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Lot Essay
The Chandellas of Khajuraho were a major innovator in the creation of mediaeval central Indian artistic style, but their impact reached well beyond the subcontinent. Their sponsorship of artistic production yielded sculpture and architecture of world cultural magnitude. The Chandellas were a small dynasty, just one among many vying for power in central India as the mighty Gurjara-Pratihara empire fragmented, and they managed to consolidate their power at a crucial moment in the history of Indian art, when experimentations with architecture and sculpture were at a pinnacle. Sponsoring the artistic production of a great many temples, the Chandellas created a magnificent group of stone edifices populated by images of gods and sages, and they ruled from a citadel close to the temples, using sacred architecture to express the greatness of their reign.
The sculpture as a whole displays a series of complex interactions among figures and forms. Khajuraho during the 10th - 12th centuries was a royally sponsored religious center that saw the efflorescence of a range of ritual practices. These can be encoded in the sculptures through geometry, posture, and gesture. The importance of contact is most clearly represented on the lower areas of the sculpture. Seated beside Chakrapurusa and Gadadeva, the personifications of Vishnu's disk and club, two figures place their folded foot on the attribute's leg, establishing a palpable connection. On the base, two nagas and a yogini literally entwine, the yogini hovering on the nagas' tails.
The ten avatars of Vishnu are dispersed throughout the sculpture's frame. At the base are the Buddha at left and Kalki at right; above from left to right across the torana are Varaha, Matsya, Vamana, Rama, Parasurama, Balarama, Kurma, and Narasimha. Figures of gurus and sages populate the divine abode that the sculpture creates, and at the same time they are kept at a separate level from the avatars of Vishnu that enact their various worldly duties above, Varaha rescues the earth from the cosmic flood, Narasimha avenges an unrighteous king. Each image can be read both as an expression of devotion and as an allegory for the justness of the kings. Vishnu himself seems to burgeon outwards in the same way that the great stone edifices of Chandella temples expanded both systematically and unfathomably. Regal and celestial, Vishnu holds court for all who behold. For a similar iconographic retinue, see a figure of Lakshmi-Narayana at the Brooklyn Museum, published in Joan Cummins, Vishnu: Hinduism's Blue Skinned Savior, 2011, Ahmedabad, p.180, cat.no.14.
The sculpture as a whole displays a series of complex interactions among figures and forms. Khajuraho during the 10th - 12th centuries was a royally sponsored religious center that saw the efflorescence of a range of ritual practices. These can be encoded in the sculptures through geometry, posture, and gesture. The importance of contact is most clearly represented on the lower areas of the sculpture. Seated beside Chakrapurusa and Gadadeva, the personifications of Vishnu's disk and club, two figures place their folded foot on the attribute's leg, establishing a palpable connection. On the base, two nagas and a yogini literally entwine, the yogini hovering on the nagas' tails.
The ten avatars of Vishnu are dispersed throughout the sculpture's frame. At the base are the Buddha at left and Kalki at right; above from left to right across the torana are Varaha, Matsya, Vamana, Rama, Parasurama, Balarama, Kurma, and Narasimha. Figures of gurus and sages populate the divine abode that the sculpture creates, and at the same time they are kept at a separate level from the avatars of Vishnu that enact their various worldly duties above, Varaha rescues the earth from the cosmic flood, Narasimha avenges an unrighteous king. Each image can be read both as an expression of devotion and as an allegory for the justness of the kings. Vishnu himself seems to burgeon outwards in the same way that the great stone edifices of Chandella temples expanded both systematically and unfathomably. Regal and celestial, Vishnu holds court for all who behold. For a similar iconographic retinue, see a figure of Lakshmi-Narayana at the Brooklyn Museum, published in Joan Cummins, Vishnu: Hinduism's Blue Skinned Savior, 2011, Ahmedabad, p.180, cat.no.14.