Love, The Living Spirit of Khajuraho

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finest works of art that man's creative genius might claim to have ever created

on the earth. Whatsoever human imagination conceives, it will fall short of the

magnificence that these stone structures breathe. These temples, clustering in

three groups - Western, Eastern and Southern, are situated, about 172

kilometers east of Jhansi, at village Khajuraho in Chhatarpur district of

Madhya Pradesh. Built by Chandela rulers from the ninth to the twelfth century,

these temples abound in timeless quality, earning for them the status of world

heritage monuments. Khajuraho is now for many decades world's one of the most

visited monumental sites.Unique ArchitectureKhajuraho temples, constructed with

spiral superstructures, adhere to northern Indian shikhara temple style and

often to a Panchayatana plan or layout. A few of these temples are dedicated to

Jain pantheon while the rest to Brahmanical - to God's Trio,

Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and various Devi forms. A Panchayatana temple had four

subordinate shrines on four corners and the main shrine in the center of the

podium, which comprises their base.With a graded rise secondary shikharas

(spires) cluster to create appropriate base for the main shikhara over the

sanctum. Kandariya Mahadeva, one of the most accomplished temples of the

Western group, comprises eighty-four shikharas, the main being 116 feet from

the ground level. These shikharas - subordinate and main, attribute to the

Khajuraho temples their unique splendor and special character. With a graded

rise of these shikharas from over the ardhamandapa, porch, to mandapa, assembly

hall, mahamandapa, principal assembly hall, antarala, vestibule, and

garbhagraha, sanctum sanctorum, Khajuraho temples attain the form and glory of

gradually rising Himalayan peaks.Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/shikhara.jpgAn Unbroken Continuity of Love

and LifeNot ashlars or stone blocks, but neatly carved and emotionally charged

handsome men, charming women, gods, apsaras, kinnaras, gandharvas, vidyadharas,

yakshas, yakshis, ganas, dikpals, nagakanyas, shardulas and other mythical and

celestial beings, engaged in singing, dancing, playing on musical instruments,

embracing, kissing, or making love, carry these temples to their shikhara

heights. Here stone, endowed with exceptional plasticity, melts into a wondrous

world of emotions and passions, yielding forms and figures and rhythm and song,

and there are now sensuous lovers, exalted dancers, enthused singers, maidens

engaged in shringara, mothers caressing kids,Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/motherchild.jpgand many more who breathe

life into the stone and now there is all of man and all of nature except the

lifelessness which the stone symbolizes, or a single piece of stone, which has

the face of stone. This unique transformation has made each stone sing, dance,

blow trumpets, yearn in love, doze in slumber, eject from drowsiness, languish

in passion, and burst with youthfulness, and now the stone not only has a soul

within but also pours it out. It reveals dreams and realities of man and music

of divines; and, thus, each temple becomes the festival of love and life

representing their unbroken continuity.Pleasure, Not Pangs Define Khajuraho

Concept of LoveWhether an exterior or interior, not an inch of temple space is

barren, without a couple populating it and celebrating love and life in all

their shades and colors - mundane and transcendental,

and hardly ever allowing any of them - love or life, to deprive a lip of its

smiles or a face of its glow. They toil but it is all love's labor and it is

never lost. Pangs of separation are as much a theme of love as is union, but

Khajuraho temples do not know separation, nor they know old age, decay or

death. They believe in life and in all its pleasurable blessings, and

vehemently reject sorrow, thinking it, perhaps, only an attitude of mind.

Hence, old age, decay or death is not the theme of Khajuraho sculptors. It is a

world of fascinating youthful maidens and passionate robust males, a world of

languished kisses, of lips unwilling to separate, and of arms interlocking into

unlocking knots, - a world where they meet and love and discover meaning of

life. They have amongst thousands of their men and women just a single figure

of old man and a lone disabled, and he too engaged in coition.Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/jagdamba.jpgYonder, a Wondrous WorldOne,

when around these temples, would only think agape how fresh a thousand year ago

might have been that smile, glow in that eye, composure on that face, heat of

passion in that figure, and contours of that neatly modeled breast. Here stone

is more sensuous, more tempting than actual living flesh. These creatures of

stone pulsate more with life vigor than life itself does. It sometimes

surprises why the damsel over there, writing the letter with her head bowed,

does not walk over to the viewer and hand him her letter to post, when she is

so keen to send it to her lover;Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/loveletter.jpgand why that dancer, who has

been putting ghunghroos,

bells, on her feet for so long, is not beginning dancing, though her glowing

face tells that dance alone is her life.Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/anklets.jpgAnd, look at that Shardula

