Gadarmal Devi Temple, Badoh

Gadarmal Devi temple stands at Badoh village in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, and is also called the Gadarmal Temple of the Mothers. Built in the 7th-8th century, it is said to be the work of shepherds, or gadariya, which explains its local name. Its style fuses Pratihara and Parmara elements and recalls the Teli ka Mandir at Gwalior Fort.

This is one of India's yogini temples, with 42 niches set unusually in a rectangle, and Vidya Dehejia writes that it must once have been open to the sky. Eighteen broken images of the goddesses survive from the waist down. A rectangular sandstone shrine with a tall, massive shikhara stands at the centre, surrounded by seven smaller shrines, and it holds both Hindu and Jain idols. In 1871-2 the archaeologist J. D. Beglar photographed a huge bas-relief of a mother and child inside, which he took to be Maya Devi and the infant Buddha.