Mahadev Temple, Dev Baloda

Dev-Baloda comes under Charoda  Municipality region, just 3 km south of Charoda Town. Its just 10-15 km from Bhilai and 20-25 km from Raipur, the Capital of Chhattisgarh on Raipur-Nagpur Highway (i.e. Mumbai Howrah Highway). The nearest Railway station is Charoda, Power House(Bhilai) and Raipur. And the nearest airport is Raipur.

According to Archaeologists, the Central Chhattisgarh was once the kingdom of Great Kalchuris. The Kalchuri dynasty were great admirers of art and sculpture and near the adjoining areas of Dev-Baloda, they built a lot of ponds. It is believed to have built around 13th Century A.D.

This temple’s front is east facing. This temple has a shivling of around 1.5 feet. The front chamber of this temple gives an impression of the square like formation called as Navranga Mandapa. The different style of encarvings of Gods and Goddess can be observed on the pillars of this temple. The roof of the garbha-griha is quite surprising as it gives the impression of a dome-less structure from outer view, but inner view of the roof gives a bit of dome or pyramid-like impression in our first view. Probably the Shikhara has been built in Nagar Style.

The exterior of this temple is decorated by carvings of Gajas, Horses, and Naras and other than these, there are many carvings of Gods and Goddesses like Mahisasur-Mardini, Vaman Avtar of Vishnu, Virat Avtar of Vishnu, Gajantakshiva, Varaah Avtar, Radhe-Krishna, Narsimha, Ganesh, Laxmi and a couple of erotic encarvings.