EVENTS

Erotic ironies

PARVATHI MENON

PERHAPS the most important feature of erotic imagery in early and medieval India, whether in the temples of Khajuraho or the Konark temple complex in Orissa is its importance in the religious iconography of this period. In the Chandella temples of Khajuraho, built between the 10th and 12th centuries, erotic sculpture constitutes less than 10 per cent of the artistic representation. Even so, the variety and boldness of erotic expression here, its spatial positioning on the temples, and the remarkable detail of its execution, suggest that it was meant to hold the attention of the pilgrim and devotee, and was an essential part of the temple-going experience.

The self-appointed guardians of Hinduism and Hindu culture today often turn violent when Hindu goddesses are shown nude in artistic representation. The imagery of Khajuraho offers with unambiguous visual clarity the role of sexuality in certain cultural and religious customs of Hinduism. The broad umbrella of Hinduism could accommodate diverse cultural and philosophical strands - of renunciation, asceticism and detachment on the one hand, and of religio-cultural practices in which sex played an important part, on the other. And it was the religious environment of the temple rather than any secular space that formed the setting for the depiction of erotic themes.

In a scholarly study of erotic sculpture in India, Devangana Desai has traced the historical development of erotic motifs, the role of sex in a religion which sanctioned sexual depiction in temple art, and the socio-economic milieu in which sexual depiction was sustained and glorified (Erotic Sculpture of India: A Socio-Cultural Study, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1975). Desai has recently published a book exclusively on Khajuraho (The Religious Imagery of Khajuraho, Franco-Indian Research Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, 1997) in which she has extensively used textual and inscriptional sources to contextualise the art and architecture of Khajuraho.

N. RAM
The imagery of Khajuraho offers with unambiguous clarity the role of sexuality in certain cultural and religious customs of Hinduism. Here, a representation of Siva with his consort Parvathi.

By the 10th century, the depiction of sex in art entered a qualitatively new phase. Erotic motifs were no longer confined to less prominent spaces in temples. All forms of sexual depiction, ranging from the sexual and auto-erotic attitudes of men and women, including gods and goddesses, members of the aristocracy, and ascetics to group sexuality and bestiality were displayed ostentatiously on the exteriors and in the interiors of the temples. This was a period when in Central India, feudalism developed and temple building became an important activity and statement of power of the feudal ruling classes. Temples became larger and grander with ample space for artistic expression. According to Devangana Desai the four principal dynasties that spread across Central India - the Chandellas of Jejakabhukti (who built the Khajuraho temples), the Kalachuris of Dahala, the Khachchapaghatas of Gwalior and the Paramaras of Malwa - engaged in extensive temple building, which shared common building conventions despite differences owing to the stamp of the particular dynasty and other local factors.

It was under the Chandella rulers that Khajuraho acquired religious and political importance. It was a place of Sakta worship in the 9th century. By the middle of the 10th century a fully developed style of Nagara temple architecture emerged. Devangana Desai has divided the temples of Khajuraho into two groups based on the treatment of erotic motifs in their art. The first group comprises the structures built between A.D. 950 and 1050, which include the Lakshmana, Parsvanatha, Vishvanatha, Devi Jagadamba, Chitragupta and Kandariya Mahadeva shrines. The second group, constructed between A.D. 1050 and 1150, includes the Vamana, Adinatha, Javari, Chaturbhuja and Duladeva temples. The shrines in the first group, built when the Chandellas were in the ascendant and Khajuraho became the capital city of a wealthy ruling class, depict a large number of erotic motifs, whereas those constructed when the dynasty was on the decline have fewer representations of a sexual nature.

Different erotic motifs are represented on the Lakshmana temple; a Vaishnava shrine built in the Nagara style and one of the earliest of the temples to be built in Khajuraho by Yasovarman. The temple's consecration took place under Yasovarman's son Dhangadeva. The motifs - of coital and pre-coital couples and erotic groups - are depicted in prominent and recessed parts of the temple. According to Devangana Desai, one of the most frenzied orgiastic scenes in Indian art is depicted on the Lakshmana temple on a one-foot-long frieze, which also depicts persons involved in the preparation of an aphrodisiac. Erotic motifs are present also at the Parsvanatha temple, a Jain temple built soon after the construction of the Lakshmana temple. This is significant as Jains were known for their puritanical attitude towards sex. Devangana Desai suggests that the presence of erotic representation may have been owing to the influence of Tantrism on Jainism in the medieval period; it may also have been because of the fact that the same guild of artisans built the Lakshmana and Parsvanatha temples and introduced common motifs on them. The erotic representation on the latter is, however, more restrained than on the former - orgiastic representation, for example, is absent in the Parsvanatha temple.

The other 11th century temples belonging to the first group - the shrines of Visvanatha, Chitragupta, Devi Jagadamba and Kandariya Mahadeva - present more or less the same kind of erotic images. Of these the Visvanatha and Kandariya Mahadeva temples, the largest and the most beautiful of the Khajuraho temples, are Saiva shrines. The Devi Jagadamba temple was originally a Vaisnava shrine, and the Chitragupta temple is the only Saura shrine on the site. Devangana Desai points to the fact of the more chaste and restrained divine erotic group in the Visvanatha temple being replaced by the orgiastic group in the Kandariya Mahadeva temple built 25 years later, which supports the hypothesis that there was an increase in sensuality in this period. The fact that people who figure in the orgiastic representations in Khajuraho are members of high society or ascetics also suggest that the occasions depicted may have been religious rituals in which royal families and Tantriks participated. The second group of temples were built between the middle of the 11th century and the middle of the 12th century, a period which saw the political decline of the Chandellas. These temples, which belong to the Jaina, Vaishnava and Saiva faiths, treat erotic motifs with more restraint. This has nothing to do with sectarian differences. In fact, Devangana Desai points to the interesting fact that shrines of the same faith, situated on the same site and built within 50 years of each other, treat erotic motifs with considerable difference. That there was a decline in the affluence of the patron of the temples during this period may partially explain the sobering in the sexual representation. Alongside there was also a change in attitudes and something of a backlash against the milieu of eroticism, says Devangana Desai, pointing to the Prabhodachandrodaya, a pronouncedly anti-erotic play written by the court dramatist, Krisna Misra.

Sexual depiction in religious art first served a magico-religious function. The worldly interest in sex changed the sacred nature of sexual depictions leading to its secularisation and sensualisation and to it acquiring an aesthetic of its own. The historical progression of erotic imagery in Indian art, Devangana Desai argues, reveals the constant interaction of its magico-religious origins, which centre around fetishistic beliefs and fertility cults, and the worldly, pleasure-giving aspects of sex, outlined in the texts on eroticism written at that time. The profuse depiction of sex in temple art from A.D. 900 onwards suggests the permeation of Tantric elements into Puranic Hinduism and its influence on all major religions. The highly secretive nature of the Tantric religion, including its sexual-religious practices, does not fit in with the public display of erotic themes in temples at this time. Tantrism may have influenced erotic temple art, without being functionally related to its cultist and secretive aspects.

An important socio-cultural factor that contributed to the profusion of erotic imagery in temples was the growth of feudalism and the spurt in temple building activity - not just in Khajuraho but all over India - by feudal chiefs, military officers and other dignitaries. These persons competed among themselves in constructing splendid and ornate palaces. Feudalism also led to the disintegration of centralised polities and the strengthening of local interests and forces. Regionalism and the development of regional conventions strongly influenced art forms, just as they influenced other aspects of cultural life, such as literature, language and costume. This had its influence on the erotic motif, between A.D. 900 and AD 1400, which got standardised and cannonised into regional patterns of art.