Some places make you wonder how they stayed a secret. Gyaraspur is one of them — a small town in Vidisha district, barely two hours from Bhopal, with a whole hillside of carved 9th- and 10th-century temples scattered across it. On the cool January morning we arrived, we very nearly had them to ourselves. This is the story of one full day there: three families, a convoy of cars, a picnic on a thousand-year-old ridge, and some of the most beautiful, least-visited ruins in all of Madhya Pradesh.
The road out of Bhopal
We left Bhopal at about half past nine, three families in a small convoy. The drive heads out past Raisen, Vidisha and Sanchi — country that has mattered for two thousand years — and with a couple of easy stops it took us roughly two hours. Mid-January meant perfect weather: neither hot nor cold, the fields still winter-green. A little after eleven, we were turning up the last slope to the Maladevi Temple.
Maladevi Temple — a shrine carved into the hill
The first sight stops you. The Maladevi Temple stands on the slope of a hill, looking out over a wide green valley, its tall carved tower rising straight from the rock. It dates to the late 9th century, the golden age of the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty — and it is unusual in the loveliest way: it is partly rock-cut. Part of the sanctum is hewn from the living rock of the hillside, and the rest was raised around it in finely finished stone, crowned by a soaring shikhara.
Walk around it and you read the layers of its long life. The outer walls are crowded with sculpture; inside the niches sit Jain Tirthankaras, which is why it is known today as a Jain temple. Yet other carvings hint at Hindu beginnings, and historians still argue over whether it began as a Devi or Vishnu shrine before passing into Jain hands. You are, quite literally, standing in front of a debate that has run for a thousand years.
A picnic on the ridge
This is the part none of us will forget. We had carried lunch up with us — a proper potluck across three families, food simply reheated rather than cooked, with Maggi and coffee to follow. We spread mats on the grass beside the cars, the temple at our backs and the valley falling away in front, and ate slowly in the soft winter sun.
Then, because the breeze was just right and the children insisted, we flew kites off the edge of the ridge — paper kites climbing over a thousand-year-old hill while the coffee went cold. If you take one idea from this whole page, take this one: come with a picnic, and leave time to do nothing at all.
Hindola Torana — a gateway to a vanished temple
Down from the hill stand the ruins that give Gyaraspur its quiet fame. The most striking is the Hindola Torana — a 10th-century ornamental gateway that once led into a large temple, most likely of Vishnu. The temple is long gone; the gateway still stands, two tall pillars and a carved arch against an enormous sky. Look closely and the pillars are carved, panel by panel, with the ten incarnations of Vishnu — the dashavatara — fish and tortoise and boar and the rest, worn but unmistakable.
Chaukhamba and Athkhamba — four pillars and eight
Right beside the torana stands the Chaukhamba, literally “four pillars” — a slender, square pavilion of carved columns that is all that’s left of yet another lost shrine. A short hop west brings you to the Athkhamba, “eight pillars,” the surviving columns and carved lintels of a 9th-century Shaiva temple that has otherwise vanished. Reached down a quiet hedged path, it’s a roofless frame of richly worked stone that glows when the low sun shines straight through it. Both are easy to miss and worth lingering over — the kind of ruins you get to yourself.
Bajramath — three shrines in one
The Bajramath was where we lingered longest. It is a single temple with three shrines set side by side, and its original dedication is a small map of medieval India’s open-hearted faith: the central shrine to Surya, the sun god; the southern to Vishnu; the northern to Shiva. Today it is cared for by the Digambara Jain community — another temple that has quietly carried more than one religion through the centuries. Its shikhara is unusual in plan, and the walls are dense with sculpture; in the late-afternoon light the carved spire turned a deep amber.
A living temple, and the road home
We ended the trail at the Jagdish Swami temple, and the contrast was lovely. After a day among silent, roped-off ruins, here was a temple still very much alive: whitewashed and bright, orange prayer flags snapping in the wind, worship going on as it has for generations. The old stones and the living faith, a few minutes apart.
By early evening we stopped in town for snacks, then pointed the cars back towards Bhopal. We were home by around eight — tired, sunburnt in the nicest way, and quietly amazed that a place this beautiful had been sitting two hours up the road all along.
More from the Journal: On the very same Bhopal–Vidisha route, read our Neelkantheshwar, Eran & Sanchi day trip — a temple, Gupta-era ruins and Sanchi’s night light show.
Verified June 2026 against Wikipedia, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, the ASI Bhopal Circle and other sources. All photographs © bhopali.in, from our own visit on 19 January 2025. The monuments are protected; please tread gently and take nothing but pictures.
