The Artha of Kama

Sexual Imagery on the
"Phantasmagorical Castles" at Khajuraho

by Michael Rabe

Part II. The Artha of Temple KAma.

So there it is: lascivious iconography in abundance and integral to the conception and design of the NAgara order temples at Khajuraho. But still the perennial bafflement remains: whatever for? By what criteria and evidence might genuine intentions of the architects, patrons and clergy of the Candella court be isolated from the unwarranted inferences of later apologists, present company not excluded? All one can really do is amass collateral documents of the period and test their relevance against careful reading of the monuments themselves according to one's own best lights at any given moment. Fortunately, the challenge to present day scholars is more one of feast than famine. A great wealth of potentially relevant documents have been identified, by T.P. Bhattacharya and Devangana Desai among others, and their findings are more than sufficient to start (or, rather, to continue) the winnowing process.

Thus, before examining four text-certifiable rationales for the plethora of sexual imagery at Khajuraho, I propose to clear away five other,less-credible alternatives. First, and notwithstanding the erudition of Alain Danielou, the variety of coital bandhas (clenches) or were not rendered in stone for sexual education of the general populace, newlyweds and kuNDalinI physiologists included.57 True, matches may be found, as between the straddling pose that tops the south antarAla of the VizvanAth [Plate 11] and prescriptions in sex manuals like the 12th century Ratirahasya,58 but divergences in matter, even between these relatively contemporary corpora, are far greater than their commonalties.59

Nor, for a second rationale applicable elsewhere but not at Khajuraho, were deliberately enticing images erected as a moral-filtration against weak-kneed aspirants still prone to lust. Obscene Idol Houses for such a purpose have been reported in VajrayAna Tibet,60 but parallel intentions cannot be presumed where sexual motifs are concentrated on exterior walls, to be glimpsed by one and all during pradakSina circumambulation, rather than by senior adepts undergoing final ordeals in emulation of prince Siddhartha's encounter with Mara's daughters just before achieving Buddhahood. Touchstones of renunciation 61 these are not.

Third, there is no credible basis to believing that the Khajuraho temples were intended to replicate a morally stratified universe, like the Buddhist mandala architecture exemplified by Borobudur in which diminishing degrees of carnality correspond with spiritual attainment. The presumption that they might arises from the appearance of bestiality and group orgies on an outermost terrace frieze of the LakSman temple [Plates 12, 13 to be discussed below]--there and nowhere else at higher levels of the temple proper. But unlike Borobudur, where patently sinful acts are juxtaposed with resultant punishments,62 the LakSman terrace lacks any indication of cautionary admonition. Nor can a dichotomy be supposed between grosser exterior versus more ethereal interior formulations of religious experience 63 when couples coupling (maithuna-mithuna ) appear on inner sanctuary walls, even in the ParzvanAth of the relatively circumspect Jains. [Plate 14]

Fourth, and not withstanding the inherent causalities between sex and fertility, both in biology and agrarian rituals since the neolithic,64 the Khajuraho temple builders were not primarily motivated in their choice of iconography by desires for offspring or harvest. Again, by contrast with earlier Buddhist monuments where fructifying yakSis were so prevalent, zAlabhanjikAs beneath trees are conspicuous by their rarity at Khajuraho, and maternal images even more so [exceptionally, Plate 15] among literally hundreds of variations on the theme of feminine grace and the preoccupations of women. To the proverbial list of the gods' four distinguishing features, a fifth could be added for these surasundarIs--they rarely get pregnant.65

A fifth untenable explanation for the sexual imagery at Khajuraho is that they were designed or dedicated for the use by any known Tantric sect like the PAzupathas, Kaula-KApAlikAs,66 KAlamukhas, or even the MattamayUra Saiva SiddhAntas known to have been extremely influential in the neighboring kingdom of the Kalachuris of DAhAla. The discounting of a any significant role of the latter monastic order comes as an admitted disappointment, given the absorbing historical reconstruction of events by Goetz, to the effect that MattamayUra ascetics infiltrated the Candella court and thus facilitated (with debauchery) their territorial loses to Kalachuri GAngeyadeva, c. 1025-1040.67 This otherwise plausible scenario is at odds both with the strictly orthodox tenor of the Candella's surviving temple dedications,68 and the comparatively chaste iconography (and epigraphic content) of proven MattamayUra temples and monasteries.69 Perhaps goose and gander were receiving different alchemical sauces (as from abstinent dealers of illicit drugs anywhere), and tantric admonitions to secrecy could explain the relative dearth of overt sexual imagery in the otherwise impressive stone-work at proven MattamayUra sites like Candrehi, Bilhari and Gurgi. But by the same token, their very prevalence at Khajuraho sets them apart as not responsive to those same guiding lights. Not that tantric beliefs and practices were unknown in Candella circles--far from it--simply they were not foremost among the motivations of their builders, as I reconstruct them.

