Please Download Our Android App to Continue Editing

The Sahasra Bahu temples or Sasbahu Temples, at Nagda, Rajasthan, are a pair of Hindu temples dedicated to Vishnu.[1] They share a platform, facing the temple tank, and are similar in style, but one is rather larger than the other. The larger one is surrounded by ten subsidiary shrines, the smaller by four; only the bases remain of some of these.[2] The temples have many of the characteristics of slightly later Māru-Gurjara architecture but lack others, especially in the plan and exterior sculpture.

They are locally referred to as Sas Bahu temples (a local corruption of the original Sahasra-Bahu, meaning "One with thousand arms", a form of Vishnu).

Nagda was once an important city of Mewar, possibly a capital of one of its rulers.

Going by the historical records, these are no temples dedicated to glorify the saas (mother-in-law) and bahu (daughter-in-law). Rather, a certain king Mahipala of Kachchhwaha Dynasty got them constructed sometime in the 10th or 11th century A.D. It is a commonly held belief that the queen of Mahipala was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. The king was kind enough to get a temple made for his beloved spouse, wherein she could worship her favoured deity. Later, the prince got himself a wife, who was a worshipper of Lord Shiva. Therefore, another temple of Lord Shiva was built right next to the Vishnu shrine for the daughter-in-law.

Both temples have a sanctuary, mandapa with side projections, and an open porch. Their somewhat ruined shikharas are in brick, with many subsidiary turrets. That of the smaller temple has been largely repaired, while the larger one remains truncated. Below the platform there is a torana-style entrance screen, with four columns and a decorative cusped arch in the centre.

The interiors and parts of the exteriors, especially around the porches, are lavishly carved, but much of the exteriors are plain.

Lotus flower painting is visible on the roof top of temple.

At the entrance of the temple, idols of goddess Saraswati, Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu are placed. The walls of the temple sport amazing carvings and the architecture as a whole is much admirable. But owing to numerous invasions and the effect of time, some portions of the heritage site are in ruins.