Khajuraho, Sanchi and Bhimbetka: Monuments of MP

Madhya Pradesh holds the oldest painted rock shelters in India, the oldest standing Buddhist stupas, one of the finest groups of Nagara temples and a string of forts and palaces from Gwalior to Mandu. Three of its sites are on the UNESCO World Heritage List: Khajuraho, inscribed in 1986, Sanchi in 1989 and Bhimbetka in 2003. For MPPSC and MP Vyapam papers the facts asked are the dynasty, the district, the discoverer and the inscription year, so learn each site as a set of pairs.

Khajuraho

The temples of Khajuraho, in Chhatarpur district, were built by the Chandela rulers between about 950 and 1050 CE in the Nagara style, on high platforms, with a sequence of ardhamandapa, mandapa, antarala and garbhagriha under a rising cluster of shikharas. The largest and most developed is the Kandariya Mahadeva temple, built in the reign of Vidyadhara; the Lakshmana temple, dedicated to Vaikuntha Vishnu, was built by Yashovarman; the granite Chaunsath Yogini is the oldest of the group. The temples are grouped as western, eastern and southern, and the eastern group includes the Jain temples of Parsvanatha, Adinatha and Ghantai, a reminder that Khajuraho was built for both faiths. Only a part of the sculpture is erotic; most of it shows gods, dancers, musicians, warriors and daily life.

Sanchi

Sanchi, in Raisen district, is the one Buddhist site with a continuous building record from the third century BCE to the twelfth century CE. The Great Stupa, Stupa 1, was begun by Ashoka, enlarged later, and given its four carved toranas in the Satavahana period; the gateways carry Jataka scenes and the Buddha shown by symbols, not in human form. Beside it stands an Ashokan pillar with the schism edict. Stupa 3 yielded the relics of the Buddha's disciples Sariputta and Mahamoggallana, and Stupa 2 has the earliest narrative reliefs of the site. The complex was brought to notice in 1818 and restored under John Marshall. A point examiners like: no event of the Buddha's life took place at Sanchi, and the Buddha never visited it.

Bhimbetka

The rock shelters of Bhimbetka, also in Raisen district, in the Vindhyan foothills, were discovered by V. S. Wakankar in 1957. More than seven hundred shelters have been recorded and several hundred are painted, in red and white ochre, with hunters, dancers, horses, elephants, bulls and later riders with swords, the oldest layers going back to the Upper Palaeolithic. The Auditorium Cave is the best known. Bhimbetka was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003.

Forts, palaces and other temples

Two more facts worth keeping

The fort of Asirgarh near Burhanpur was called the key to the Deccan because the road south ran below it, and Burhanpur also has the Shahi Qila and the Ahukhana where Mumtaz Mahal was first buried. Maheshwar, on the Narmada, was the capital of Ahilyabai Holkar, who built ghats and temples there and at Varanasi. At Gwalior an inscription of 876 CE records a figure written with a zero, one of the earliest such records in India, which is why Gwalior appears in questions on the history of mathematics as well as of architecture.