Indians by Namit Arora

Author:Namit Arora [Arora, Namit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2021-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 3. Lakshman Temple panel

Among the worst sources to learn from are the ‘official guides’ outside Khajuraho. They mostly peddle silly or half-baked stories about the erotica. The most ludicrous—and perhaps why the most common— story goes like this: It was an age of war and a lot of men had died. The rest were turning in droves to sanyaas, or asceticism, and a life in the forest (in another variant, the men were turning in droves to Buddhist monasticism, never mind that Buddhism was practically non-existent in the Chandela realm and that Hinduism’s own Adi Shankara and his mathas were driving much of the renunciatory monasticism across India at this time). This mortified the Chandelas—if people stopped procreating, society would collapse. ‘Big problem!’ exclaims one guide. So the wise Chandela kings hatched an ingenious plan to ambush these unsuspecting men with erotica when they piously came to visit the temples. The titillation would raise their interest in sex and save society; and, a beaming guide reveals, the ploy evidently worked!

Another common story, a guide relates, is that the sculptors, as an act of artistic freedom, imagined the temple as the world and depicted all of life on its walls—the good, the bad and the ugly—leaving it to the discerning public to know the difference. When I ask him how bestiality fits into this view, he claims it was a subliminal ‘warning to the public’ to not indulge in ‘dirty things’! A blander third story is that the temples variously depict the four aims of life: artha, kama, dharma, moksha. But the guides simply regurgitate these words, failing to explain why depictions of kama had to be so explicit, rather than figurative.

Sadly, the ignorance peddled by the guides goes even further. For example, when Burt ‘rediscovered’ these temples, many had been badly damaged by vandals, lightening, trees and age-related decay (considerable restoration work has since been undertaken). Yet one guide blames the damaged state of the temples on Aurangzeb! Never mind that the temples already lay deeply buried in the jungle by Aurangzeb’s time. When I point this out, he seeks to correct me: ‘No, no, Sirji! The temples were active then!’ Most guides seem to also make things up as they go along, confidently expounding on sculptural scenes about which even scholars are divided or silent. No self-respecting guide here ever says, ‘I’m not sure.’

After talking to several guides one afternoon, I amble through town to the eastern group of temples, from where I can see the low, white-edged Dantla Hills, so named for resembling the worn-out teeth (danth) of old men. These hills and Khajuraho lie atop the Bundelkhand gneiss, the oldest rock bed in India. It is early February; the days are getting longer and warmer and the air less polluted. At night the moon isn’t orange-yellow but white, and the sky has far more stars than I ever see in Delhi NCR.

A local boy soon falls in step with me, a self-appointed guide angling for a tip.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.