dynasties were the earliest patrons of temple building. The Pallava temples came up at their leading port of Mamallapuram and at their capital Kanchipuram. The Chalukyan temples stand at Badami and Aihole. " The Chalukyan temples stand at Badmi and Aihole. "These styles show the gradual emancipation of the architect from the techniques of carpentry and cave architecture." The finest examples of this evolving art are the Shore temple at Mamallapuram and the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram. Here we first see the various stages of temple building, the experiments and the slow evolution of the pyramidal tower over the sanctum, the shikhara and the use of carvings on the outer walls.
Then came the greatest southern dynasty, the Cholas, who reigned in the Tamil country from the 10th to the 12th century and had a flourishing sea trade with the Far East. In the 10th century Rajaraja the Great built the fabulous Brihadishwara temple dedicated to Shiva at his capital in Thanjavur and his successor Rajendra I built another Shiva temple at Gangaikonda cholapuram. The Brihadishwara was the largest temple of the time with its soaring phramidal tower, highly decorated pillared halls and outer walls covered with carvings. With the temples there was also the simultaneous growth of the art of bronze icons. The free standing Chola bronzes are made even today and these elegant, perfectly proportioned figures of deities and royalty are the finest creation of metal sculptors.
Today what distinguishes a southern temple from one in the north is not just the many tiered shikhara tower but also those mammoth southern gateways, the gopurams. By the 12th century. During the reign of the Pandyan dynasty that replaced the Cholas, temples were enclosed within a wall with a row of cloisters inside. The four cardinal points of this wall were pierced by the oblong pyramidal gopurams. Then the gopurams were covered with a dazzling panorama of deities, human figures and animals painted in vivid colours.
Other local styles were developed under the rule of southern dynasties like the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and Hoysalas. The most beautiful of these are the Hoysala temples at Belur and Halebid that have an unusual style of architecture and carving. The final flowering of temple building in the south would be in the medieval period, during the great Vijayanagar Empire in the 16th century and the rule of the Nayaka kings. The temples of Vijayanagar were the last great temples built in the medieval period and the structures show all the various elements of temple architecture in the south the enclosures called prakaras, shikaras, gopurams, amman shrines for the consort of the deity and the many kinds of pillared halls, the mandapas. In Vijayanagar the temple carvings have a florid exuberance that transforms the pillars and walls into a dazzling panorama of the sculptor,s art. In the ruined city of Vijayanagar the finest temple is the deserted shrine dedicated to Vitthala. Here the delicately carved figures of gods and goddess, the parade of horses and elephants, mythical beasts and lively panels of processions can be enjoyed on their own as examples of fabulous sculpture.
In the east another great school of temple architecture flourished in Orissa in the 13th century. The most interesting temples are in Bhubaneswar, Puri and Konarak. The great Lingaraja temple at Bhubaneswar with its gigantic curvilinear tower, a maze of pillared halls and fine sculpture is a majestic creation. For the pilgrim the most significant Orissan temple is the one dedicated to Lord Jagannath in Puri. This is the site of the famous chariot festival, the Rath Yatra that is held every year. However, architecturally the most beautiful is the haunting ruin of the temple at Konarak. Dedicated to the sun god Surya. Here even though the main tower over the sanctum has collapsed, the marvelous concept of a temple designed like the sun god’s chariot and the profusion of beautiful sculpture makes this one of the greatest temples in the east.
In Central India the Chandella kings patronized another great school of temple building in the 10th and 11th century and the best of the Chandella school are the group of temples at Khajuraho. These temples, like the magnificent Kandariya Mahadeo and Vishwanatha temples, were conceptualized as symbols of heaven and profusely carved both inside and outside. With finely decorated ceilings and walls, the khajuraho temples are famous for their friezes of erotic sculpture and the uninhibited energy of the human figures.
Every temple has its own character and offers an experience unique to itself. Today many of these temples like Konarak and vitthala stand silent and deserted. There is no deity in their dark sanctums, the air no longer carries the sound of prayers and temple bells. Still, among the ruined shikharas and broken sculpture they have the power to evoke an echo of their magnificent past. Others like the Jagannatha temple at puri and the Meenakshi temple in Madurai are still vibrant with life, busy with daily worship and popular festivals. Here the gods and goddesses still accept the adoration of devotees and continue a tradition of worship that goes back millennia in time
