On a cold January morning, I left my hotel at Umaria (Bandhavgarh national park), rode through non-existent roads to reach the famous tourist village of Khajuraho.
Khajuraho has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples in India, famous for their erotic sculptures. The Khajuraho group of monuments are listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Once I had settled myself in this tourist town, I made my way to the town's biggest attraction - the Western Group of Temples, which are housed in a very neatly laid enclosure maintained by the Archaeological Society of India. As I studied these temples, I was stunned by the impressive architecture and the captivating erotic sculptures.
The temples are constructed with spiral superstructures and adhere to a north Indian shikhara style. Each carving both outside and inside the temple carry a story, whether it be the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. It feels like you are getting a visual history lesson. Such is the beauty and depth of these sculptures. As is true with the rest of Indian temple architecture, there are a lot of carvings that depict the daily activities of the common Indian during the time of construction. In sum, these temples serve as fine examples of the rich and intricate Indian style of architecture.
Next, I made my way to the Jain group of temples that displayed similar intricate temple architecture and carvings, though it lacked the erotic sculptures. While, the Western group of temples had Shiva, Vishnu and Devi as deities, the Jain temples had Mahavir Jain and his disciples as deities in addition to the Hindu deities. There were other temple complexes in Khajuraho, but they were either run down due to wear and tear by time or due to the Muslim invasion of medieval times.
Khajuraho is definitely a place where one can admire and appreciate Indian history and temple architecture along with the world of erotica!!
To see India through the eyes of a motorcyclist's lens, visit the album below.
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| my solo all-india motorcycle journey |
lol where is this place? those sculptures are wicked, I wanna go there!!
ReplyDelete:-) True! This place is in India. The town is Khajuraho and the state is Madhya Pradesh!!
ReplyDeleteYou know Sankara. We have always wanted to break the enigma behind these erotic sculptures carved out in such a bold way on the exterior of A HOLY temple! Does this mean that they considered love making as an art or is this a way of educating the then population or what! i want to get to the bottom of this!
ReplyDeleteThis wasn't any kind of education. In fact, your former statement is correct. Love making was considered an art those days. People used to follow the kamasutra religiously and just thought it would be great to portray it on a temple. It was also believed that this was how the gods also lived and hence it wasn't considered to be put on the temple walls.
ReplyDeleteKhajuraho has a history of 1000 years and it is mostly famous for the erotic sculptures and Temples wonderful place.
ReplyDeleteSince lovemaking was considered an art during those days, I wonder what the Khajuraho people used as their Sex Toys to spark erotica in their lives. Seems like 1000 years ago, their concept of such things was no less trivial than how we see it now.
ReplyDelete