THE EROTIC CARVINGS OF KHAJURAHO by KUSHAGRA RAJESH SENGAR

Author:KUSHAGRA RAJESH SENGAR [SENGAR, KUSHAGRA RAJESH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter: 7.3

Departure from the Buddhist World View

According to some scholars like “Romilla thapar”, this unapologetic celebration of carnal desire, on the walls of Khajuraho, was in a way a breakaway from the Buddhist tradition that associated worldly desire with guilt.

To support her claim, she submits: that not only, do we note a rebellion in these carvings at Khajuraho, but also in the contemporary literature of the period. For example, in literary works like “chaurapanchashika” and “Gita-govinda”, we note an outburst of erotic poetry.

It is said that this period in a sense witnessed the liberation of Hindu mind from years of slavery to a thought that associated desire with guilt.

The assumption from which this theory draws extensively: is that explicitness in both art and literature was a product of this age alone, as if without any precedent in the past, which obviously cannot be the case.

For, we know that the erotic works of “Kalidasa” and “Vatsayana” predate Khajuraho by at least 600 years. Nor could we ignore the simple but philosophically profound symbols in old Hindu religion like “lingam and yoni”, such symbols have been a part of our socio-religious beliefs from a very remote antiquity. Thus a case can be made in the favor of an existing tradition that employed erotic themes often to make profound spiritual statements.

The art of Khajuraho reflects only a complete and more complex version of this continued tradition, a natural graduation from simple to complex; however never losing sight of the original thought that germinated it.

Also, let us appreciate the finesse with which these carvings are produced. Such consummate workmanship can only be achieved through years of cumulative experience, sustained by an unbroken tradition spanning across generations of these artisans; who produced this marvel of art. Again, this observation bolsters the belief that this art is old and has always existed among us in one form or another.

This brings us to the conclusion that these carvings cannot be explained away merely as representative of a rebellion against a repressive Buddhist thought. However, we must be inclined to concede the possibility that they reflect a free mind, aspiring to achieve heights of ecstasy in the material worlds, which is quite the opposite of the sublime transcendental objectives of a Buddhist practitioner.

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