Located on the Jain Mandir road heading west out of Khajuraho, the statue of Hanuman is considered part of the eastern group of temples.
The recently built white washed shrine with a sheltered roof, still actively worshipped today, holds a bit of a secret that most visitors to Khajuraho are unaware of.
The 2.5m high image of the monkey god, coated in red lead paint similar to the statue of Bhairava, has a short dedicatory inscription on the pedestal dated to the year 316 of the Harsha era. This equates to the year 922 A.D. in our calendar, making this statue one of the earliest inscribed images of Hanuman to be found anywhere in India.
I visited this shrine a few times during my stay in Khajuraho, luckily it was just a 2 minute walk from my hotel. It was hard to gauge when it was going to be busy, and I really didn’t want to be pointing my camera at devotees too much.
| Group | Khajuraho Monuments |
|---|---|
| Western | Lakshmana ♦ Varaha ♦ Kandariya Mahadeva ♦ Mahadeva Shrine ♦ Jagadambi ♦ Chitragupta ♦ Parvati ♦ Vishvanatha ♦ Nandi ♦ Pratapeshwar ♦ Bhairava Statue ♦ Matangeshvara ♦ Chausath Yogini ♦ Lalguan Mahadeva ♦ Chopra Tank |
| Eastern | Hanuman ♦ Brahma ♦ Vamana ♦ Javari ♦ Ghantai ♦ Adinatha ♦ Parshvanatha ♦ Shantinatha |
| Southern | Duladeo ♦ Chaturbhuj ♦ Bijamandal |
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Categories: Eastern Temples Group, India, Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, Statue of Hanuman
Kevin Standage 