Khajuraho

Khajuraho has become something of a cliche, but no amount of tourist over-exposure can render a visit to the millennium-old religious seat of the Chandella dynasty an anti-climax. It makes little sense to speak of the temple "architecture" versus the sculpture populating the walls of most of the surviving temples: here, architecture and sculpture are inextricable, and the resulting achievement is extraordinarily vivid, combining spiritual ardour, frank eroticism, and artistic ambition in a vertigo-inducing cocktail. Or, stated differently, decades of tourism have been unable to bury the event, and it is impossible to inoculate the visitor against the shock of encountering the uncanny...