Category:Chausath Yogini Temple, Bhedaghat

Chausath Yogini Temple, Bhedaghat 

A 7th to 10th century circular goddess tradition Hindu temple near Jabalpur
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Instance of	Yogini temple
Location	Jabalpur district, Jabalpur division, Madhya Pradesh, India
Heritage designation	Monument of National Importance
23° 07′ 46.92″ N, 79° 48′ 04.68″ E
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The Chausath Yogini temple of Bhedaghat is on a hill top about 20 kilometers west of Jabalpur, near Narmada river waterfalls. It is one of the famed circular temples of Shaktism (goddess tradition) in India. The temple is notable for 81 statues mostly from the 1st millennium Hindu traditions: some from 2nd-century Kushana period, some Gupta and post-Gupta centuries through the 12th-century. Most are severely mutilated, many beheaded or defaced with limbs broken and lost. Yet, whatever remains of the historic yogini statues is much more than several other yogini temples in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh where merely structural ruins survive. The broken statues on display, elegantly produced in the 1st millennium, are impressive. This temple is best studied in comparison to Mitaoli/Mitawali yogini temple (Morena, MP) and the two Odisha yogini temples, in particular the Hirapur site (near Bhubaneswar, OD).

The Bhedaghat site was brought to the western attention by colonial era archaeologists. They took and published photographs of the site in the 19th-century. These photographs show a badly damaged site, fallen ruins, broken statues, scattered artwork and temple parts. The site was restored and rebuilt in the 20th century, and the 81 statues found were then placed in 81 niches of the circular temple, not necessarily in the original 10th-century order. The statues on display include the 64 yoginis and 17 more. These now have inscribed name labels added to help tourists, but these names and their sequence do not correspond to the standard 64 yoginis list found in historic Sanskrit texts of Hinduism.

During the restoration work, limited excavation revealed that the site had a Hindu goddess tradition temple by the 7th century, which itself replaced something from pre-6th century structure with Kushana era artwork. The first circular hypaethral temple here was built in the 10th century.

The extant temple remains a hypaethral structure, with a Gauri-Shankar (Parvati-Shiva) temple in the center.