erotic-sculpture-temple-india-4

FACTS OF KHAJURAHO

• About 90% of Khajuraho's sculptures have nothing to do with sex.
• The temples were built over a period of 150 years or more.
• There were once 85 temples in the Khajuraho complex. As few as 20 to 28 remain today. The temples are spread over an area of about eight square miles.

• This region was the religious (but not the political) capital of India’s Chandela dynasty, during Europe’s Middle Ages.

• The temples were built when the dynasty lived in power and luxury.

Some more facts and what others say about the erotic [pornographic]art.


Khajuraho Today

• British engineer T. S. Burt found the temples in the mid-1800's.

(Read below his description of how disgusting the art was.)

• There is no nightlife or luxury at Khajuraho today.
• Nothing cool at Khajuraho. It is situated in one of India’s hotter and arid corners.
• Temples are actually in Madhya Pradesh near the village of Khajuraho (about 350 miles southeast of New Delhi)

• It is one of India’s most popular tourist destinations.
• The Khajuraho temple complex is India’s largest group of medieval Hindu temples.
• One cluster of the temples is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• One can see erotic (some would say explicit) sculptures decorating the exterior of so many of the temples. However, the temples’ sculptures are intended to illustrate portions of a Hindu religious text on love, the Kama Sutra.

• In India today Conservative Hindus are offended by depictions of the gods as nude or sexually active.

The Most Popular Theories
religious (but not the political) capital of India’s Chandela dynasty, during Europe’s Middle Ages.

• The temples were built when the dynasty lived in power and luxury.

Some more facts and what others say about the erotic [pornographic]art.

Khajuraho Today

• British engineer T. S. Burt found the temples in the mid-1800's.

(Read below his description of how disgusting the art was.)

• There is no nightlife or luxury at Khajuraho today.
• Nothing cool at Khajuraho. It is situated in one of India’s hotter and arid corners.
• Temples are actually in Madhya Pradesh near the village of Khajuraho (about 350 miles southeast of New Delhi)

• It is one of India’s most popular tourist destinations.
• The Khajuraho temple complex is India’s largest group of medieval Hindu temples.
• One cluster of the temples is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• One can see erotic (some would say explicit) sculptures decorating the exterior of so many of the temples. However, the temples’ sculptures are intended to illustrate portions of a Hindu religious text on love, the Kama Sutra.

• In India today Conservative Hindus are offended by depictions of the gods as nude or sexually active.

The Most Popular Theories

1. The temples’ sculptures are intended to illustrate portions of a Hindu religious text on love, the Kama Sutra.

2. The Chandela dynasty was involved in a Tantric cult; Tantric mysticism teaches that the gratification of sexual desire is part of the path to self-knowledge and “the infinite”. The art may have illustrated Tantric rites. Related to this explanation is the possibility that the Chandelas were involved in a form of Shaktism, a type of Hinduism that focuses on feminine aspects of divinity.

3. The sculptures might simply show scenes from everyday life in Chandela India at a time when the dynasty lived in power and luxury.

4. The art was an effort to draw followers away from aesthetic Buddhism and back to Hindu family life.
5.
EXPRESSING SHOCK (by the British engineer T. S. Burt)
The images are graphic and unabashed: there is kissing and caressing; nudity, both male and female; twosomes and threesomes, foursomes and fivesomes and on to orgies with ten or more participants; acts of intercourse that seem to defy gravity; passion, self-gratification, intimacy, and (occasionally) bestiality.

TO SUM UP
The erotic art of Khajuraho - its motivation and significance - is probably something that will remain controversial and unresolved for decades. The extent of the disagreement is profound and it is clear that commentators who want to promote their own views regardless of the facts put forth a fair amount of revisionism. Sexuality is perfectly natural and Hinduism celebrates the acts of life, they say. They want to see the Chandelas as representatives of a healthy, mainstream Hinduism and ignore the fact that the builders of the temples at Khajuraho were likely part of a Tantric sect on the fringe of Hinduism and that those ideas did not seem to gain wider acceptance in the rest of India.

erotic-sculpture-temple-india-1

KHAJURAO: TEMPLE OR PORN?

Why Pornography on the walls of temple in India?
In the ancient Temples at Khajurao in India, you will see one of the finest arts of sculptures glowing with rare mystic beauty. The awesome erotic sculptures on the temple walls in Khajurao in India have never ceased to amaze and evoke mystery. A sexologist from India demystifies and reveals the meaning of this strange contradiction. Also, see the pictures of the temple yourself.


What is the first impression at Khajurao?Religious Temple with the idol of the God divine inside and vulgar sexual postures of naked men and women in all sorts of sexual acts including what may be called dirty, perverted sexual acts carved outside on the walls of the same temple would appear as an anathema. How can Vulgar be Auspicious?
What a striking contradiction!
InferenceIn ancient times, in the then advanced country, India, Sex was considered natural, respectable, desirable aspect of life. A sensuous gift of nature.
Interpretation
1
Spiritual SignificanceWhat is the benefit?
What is the purpose of showing sexual postures on the walls of temple?
What is the rationale?

Through the temple the message given by the Rishi is: "Knowing the outside world now realize that NOTHING can give lasting joy in the ephemeral world outside, hence TURN INSIDE to reach the sanctum sanctorum of the temple wherein is JOY INFINITE."

Anatomy and Physiology of Pleasure and The path to the SupremeThe divinity is within each of us. Our body is the temple.
Sculptures represent all worldly pleasures and pursuits. Human being derives all pleasure, from the most trivial to the highest, through sense organs, mind, and intellect. At the root of all our actions is the desire to seek the pleasant or to avoid the unpleasant. The Sculptures convey that knowledge about ways of seeking pleasure, or code of conduct related to harmonious living is essential.

Is this knowledge enough for total fulfillment that lasts forever and no further seeking is required?
The door to the temple symbolizes the gateway to the realm of bliss. The path that takes you to the temple away from the sensuous sculptures is the biggest blessing to human kind. It is the way to discover the Supreme by SELF REALIZATION, that has been mastered and propagated from Teacher (Guru) to the Taught (Seeker)