Place · Gupta temple complex · India
Nachna
Also known as Nachna Kuthara
The 5-century Gupta-period temple site at Nachna village in Panna district, Madhya Pradesh, 55 kilometres from Khajuraho. The site preserves the Parvati temple (c.480 CE, one of the earliest surviving stone temples in India with a square sanctum and a flat roof) and the Chaumukhnath temple (dedicated to Shiva as four-faced linga). The Parvati temple's distinctive bracket figures of goddesses and the surviving stone construction make it a key document of early Gupta temple architecture before the shikhara-form developed at Deogarh (c.500 CE) and Bhitargaon. ASI protection since 1915.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Patron dynasty
- Gupta
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 24.160, 80.520
Connections (2)
- Architectural modelKhajuraho
The 5-century Gupta temples at Nachna (the Parvati temple c.480 CE and the Chaumukhnath temple) are among the earliest surviving stone temples in India and precede the Khajuraho Chandela temples (950-1050 CE) by five centuries. The Parvati temple's flat-roof square-cell architecture represents the pre-shikhara Gupta phase that was later developed into the Nagara shikhara at Deogarh, Khajuraho and other 10-century Chandela sites.
- Companion in the same setDeogarh Dashavatara temple
Nachna's 5-century Parvati temple and Deogarh's late-Gupta Dashavatara temple (c.500 CE) are together the two chief surviving documents of 5-century Gupta temple architecture — the architectural laboratory in which the subsequent Nagara temple tradition was developed. Both temples sit within 250 kilometres of each other in the Bundelkhand-Vindhyan region and were extensively studied by Percy Brown and the ASI from 1890s.
Sources
Standard reference; district gazetteer and Wikipedia.
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