Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c29.4

c29.4

These temples were built during the supremacy of the Chandela rajas, a dynasty noted for its structural productions, although their buildings partook very largely of undertakings of a utilitarian character, such as reservoirs and similar public works No doubt this royal house extended its patronage to the temples of Khajuraho, but their grouping appears to have been due not so much to dynastic encouragement, as to a combined sacerdotal impulse of a marked tolerant and comprehensive nature, as they represent different beliefs, several of them being Saivite, others Vaishnavite, and some Jaina. The congregating of a number of temples on one site is not uncommon in India, but an assembly on such a scale as those at Khajuraho implies some special object It seems not improbable that a powerful hierarchy which then existed conceived the idea of founding a central seat of religious life and learning, not monastic, as this finds little favour in the systems of either the Brahmans or the Jains, but in an organization of religious orders, not unlike that planned by the Oratorians in Italy in the sixteenth century. In any case, whatever the ideal it stimulated the building art to a remarkable degree as these buildings amply testify. But as at Konarak in Orissa, it is proved by the carvings on several of these temples, that the same sinister ritual which degraded that monumental conception also prevailed at Khajuraho, and it is possible that the religious community concerned suffered the same fate. Such may be one of the explanations for the almost complete absence of life within the precincts of these beautiful buildings, and their disuse over such a long period of time.