The Toteshwara temple faces east and stands on a platform. It has a flight of tapering steps, and next to a manmade water tank. This pancharatha plan temple is the most sophisticated temple in Kadwaha's numerous historic temples. The profusely carved Toteshvara temple has a mandapa, an antarala and a garbhagriha. The sanctum doorway has seven shakhas of artwork, Ganesha at the lalata-bimba. The architrave above the lintel has male-female pair for Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Inside the sanctum is a Shiva linga. On the outside, the sikhara is latina-Nagara style with Sekhari features. There is a sukhanasi, and the artwork includes all major Hindu traditions. Much of the artwork is badly mutilated, but the portions that survive show the elegance of shilpin's work.

Near the Toteshwara temple, a short walk away, is the second more damaged temple. Its mandapa and upper parts of the sikhara are lost. This temple too was dedicated to Shiva, as evidenced by his image on the lalitabimba.

Background:

Kadwaya – also referred to as Kadwaha, Kadambaguha and Mattamayurapura – is a historic Hindu site in north Madhya Pradesh. With ancient roots, Kadwaya developed into a monumental Hindu temples town between 8th and 11th century. By the 12th century, it contained over fifteen group of temples, a Shaiva monastery-college site, a range of wells, gardens, and water tanks, according to the scholar Tamara Sears. Kadwaha's rapid growth and fame was partly because of its significance to a Mattamayuras-related Shiva tradition as well as partly because it was on the trade route between the northern kingdoms including those in the Yamuna-Ganga river plains and those in the Deccan and central Indian valleys.

Mattamayuras literally means "drunken Peacocks", a Shiva-related monastic tradition. However, the Kadwaha site was not exclusive to the Shaiva tradition; of the fifteen temple groups, five were dedicated to Vishnu, the other ten a blend of Shaiva-Shakta (that is, Shiva and Devi-goddess traditions).

The town was among the earliest targets of conquest by the Delhi Sultanate. The monastery built around itself a fort, in response to attacks and plunder in the 13th century. The town and this fort was conquered by the Tughluq army of the Delhi Sultanate and converted into an Islamic outpost with mosque. It later became a strategic outpost for the Mughals. During this period, many of the temples were reduced to ruins and desecrated. Of these, nine sites of Hindu temples, the Shaiva monastery along with many inscriptions have survived into the modern age. These are important to an objective understanding of the history of central India.

For further scholarly discussions:

• Arvind Singh, Kadwaha temples, in Art, Icon and Architecture in South Asia, pp. 361–382
• Tamara Sears, Following River Routes and Artistic Transmissions in Medieval Central India
• Saurabh Saxena, Kadwaya – The Vestiges of the Mattamayuras