1. Protection Gems The architectural treatise closest to the royal temples at Khajuraho, both in date and region of composition, is the SamarangaNa-sUtradhAra, written by ParamAra king Bhoja who suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a vassal of Candella VidyAdhara, patron of the KandAriyA MahAdeo.70 By happier coincidence, this is also the text that best corresponds with iconography on the ground in its abandon of any lingering Gupta-period reticence about loving couples. Comparability in spirit, or rather in flesh, may be appraised, for example, by recalling Plate 2 (the only mithuna in Indian art with pubic hair notation) when reading the following exhortation:

[Temples] should be decorated with beautifully bejeweled youths, their attractive limbs entwined making love. Heroes and women gratifying their desire for one another in sex-play, their pale bodies adorned witha few choice ornaments, with their limbs slightly enervated from sexual indulgence. 71

(Notice how they hang in each other arms.) These graphic images of sensual abandon contrast markedly with the simpler prescriptions and carvings of earlier centuries, when temple door frames (primarily) were adorned with a variety of auspicious motifs, mithunas not predominant among them, and rarely engaged in more than hand holding. The 6th century BRhat-saMhitA is typical of the earlier period when it enjoins simply that:

The remaining part (of the doorjambs) should be decorated with auspicious birds, swastika designs,vessels, mithunas, leaves, creepers etc. 72

At the same time one can readily accept Thomas Donaldson's thorough-going argument with the Orissan analogues in mind, that no categorical differences in kind or probable intent distinguish casually disposed mithunas from the more heated maithuna couplings. 73 Presumably the differences constitute mere degrees in kind or shades from a single spectrum whose predominance at any given moment can best be explained by the standard dynamics of stylistic development and desire for variation on perennial themes. Thus a complex, but single rationale applies to all such architectural embellishments: in them inheres a dual complementary symbolism of propitious and apotropaic qualities. 74 Whether their efficacy, alternatively, is perceived in terms of attraction or revulsion, the underlying purpose, very much from the architect's perspective, is protection. For the promotion of structural integrity, the aversion of untoward disasters, the building is dressed in auspicious ornaments, like a person with magical amulets. Since a vast literature on this and allied subjects is readily available,75 I merely defend one of the more risible claims to this effect with a proof text. Much scoffing has been elicited by the claim that erotic display may protect a temple from lightning. And for decades a sole textual citation in support of this conviction, ascribed still to zilpins in the 20th century, has bounced through the literature (though never actually quoted) as from the UtkalakhANDa (the Orissa section), severed from its resident text name, the SkandapurANa:

In order to ward off strokes of lightning, cracks in the structure and other calamities, gems etc. were suitably fitted in the manner prescribed in the treatises on architecture.76

Rather than question the rationality of such a belief, or even its dubious antiquity (in a text pertaining to the still-active JagannAth temple, at Puri), I prefer to speculate about how exactly apotropiac gems etc. (i.e., alaMkAras,including sexual motifs) were imagined to work. Given the Vedic god Indra's perennial and pan-Indian identity as vajra-wielder par excellence, coupled with his equally notorious affiliation with heavenly dancers--the apsarases whom he both enjoys and dispatches to debauch alarmingly powerful ascetics, one wonders whether images, acts and utterances of a frankly sexual nature are intended to curry his interest or shame him away? Arguments can be made for both alternatives, and not wishing to leave any stone unturned, here is one for each, applicable, perhaps, to different genres of temple iconography.

