English: The Markandesvara temple faces east. In front, are the ruins of a Nandi mandapa. The temple has a covered mandapa with three entrances whose plinth can be traced. This gudhamandapa leads to a vestibule and the sanctum. Based on the records found here, the Gond people renovated and expanded this Hindu temple and the site. This is notable because colonial era sociologists conjectured and classified Gond people as tribal, but this and other temples.

This temple is also notable for the lavish and beautiful reliefs carved all around the mandapa and the sanctum – one of the best executed Hindu artwork found in all of Maharashtra. They include Vedic deities, Shiva legends, VIshnu legends, Shakti Devi legends, scenes of Ramayana and Mahabharata, Hindu fables such as those found in Panchatantra, kama and artha scenes. In all, this temple alone has over 400 elegant frames of artwork on its jangha bands. The reliefs of Vinyasa, Malini, Jaya, Mugdha, Mardalas are among the finest in all of central India.

The temple's shikhara and sukhanasa was in ruins in the 1970s, and was under restoration in 2022 (yellow sheet to the left in above photo).

Overview: The Group of Temples at Markanda – also called the Markandi Temples – is a major complex of twenty four Hindu temples from the 9th to 11th century, on the western banks of Wainganga River in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, India. The village is named after this complex and called Markanda. It is about eight kilometers northwest of Chamorshi town.

The twenty four temples at Markanda were first documented and published by Cunningham in 1925. Of those, four temples survive in a substantial form:

1. Markandeshvara Temple is the main temple; it is also called Markanda Rishi Temple, Markanda Mahadeva Temple or Markanda Deva Temple
2. Yamadharma Temple
3. Mrikunda Rishi Temple
4. Shankara Temple

These temples are notable for their architecture as well as their extensive and beautiful carvings. These narrate Ramayana and Mahabharata scenes, Vedic legends, stories from Shiva, Vishnu and Devi traditions, as well as kama and artha scenes.