Khajuraho eastern temples tour - Private

General information

Destination
Khajuraho, India

Program details

The Eastern Group of temples include the Ghantai Temple, Vamana Temple dedicated to the "Vamana" or dwarf incarnation of Lord Vishnu and the Javari Temple. There are also three Jain Temples with beautiful carvings and non-erotic sculptures. Although these are Jain Temples, they also contain numerous Vaishnav deities.



The Eastern temples are partly Jain and partly Hindu. The most striking is the Parsvanath Temple, with its exquisite sculptures depicting everyday activity. There is a bull-emblem of the first Tirthankara, Adinath. It is a fine instance of sensitive art without any sexual motifs. In the vicinity of this temple is the temple of Adinath, which has some fine carvings.



The temple is structurally similar to the Hindu temples of Khajuraho. In fact, it is this Jain-Hindu combination that is singularly interesting about the Eastern Group of temples. Only a century old, Shantinath is the most recent of all the temples in Khajuraho. Visited by the Digambar Jains, the temple houses a four and a half metre statue of Adinath. The Ghantai Temple, mostly in ruins now, has fine columns and chains and bells, with a figure of a Jain goddess on a garuda. Mainly built of granite and sandstone, the temple of Brahma and Hanuman is one of the oldest temples in Khajuraho.



Strange though it may seem, the temple is actually dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Close by is a Hanuman temple reputed to have the earliest inscription dating back to AD 922 on a 2½-metre statue. The Javari and Vamana are two other notable temples of the Eastern Group.