Ahar Kshetra

A Chandela-period group in Bundelkhand, its principal image a standing Shantinatha of about twenty-two feet.

Ahar was a significant Jain centre under the Chandela dynasty, the same rulers responsible for Khajuraho a short distance away, and the temple cluster here dates to roughly the same eleventh- and twelfth-century period of Chandela patronage. Three of its bronze images — Shantinatha, Aranatha and Kunthunatha — carry an inscription dated 1049, which is what fixes the site’s age rather than style alone.

The principal image is a monolithic Shantinatha some twenty-two feet tall, standing in kayotsarga — the erect, arms-clear-of-the-body meditation posture every large standing Tirthankara or Bahubali figure in the tradition shares — and is what draws the site’s pilgrimage today, well beyond its Chandela-era origins.

Written for Jain Times. Corrections are welcome — see sources and licences.