"ASI Plans Restoration of Headless Vishnu Idol at Khajuraho"
Nagara style
temple architecture marked by a curvilinear shikhara, found mainly in northern India.
Dravida style
temple architecture with a stepped, pyramidal tower, found mainly in southern India.
Khajuraho is in present-day Madhya Pradesh. Signs of human activity there go back to the Stone Age. However, it became an important settlement only around 900 CE. Local chieftains of the Chandela family grew powerful around this time. They turned the site into a major centre of temple building. Chandela rulers built most of Khajuraho's temples between the 10th and 11th centuries. They used these temples to show religious devotion, royal power, and cultural achievement all at once. Temple building and kingship were closely linked in this period. A ruler who built grand temples was also showing his right to rule.
Khajuraho's temples belong to the Nagara school of temple architecture. This is one of the two major styles found in India. The other style is Dravida, seen mainly in the south. A Nagara temple has a curvilinear (curved) tower called a shikhara. It is usually topped with a fluted disc-shaped stone called an amalaka and a small pot-shaped finial called a kalash. This style had been developing for centuries before Khajuraho. The Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh was built about four hundred years earlier. It already shows an early form of the curved Nagara shikhara. In the Deccan, the Chalukyas were experimenting with related ideas around the same period. The Huchimalligudi Temple at Aihole carries an early curvilinear tower close to the Nagara idea. Nearby Pattadakal and Badami mostly show the flat, stepped Dravida tower instead. By the time the Chandelas built the Lakshmana temple in 954 CE, the Nagara shikhara had become tall, soaring, and far more refined. This shows how much the style had matured in four centuries.
Khajuraho remained an active pilgrimage centre until about the 14th century. This was even after Chandela political power had faded. By the 16th century, however, it had fallen into obscurity. It does not even appear in Mughal-era records. This gap would last until the colonial period.
The Huchimalligudi Temple at Aihole carries an early curvilinear tower close to the Nagara idea. Pattadakal and Badami mostly show the flat, stepped Dravida tower instead.
At least two of Khajuraho's major temples follow a special layout. These are the Lakshmana and the Vishvanatha. They follow the panchayatana layout. In this layout, the main shrine is surrounded by four smaller subsidiary shrines at the corners of its platform. This layout and the soaring height of the shikharas together show what Desai calls a highly evolved stage of Indian temple architecture. This stage was built on experiments that had started elsewhere in the subcontinent much earlier.
The temples are commonly grouped by location into the western, eastern and southern groups. The western group is the largest and most elaborate. It contains entirely Hindu (Brahmanical) temples such as Lakshmana, Kandariya Mahadeva, Vishvanatha and Parvati. …
Which of the following temples has/have a Nagara-style shikhara?
1.Malegitti Shivalaya, Badami
2.Huchimalligudi Temple, Aihole
3.Dashavatara Temple, Deogarh
4.Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal
Select the answer using the code given below:
With reference to the temples of Khajuraho, consider the following statements:
1.They were built predominantly under the Chandela dynasty.
2.They follow the Nagara style of temple architecture.
3.The site contains only Hindu temples.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The 'panchayatana' style of temple architecture, as seen in the Lakshmana and Vishvanatha temples of Khajuraho, refers to:
Which of the following statements about the Nagara style of temple architecture is correct?
Which of the following pairs of Khajuraho temple groups and their characteristics is/are correctly matched?
1.Western group — entirely Brahmanical (Hindu) temples
2.Eastern group — includes Jain temples
3.Southern group — includes the Duladeva temple
Select the answer using the code given below:
Consider the following events related to the documentation of Khajuraho's temples:
1.Alexander Cunningham's survey as Archaeological Surveyor to the Government of India
2.Captain T S Burt's account published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
3.Repairs undertaken by Maharaja Pratap Singh of Chhatarpur
Which of the following represents the correct chronological order of these events?
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