An entrance porch leads to an entrance hall open at the sides, which leads into the main hall containing an outer vestibule and an inner sanctum housing an image of a god, with a passageway extending around the outside of the sanctum. The outside of the temple leads the eye upward in a series of subsidiary spires to the great shikhara over the sanctum.

There are hardly any flat surfaces to be seen. The stone writhes with ornamental curves and flourishes, and bands of sculpture decorate most of the lower walls, both inside and out. Looking at the Lakshmana is a bit akin to looking at the stonework on a Gothic cathedral in Europe; the stone seems to be a living thing, growing in all directions in a riot of sculpture and geometric design. It is hard to escape the feeling that the shikhara, with its shape like a budding plant, has grown out of the top of the fertile stonework below.

The bands of large figures of apsaras, or heavenly maidens, that run around the entire temple, are the most beautifully carved figures at Khajuraho. A large temple such as the Kadariya Mahadev has over 800 metre-high figures on its walls. They pout over one shoulder, caress themselves, dance or stand smiling, at the observer in the sinuous "thrice-bent" posture so characteristic of standing figures at Khajuraho.

These long-legged, large-breasted, ambiguously smiling apsaras, carved in high relief, are the most instantly recognisable symbols of Khajuraho. Sometimes they are flanked by male deities, or stand seductively draped around them. Occasionally the gods of the Hindu pantheon appear in the ranks of the maidens, with their multiple arms clutching their symbols and their heads sporting elaborate head-dresses. In the centre of the outside walls surrounding the main hall there are usually couples locked in passionate embraces or engaging in gravity-defying acts of sex, occasionally involving groups of three or four.

The other major temples in the Western Enclosure are similar in style to the Lakshmana, although rarely as graphically sexual.

I spent hours wandering the grounds, entranced by the exuberant vitality of these stone carvings. Unfortunately, several temples were under repair or being cleaned (by hand, using toothbrushes), making photography difficult and forcing visitors to peer voyeuristically up under the scaffolding to see the carvings.

Some of the temples are smaller and lack some of the architectural features of the others, but none lack beauty or fluid grace. One interesting subsidiary shrine, facing the Lakshmana, contains an enormous statue of the god Vishnu's boar incarnation Varaha; his body is covered with the tiny figures of over 750 different gods.

The second main group of temples, located several kilometres to the east, consists of three Jain temples. The Jain religion arose at the same time as Buddhism and was popular amongst the wealthy merchant classes. It has lost popularity and now has only about five million adherents, but in the Khajuraho period many elaborate Jain temples were established. Most have fallen into ruin, and one modern Jain temple, the Shantinath, contains sculptural highlights salvaged from ruined temples.

The two surviving ancient Jain temples, the Adinath and the Parsvanath, are almost indistinguishable from the Hindu temples, except that the images in the sanctums are of awkwardly shaped naked figures of Jain saints, or tirthankars, instead of Hindu gods. Many Hindu gods appear on the walls, since Jain temples often feature Hindu gods, apparently to show that they are subservient to the tirthankars. Some of the most photographed carvings at Khajuraho, including one of a woman putting on mascara and another removing a thorn from her foot, are on the walls of these temples.

Scattered throughout the village of Khajuraho, surrounded by souvenir shops, stand four more temples, the Eastern Group, with one more, the Duladeo, standing to the south by itself beside a river.

They are smaller and less impressive than the Western Group or the Jain temples, but they still feature some beautiful carvings, particularly on the inside, with graceful apsaras adorning interior columns. The Duladeo, which was the last of the surviving temples to be constructed, in 1163, also features the single most athletic sexual position that I saw at Khajuraho; the participants would have to be an Olympic weightlifter and an Olympic gymnast to carry out this feat.

I spent two full days at Khajuraho, and it would be easy to spend more time exploring the temples and their carvings, a world of dead stone seemingly pulsing with life and movement, a fitting monument to the spiritual and artistic energy which flourished under the Chandella rulers so long ago.

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