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LOST GARDENS > The Gardens of Khajuraho |
The Temple City of Khajuraho
Khajuraho reached its peak between the 9th and 12th century AD. As the religious capital of the Chandelas, it was as important as Varanasi, the city of Shiva on the Ganges. The Chandela dynasty built 84 superb temples in Khajuraho, 25 of which remain today. Some of these temples are decorated with erotic scenes that are among the most beautiful the Hindu culture has ever produced.
Following the Muslim invasions in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Chandelas went into decline and their dynasty came to an end. Khajuraho became a village of around 8,000 inhabitants. Since then, the town comes alive once a year when it welcomes 100,000 pilgrims during the Shivaratri Festival to celebrate the marriage of Shiva and Parvati.
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In the 19th century, British engineer T.S. Burt arrived, followed by General Alexander Cunningham. Cunningham put Khajuraho on the world map when he explored the site on behalf of the Archaeological Survey of India and described what he found in glowing terms.
Following this 19th-century "rediscovery", and particularly after UNESCO included the temples on its world heritage list in 1984, Khajuraho became one of Madhya Pradesh’s tourist attractions. Unfortunately, the feature that is almost exclusively highlighted is the erotic scenes adorning some of the temples. For several decades many of the other features of Khajuraho and the surrounding area were ignored.
Intach’s Lost Gardens of Khajuraho project aims to complete the picture of this exciting area of India and to foster sustainable tourism in the region.
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