On the one hand, the architect responsible for giving prominence to such alluring females as this dancer from the PArzvanAth [Plate 16] is easily charged with intent-to-entice (and thus to attract divine favor) on the basis of this exactly contemporary passage in the Zilpa PrakAza (I.392-395):

...the NArIbandha [frieze of women] is indispensable in architecture. As a house without a wife, as frolic without a woman, so without (the figure of) woman the monument will be of inferior quality and bear no fruit. Gandharvas, YakSas, RAkSasas, Pannaga (NAgas), Kinnaras become enchanted on seeing the graceful postures of women. Woman is the most beautiful, when adorned with all ornaments. Contemplated in various postures, she is known as AlasA-(Indolent) and is decorating...the walls and other parts of the mukhazAla (main hall). 77
[Conversely, moreover II: 502b, 503]
A place without love-images (kAmakalA) is known as a place to be shunned. In the opinion of the KaulAcAras (Tantric authorities) it is always a base, forsaken place, resembling a dark abyss, which is shunned like the den of Death.78

No surprises here: images of beautiful women and artful lovers are solicitous inducements for the gods to be present. But on the other hand, what of the repellent capability of images? Might not deliberately obscene images be intended to keep lightning strikers, the evil eye, and any other untoward spirits and their attendant calamities at bay? In a word, yes, though here, in the absence of known proof texts the evidence is somewhat hypothetical: hypothetical, but not dependent upon standards of decency arbitrarily imposed from the outside.

Compared to the initially shocking range of transgressive perversions (bhraSTa-kriya) found elsewhere in India (much of it comically absurd, like over-the-shoulder self-fellatio79), the famous terrace reliefs of Khajuraho's LakSmaN may seem pretty tame [Plates 13, 17]. But still the fact remains that oral sex acts (aupariSTaka) are disparaged in VAtsyAyana's KAmasUtra, 80 and in the sex manual closest in date to the Khajuraho temples, dismissed entirely as unworthy of comment.81 Yet there is an abundance of good humored variety, at the outermost pale of LakSavarman's precinct--ideally situated, I infer, for repelling the evil eye.82 Interestingly, humor seems to be a consistent devise to assuage the more fastidious viewer. Consider, for example the dire consequences to a second soldier trying to coax his buddy's put-upon horse to open its mouth [Plate 12]--while a child absconds with his mount, riding bareback. And laity the world over enjoy laughter at the expense of lecherous clergy exposed. These on the LakSman terrace almost certainly include tantrics, including one who presides from a double-occupancy bed over the preparation of some performance enhancing elixir [Plate 18]--reminiscent of the pills Muslims also sought to acquire from sAdhus still resident at KajjurA in the 14th century.83

One of the great unsolved mysteries at Khajuraho concerns the label inscriptions that appear on several of the male participants in the group orgies [e.g., Plates 19, 13, 16]. No systematic collection and decipherment has yet been attempted, to my knowledge, but from causal observance of their orthography and distribution patterns in photographs, they appear contemporary with the temple's construction. Yet unlike the numerous other mason marks and sculptor names that Cunningham reported from throughout the site (often upside down, thus indicative of engraving before assembly into the temple walls),84 these seem to identify individuals or generic types known to the court and citizenry of ancient KharjUravAhaka. Corroboration of this hypothesis comes from the single reported decipherment of a label of this type: beneath a damaged maithuna couple at the west end of LakSman's south antarAla wall (he taking her from behind) is written ZrI SAdhu Nandi Khapanaka: holding a flagged-staff, perhaps a rajoharaNa duster used by Jains to avoid injury to insects in their path, the male must represent a particular reverend kSapanaka or Jain mendicant, named Nandi.85 Since corresponding labels do not accompany the more dignified central groupings, mostly royal figures to judge from their rich accouterments [e.g., Plates 8, 11], the labeling must have been intended to poke fun--again in the context of apotropaic sexual display. Thus, in summary of this first of four legitimizing purposes for lascivious iconography, I say, the artha of adharmic kAma is [not mokSa, but] AvarNa--i.e., shielding from evil spirits, while simultaneously attracting (with more dharmic, dignified enticements) an encircling, protective host of good gods.86

