Khajuraho Group of Monuments

The Khajuraho complex is the creation of the Chandela dynasty of Bundelkhand, and is the single most complete survival of their architectural programme. Construction is generally placed between the mid-10th and mid-11th century CE, a span of roughly a hundred years rather than a single campaign. The dynasty traced its lineage to a legendary figure, Chandra, and its rulers took the title of Maharajadhiraja; inscriptions carved into the temple doorways name at least thirty of them, which is why the site can be read as a continuous dynastic project rather than a set of isolated buildings.

The complex divides into two groups roughly two kilometres apart. The Western Group, inscribed in 1986, holds the Chandela Shaiva temples, each on a high platform with a mountain-like spire rising above a dense mandapa of halls. The Eastern Group is Jain, built during the same period and a little later, and is quieter and less crowded. The best-known buildings are Kandariya Mahadeva, the tallest and most ambitious; Lakshmana and Vishvanatha, which follow its plan closely; and Duladeo, the last of the great Chandela temples, whose platform carries a continuous band of processional figures in high relief.

Dating of the later temples is debated. Some scholars place Duladeo in the 11th to 12th century, after the height of Chandela power, based on its more restrained carving and on the presence of features that appear elsewhere only at the very end of the dynasty's rule. The recorded history of the site then falls silent for several centuries. The temples were found intact in the eighteenth century and never systematically looted, which is unusual among Indian monuments and accounts for the survival of their sculptural programmes in place.