(composite dragon). The dance has not yet begun, but it twists to its notes and

rhythm.That jealous monkey is rightly punished, as it was none of its business

to poke a nose into others' affairs. One would hardly forgive that cruel thorn

piercing the foot of that comely maid. The wicked thorn would not now come out,

even if the young damsel keeps on pulling it out for many more

centuries.Illustration: http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/thorn.jpgIt is a

wondrous world with multi-dimensions of life, though all leading only to its

glowing aspect, which abounds

in beauty, enjoyment of youth and attainment of love as its ultimate. Khajuraho

temples, even as they survive, are so full of this glowing aspect of life that

flesh itself discovers its inspiration in stone. In their power to move the

senses and mind these temples are unique. They have that quality which takes

the viewer into the realms of transcendental delight - parmananda, the ultimate

bliss of Indian philosophy of life. Aesthetic totality, power to sublimate - to

lead from material base to the highest plain of serenity, is the strength of

these temples, and this they discover in love which is their prime theme and

concern.Love, the Enshrining SpiritKhajuraho temples, if love was not their

enshrining spirit, would lose most of their thrust, appeal and splendor. India

had a long tradition of sculpted temples, in sandstone as also in marble, and

almost all temple-styles have wondrous specimens of

carvings, but they could hardly reach the aesthetic level of Khajuraho. Such

temples often have more ornate bodies but not the soul within, nor the

Khajuraho-like enshrining spirit. Khajuraho temples have both, a meaningfully

sculpted body and its enshrining spirit and this spirit is love, which gives

them their spiritual unity and great mysticism - the theme for the senses and

as much for the soul.The appearance of this enshrining spirit is massive in

Khajuraho temples. They have devoted to love yards of space and thousands of

sculptures, though hardly ever seeking to deify it. Kamadeva, the love-god, and

his consort Rati figure in Khajuraho sculptures and Vaman temple of eastern

group seems to be fully devoted to vasantotsava, the festival devoted to the

love-god Kamadeva, but despite none of the surviving temples appears to have

been dedicated to him. The Khajuraho sculptor did not believe in confining love

to sanctum sanctorum, as to him, what lighted the shrine within, could as well

illumine without; what defined the essence of gods, could not be adverse to

man; and, if it elevated the self, its physical manifestation will not pollute

the flesh too. To him, love was a passion, but an elevating one, a philosophy,

but not a dry dogma - a set of rigid thought. It was rather a phenomenalism, a

phenomenally realized truth of life.Woman, A More Significant Component of

LoveKhajuraho sculptor discovered in woman the gamut of his theme, as she was

to him not only love's prime means, which was his main theme and primary

concern, but also the finest of God's creation. Hence, Khajuraho art, as also

its underlying thought, rotates around the woman. She has been endowed with

massive energy, and far from being the coy mistress of subsequent Nayika-cult,

in all matters, especially relating to love, she is seen taking initiative

and lead. She is more expressive and capable of long cradling and enjoying a

passion.Illustration: http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/beard.jpgWhile the

male would reveal it in his superficial smiles, it remains stored in the

oceanic depths of her composure. It descends deep into her entire being making

her at the most languishing and dozing. As deeply set is her contentment. Her

youthful vigor bursts into her entire being - elevated and temptingly molded

breasts and hips, amorous eyes and fascinating lips, sensuous mudrayen,

gestures, and the like. The range of her love-related activities - from writing

the letter to her lover to preparing her male partner for union, is wider than

that of the man.Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/disrobing.jpgTo her, meeting her male and

uniting with him in love is more like a festival, to which she prepares

herself, and sometimes even her male partner who is usually passive, though not

indifferent to the whole act. Khajuraho sculptures portray her across different

stages of shringara. She is bathing there beside a fountain and here dressing

her hair. With the mirror held in one of her hands, she is applying a little

vermilion into the forepart of her hair.Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/product/ZL25/Now she shall put a payal, an anklet on

her feet as also beautify them by applying mahawara, lac. Her large eyes are

bewitching but their magic would be the ever most if she puts a sleek line of

collyrium, lampblack, on them. She sings, dances and plays on various

instruments as

music stimulates sex more than do other means. When all this does not

sufficiently works, she enhances her charms and excites her partner by fully or

partially removing her garments.Now exposed to his eye are her fascinating

breasts and other private parts, and to add to their magic, she invitingly

tickles, tosses and cajoles them. Absolute delight being the sole object in

mind, she does not hesitate to titillate, or even orally tease her partner's

organ, or do whatever would kindle his energies. She is, however, more

dignified than her male partner who under the heat of passion does not hesitate

in having intercourse even with his mare. She, on the contrary, restricts to

limits prescribed in treatises.Illustration:

http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/coition.jpgThe Divine ImageKhajuraho

artist's vision of the Divine, leaving

aside the enshrining deity image - the iconographically symbolized spiritual

element, is his vision of man. Strangely, the denizens of heaven and mythical

world - gods, apsaras, kinnaras and others, who populate the sculptural world

of Khajuraho temples, outnumber man, but rent by human emotions and passions,

and even by animal instincts, they only represent the human model of divines.

Hence, whether Uma with Mahesh, a Vishnu and Lakshmi-like looking divine

couple, an apsara with a yogi, a nagakanya in attendance or a kinnari reciting

a song, all are modeled with as passionate a bearing as ordinary human beings.

