Khajuraho

Khajuraho is renowned for its temples, built under the Chandella dynasty in the heart of Bundelkhand. Hindu and Jain shrines stand on raised platforms, their towers rising above richly carved walls. Sculptures of deities, attendants, musicians and couples cover the temples, whose ornament joins religious imagery with scenes of worldly life. The great Kandariya Mahadeva temple is among the most elaborate examples of the northern Indian temple style.

The Chandellas built the principal temples in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when their power was centred on this region. Their monuments survived the decline of the dynasty and the expansion of the Delhi Sultanate. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta described the temples of Kajarra during his travels in India in the fourteenth century, noting ascetics who lived among them. The surviving shrines preserve the craftsmanship and religious traditions of the earlier Chandella court long after its political prominence had passed.