Lakshmana temple, dedicated to Lord Vishnu, was built from 930-950 AD during the reign of King Yasovarman of the Chandella kingdom. It houses a sacred image of Vaikuntha-Vishnu brought from Tibet. Though the temple is one of the oldest in the Khajuraho fields, it is also one of the most exquistely decorated, covered almost completely with images of over 600 gods in the Hindu Pantheon. The main shrine of the temple, which faces east, is flanked by four freestanding subsidiary shrines at the corners of the temple platform.
Leave your shoes at the entrance and enter the interior through a simple makara-torana flanked by gladiators. The circular ceiling of the porch (ardha mandapa) is a superbly carved open lotus blossom. In the hall (mandapa) is a raised platform possibly used for dancing and tantric rituals. At each corner of the platform are pillars with carved brackets with apsaras which are among the finest sculptures at Khajuraho. There are eight figures on each column, representing the eight sects of Tantra. The sanctum (garba-griha) doorway has a panel showing incarnations of Vishnu while the lintel has Lakshmi with Brahma and Siva on either side. A frieze above depicts the nine planets including Rahu, while Krishna legends and innumerable carvings of animals, birds and humans, appear on the wall. The pancha-ratha sanctum (main shrine) was built to house the three-headed image of Vishnu as Vaikuntha, which features one human head and the head of two of Vishnu’s avatars (incarnations), a lion and a boar. Around it are 10 incarnations and 14 forms of Vishnu.
Khajuraho is located at Northern region of Madhya Pradesh state in Central India. It is a popular tourist attraction under Madhya Pradesh tourism. Although it is a small town but have own airport of International category which makes it easy to reach this destinations. Here tourists can reach by train and road also. Let us check how to reach Khajuraho by different modes of transportation.
Best time to visit Khajuraho is from October to March. It is the period when we will find most of the tourists visits these temples. Theirs are different reasons for high tourism in this period in which climatic condition is the main reason. If we visit Khajuraho, we will find that it is basically a arid zone where vegetation is not so dense and surrounding area is more rocky thus in summers, temperature rises rapidly and sightseeing under open sky becomes challenging. Temperature remains good during October to March period and most of the domestic and international holidays lies in this period thus people like to go for outing. World famous Khajuraho Dance Festival also helds in this period, at the end of Feb month. All these factors contributes to declare this period as the best time to visit Khajuraho. Here monsoon prevails from July to September month during which surrounding areas become green and many nature lovers like to visit in this time also.
