The Kandariya Mahadeva temple is built at Khajuraho

No dated foundation inscription of the temple is known. It is usually attributed to the Chandella king Vidyadhara (c. 1003–1035), who in 1019 and 1022 faced the armies of Mahmud of Ghazni: an inscription on a pilaster of its hall names a king Virimda, which is read as another name of Vidyadhara. Most accounts date the building to about 1030 or to between 1025 and 1050, and a Russian textbook gives 1017–1029 — hence the interval given here. S. K. Saraswati, departing from the usual chronology (c. 950–1050), even placed the surviving great temples of Khajuraho in the second half of the century. It followed the Lakshmana temple of Yashovarman (c. 930–950) and the Vishvanatha of Dhanga (c. 999–1002) and is the latest of the three great temples of Khajuraho.

The temple stands on a high terrace; its porch, halls, vestibule and sanctum, surrounded by an ambulatory, follow one another on a single axis. Its superstructure evokes Mount Kailasa, the abode of Shiva: miniature replicas of the spire cluster around the main tower, so that the whole building rises like a mountain of masonry. Three bands of sculpture on the walls — gods and goddesses, celestial maidens, musicians and couples, including the erotic scenes for which Khajuraho is famous — hold, by S. K. Saraswati’s count, nearly 900 figures, each a little less than life-size (other counts give over 870). S. K. Saraswati called the temple ‘the finality of the Central Indian architectural movement’. With the other temples of Khajuraho it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986.