On Tuesday 15 Jan 2008 12:22 pm, Charles Haynes wrote: > However given the reaction > some works that I consider only mildly challenging have already gotten > (e.g. M.F. Husain, or the recent incidents in Chennai) I'm not really > surprised.
Sometime last year I had been to Coimbatore and decided to visit the temple at Perur whose earliest history dates back 1900 years, though much of the temple was built around 1500 years ago. The square pillars around the inner sanctum have bas reliefs of people worshipping the deity (Shiva). One pillar caught my eye because the figure was of a meditating yogini, (female yogi) standing on one leg completely nude of course worshipping Shiva. What caught my eye was that rock of the genital region of the yogini figure had been worn clean and black by human touch compared with the grey granite of the rest of the pillar and figure. I then noticed something else that blew me away. On a face of the same pillar at right angles to the yogini was the bas relief of a bearded man with a big grin and an enormous erection pointing at the yogini. Someone explained to me that many temples had such carvings. Sometimes erotic carvings would form the lower rows of the pyramidal outer structure of the temple, while the upper rows would gradually lead up to figures who were detached from worldly wants and pleasures. The idea was to depict the paths and phases a human might have to go through and later discard on the way to realizing the ultimate truth or bliss. This sort of stuff is now only present in South Indian temples that survived Islamic ravaging. The relative absence of ancient temples in North India is testament to the ravages of islam. But although the structures survived in the South the free artistic tradition died out. New temples are built even today, but the plaster/stone figures on the superstructure are politically correct figurines conforming to today's near-Victorian morality. So something died. Some things did not die. There is one hour The Learning Channel (TLC) video of Ancient Indian temples online somewhere. I downloaded the video, but I can't for the life of me find the url. If I find it, I will post it on here. shiv
