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Erotic Sculptures of Hindu Temples: A Fresh Appraisal
Book details
  • 128p., 8 Colour; 17 B/W Illustrations; 8.5 inch X 5 inch
  • Hardcover
  • English language
  • Rabindra Bharati University
  • 07.04.2016
  • ISBN 10: 8186438939

Erotic Sculptures of Hindu Temples: A Fresh Appraisal

Synopsis

There is no gainsaying that vulgar scenes of sexuality had been on temples created all over India between 5th century A.D and 14th century A.D Many people looked upon them as a sullying mark of Indian culture. Some scholars with chauvinistic ardour tried to find out a good reason for appearance of those erotic scenes on temple walls, and, over the last two hundred years, more than a dozen explanations have been put forward but none proved to be tenable. A temple was constructed under the strict supervision of a Braman priest, known as Sthapaka, who had knowledge about the canons of temple building. It is surprising how in such a conservative ambience the vulgar erotic figures could precipitate on temple walls. It is only possible if those figures have an ugly-ducking meaning. Unfortunately that meaning remained unveiled so long. This, according to the present scholar, is due to two reasons. First, all scholars tried to approach the problem connecting the erotic figures with the socio-cultural developments of different times in different places, and not caring for the metaphysical meaning of a temple. The figures are not discrete units. To decipher those it was necessary to know the esoteric meaning of the temple as a whole. Secondly, scholars made a confusion between vulgar erotic figures and the traditional amorous art motifs and wrongly noticed the former in the edifices of all religions such as Buddhist Stupa, Jain temple, Hindu cave temples etc. By a critical assessment it has been established that the vulgar erotic figures exist only on free-standing Hindu temples. In this work probing deep into Vedic scriptures the metaphysical meaning of a Hindu temple has been re-discovered and with that knowledge the mystery of the erotic content of those has been brought to light.

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Kalyanbrata Chakraborty

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