01Built for Rama
Madhukar Shah of Orchha was a devotee of Krishna; his queen Ganesh Kunwari was devoted to Rama. She went to Ayodhya and, Orchha’s katha says, brought back a murti of Rama on the condition that he would stay wherever he was first set down. The king began this great temple for him. Meanwhile the queen placed Rama in her palace for the night, and there he stayed; the palace became the Ram Raja temple, where he is worshipped as king. The finished temple next door was given to a four-armed Vishnu.
02A temple like a palace
Chaturbhuj stands on a tall stone platform reached by a steep flight of steps, and its plan is a cross, like a church’s, with a huge hall rising inside to a vaulted ceiling. Its main spire and the slender towers at its corners are among the tallest of any Hindu temple, and from the roof the whole of Orchha, the Betwa river and the palaces of the Bundelas lie below. Vultures nest in its upper ledges. Bundela architecture here mixes the temple form with the palace building of the age.
The life of this place
- reign of Madhukar Shah (1554–92)Work begins on the temple for the Rama brought from Ayodhya.
Orchha is 16 km from Jhansi station; the temple stands beside the Ram Raja temple, and the roof is reached by a narrow stair.
