Chaumukhnath Temple

Getting there

• By road

  The Nachna site is about 60 km southwest of Satna, and the temple is near Saleha village. The site lies deep inside forest territory.

Why devotees come here

Chaumukhnath Temple is a Shiva shrine near Saleha village in Panna district, Madhya Pradesh, one of the Nachna temples. Its lingam has four faces, and the name means man with four faces. The temple is now a pilgrimage site near the Panna National Forest.

The small sanctum, called the garbhagriha, or inner chamber, holds a Shiva lingam about 4.67 feet high, with four faces. The faces are believed to express five aspects of Shiva: creation, maintenance, destruction, beyond space and introspection. The name Chaumukhnath is translated as man with four faces.

The Chaturmukha temple is dated to the 9th century. It was largely rebuilt then on an original 5th-century platform, and the builders reused older parts wherever they could. Unlike the two-storey Parvati temple, this shrine has a spire, or shikhara, which symbolically mimics Shiva's Kailash mountain.

Three jali windows let little light into the dark sanctum. They are counted among the temple's attractions. A trellis from the temple, possibly from the 5th century, shows dancing Ganas and the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna. The site came to the notice of western archaeologists through Cunningham's publication of 1885, in the British colonial era. The Nachna temples illustrate a North Indian style of Hindu temple architecture.

Tips for your visit

• The site is at the entrance of a valley in the Vindhya mountains that is difficult to traverse.
• Panna town, the district centre, is on National Highway 39, with regular buses to Bhopal and Indore.
• The nearest airport and railway station are both at Khajuraho, 40 km from Panna town.

Questions people ask