Vishnu in his Varaha, boar incarnation has a boar's iconography and anatomy.

The Khajuraho artist not only carves Varaha with boar's anatomy but also

dedicates to him a temple; the deity has, however, a different set of mudrayen,

gestures, more like someone in passionate love or exalted dance, such as has

Shiva in

his gyrating form. As love is the presiding spirit of all forms - divine or

mortal, the gap between the two is itself dispelled. The Khajuraho artist has

thus perceived the Divine with human frailties, and man as enshrouded in

divinity.Illustration: http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/varaha.jpgLove in

Khajuraho art and in Indian tradition of ThoughtKhajuraho temples have hundreds

of sculptures portraying various positions of coition and love making - a long

and languished kiss; an unlocking excited embrace; the passionate male removing

his partner's garment or she herself doing it; female, bitten by Kama, tossing

and titillating or even the mukha-maithuna, as treatises call it; female

partner riding her male by herself or assisted by others so that his organ

penetrates into her with fuller pressure and to greater depths; male doing

intercourse from behind, a typical posture of animals in coition; a yogi, a

disabled, a bearded divine and other unusual players being engaged in coition;

and, even animals being made the partners of the game, things which the modern

mind would consider obscene and vulgar. Was it so also with the ancient man or

with the man of early medieval era? perhaps not. The known traveler Ibn Batuta,

whose travel memoirs have been a great source of Indian history, records to have

visited Khajuraho in A. D. 1335. According to him, temples were always thronged

by crowds of mahantas and common devotees. Obviously, people those days thought

of sex and love differently.The Vedic Brahmanism - Shaivism and Vaishnavism,

favoured family life and deified instinct of sex as Kama and the female in

union with him as his consort Rati and held them in great reverence. Buddhism

advocated renunciation and Jainism to its extreme. The Indian art

vision was not, however, subservient to metaphysical principles of any of these

faiths. The art tradition perceived temple as the microminiaturised

manifestation of the cosmos. Cosmos is the manifest form and the outer frame of

the Formless Supreme Who pervades it without and enshrines within. In exact

analogy, the outer frame of the temple is the material manifestation of the

cosmos, and as enshrines the Formless Supreme within the cosmos so the deity

does within the temple - sanctum sanctorum. Obviously, this outer frame should

have all that the cosmos has - all its passions, emotions, instincts,

frailties, or even perversions.Hence, it is least surprising that Jain temples

at Khajuraho have as much abundance of sex panels as have Brahmanical temples.

The tradition may be traced back to Ajanta and in early Mithuna sculptures of

Gupta art. Ajanta does not have scenes of coition, kissing or embracing, but in

sensuous

modeling of its female figures even this religious art is not far behind. In

Brahmanical temples of Khajuraho, this aspect is more thrusting. Brahmanism

divided life into four stages - artha, money, kama, sex or love, dharma, right

path, and moksha, salvation and prescribed that one might neither attain right

path nor salvation unless passes through the stages of artha and

kama.Vaishnavism further widened the cult. It perceived love and creation as

God's prime attributes. Hence, in human love Khajuraho artists discovered

reflection of God's divine act. Shaivism conceived love as enlivening energy

generated by union and interaction of male and female generative factors.

Shaktism seems to have inspired the Khajuraho art most. Kaul Kapalika sect, a

Tantrika expansion of Shaktism, emphasized that body was most intimately linked

with mind and soul and, hence, the factors that motivated the body and charged

inherent energies

also charged and elevated mind and soul. Kapalika tantrikas believed that sex,

instinct to love, Kama, was body's integral part, or rather its enlivening

strength, major source of motivation, which charged in sexual union prepared

body, and thereby soul and mind, for harbouring all pleasurable sensations

which finally led to parmananda, state of transcendental ecstasy, when ego

disappeared and self united with and merged into universal or cosmic self, and

yoni-sadhana, methodically performed sexual union using principles of Yoga, was

its most appropriate instrument, and Khajuraho, perhaps, its best

laboratory.===========================================This article by Prof.

P.C. Jain and Dr Daljeet. Prof. Jainspecializes on the aesthetics of ancient

Indian literature. DrDaljeet is the chief curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at

theNational Museum of India, New Delhi. They have both collaboratedon numerous

books on

Indian art and culture.===========================================All

photographs, unless otherwise mentioned,by Shri Rajbir Singh, Chief

Photographer, Archaeological Survey of

India.--------------------------- References

and Further Reading:Daljeet, Dr. and Jain, P.C. Monuments of India (Delhi,

Agra, Khajuraho, Jaipur): New Delhi, 2002.Desai, Devangana. Khajuraho

(Monumental Legacy): New Delhi, 2003.Deva, Krishna. Khajuraho: New Delhi,

2002.Deva, Krishna. Temples of Khajuraho (2 Volumes): New Delhi, 1990.Poddar,

Pramila. Khajuraho Temples of Love: New

Delhi.---------------------------To view the

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