The Visvantha Temple, Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh India

The Visvantha temple, enshrining a Siva-linga, is among the finest temples, of Khajuraho with all the elements of the developed temple-type, viz. entrance-porch, mandapa, maha-mandapa with transepts, vestibule and sanctum enclosed by an ambulatory with transepts on the sides and the rear. Like the Lakshmana temple, it was a temple of the panchayatana variety, but of the four subsidiary in the north-east and south-west corners. Architecturally this temple comes midway between the Lakshmana and the Kandariya-Mahadeva and its importance lies in the fact that it anticipates the Kandariya, which marks the culmination of the central Indian building-style. Three sculptural bands of equal size on the facades of the jangha (wall) and the representation on the basement niches of the seven Mothers with Ganesa on one end and Virabhadra on the other are peculiar to this as well as the Kandariya Mahadeva Temple at Khajuraho. Even the sikharas of the two temples are essentially similar in design, though that of Visvanatha is appreciable simpler, showing fewer minor sikharas. This temple has indeed the most proportionate sculptures with admirable poise and balance, which include figures of sura-sundaris and couples, erotic or otherwise.