The temple's outside surfaces contain one of the most extensive arrays of erotic relief sculpture in the world, although much of the iconography is symbolic. At any rate the erotic figures are consistent with the Tantric belief in the primal life energy of physical coupling, incorporated into religious buildings for its associations with fertility and joy. Not surprisingly however, the English colonial archeologists who excavated Kandariya Mahadev in 1906 were deeply shocked by what they saw. As a result, guidebooks of central India strongly discouraged visitors to the site for fear of impropriety and moral corruption.