2. Power Plays

From the perspective of yajamAna interests, that of the royal donors, by contrast to that of the zilpa-builders, a primary function of sexual imagery on temples was declaration of personal charisma and capability to rule. Both for iconography and written edict, sexual prowess was a favorite metaphor, by which knowing visitors to a royal temple were appraised of the ruler's well-merited splendor and fame (tejas and kIrti). As noted earlier, for example, sculptures of beautiful women (varaStrI) on the VizvanAth correspond implicitly with its dedication's reference to the imprisoned wives king Dhanga had wrested from other kings, defeated in battle.87 To any unwilling to accept such overt insinuation of royal prerogatives into the function_ and fabric of medieval Indian temples, I reiterate the overwhelming preponderance of verses in dedicatory inscriptions of the period that eulogize the king, by contrast to the miniscule few that cover the obligatory nods to celestial deities for whose residence the temple is being prepared. Deity is the subject of only the first three out of 49 verses belonging to the LakSman dedication; the final two identify poet and engraver--the remaining 44 pertain primarily to the king. Royal temples concretized their patron's claim to centrality in a rAjamaNDala or imperial formation as king of other kings, the one most favored by Fortune, Earth and Victory, among other goddesses and their human equivalents. To be sure, they also served as places for worship of consecrated icons of divinity, but that was a secondary given, I would argue. Admittedly, this may be terrible theology--not a fair portrait of medieval Hinduism in general, but like it or not, the inscriptions and temple iconography speak mainly of and for kings, their builders, and not only at Khajuraho, of course.88

Here is another propitious pairing of Candella sculpture and poetry earnestly devoted to the portrayal of royal power in sexual terms. Plate 20 represents an architectural fragment of untraced provenance, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. In style and subject matter--a king disrobing some girl--it is clearly Candella, eloquently embodying these sentiments of a late Candella inscription at Kalanjar:

He [ParamArdi, c.1166-1202], the greatest of kings, having drunk, like draughts of honey and curds, the shining fame of [other]kings, his enemies..., like the wind of the Malaya mountain [king ParamArdi] kisses sportively the lips of the maidens, red like the pomegranate, seizes them by their beautiful tresses, removes the garments that shine brightly on the high bosoms of the maidens, and easily dries the perspirations occasioned by sport from the brows of the fair.89

Yet another pairing of Candella text and sculpture, I present by way of insistence that something far more important than frivolous hedonism is here at work. Plate 21 is a gripping detail from one of the complex center-panels of group sex, on the south antarAla exterior of the LakSman, d. 954. Perfectly congruent with its imagery are these sentiments from a land grant inscription forty-four years later:

His son [i.e., son of the LakSman's patron LakSavarman] was the illustrious Dhangadeva, a fit dwelling for the goddess of victory, renowned in countless battles... Strange it is, that the fire of separation is ever increasing in the hearts of the wives of his enemies, although it is incessantly sprinkled with the water of their tears. So long as he is the sole lord of the earth, (only) the curls of the damsels of the female apartments are loose,90 there is seizure by the hair (only) in amorous dalliance, hard are (only) the two breasts, crooked (only) the brows [etc.]...91

This metaphoric relationship between king and kingdom as that between lover and beloved(s) is certainly not unique to the Candella court, and perhaps the seemingly greater fixation on the theme at Khajuraho is unduly exaggerated by the comparatively greater devastation suffered by many of their contemporaries' monuments. In any event the non-frivolous character of this eroticized display of royal authority needs to be stressed. The harems of rAjAdhirAjas (paramount sovereigns) were not just repositories of sexual booty, nor only pleasure grounds where heirs essential to the regime's perpetuation might be conceived. Given the feudal array of tributary states beholden to one man, harems also functioned as virtual departments of state, destinations to which vassals, not always under coercion, might wish to depute marriageable daughters as sureties of allegiance to a suzerain. KanyopAyanadAna was the term used for this means of cementing political alliances, often negotiated in the terms of peace treaties following military engagements! In such a system, with the polity so thoroughly dependent upon the whim and vigor of single individuals, it is not improbable that pleasures of the royal bed chamber seemed at times more like work, bhoga more like yoga.

3. The Yoga of Bhoga

A canard of alarming prevalence in the apologist literature on Indian erotica is that yoga (disciplined action) and bhoga (pleasure) are one. If not absurd, to my lights, such assertions are indicative of gross negligence of nuance, for if there is anything tantric about the famed maithuna couplings at Khajuraho then they stand in eloquent testimony to the daunting arduousness of the left hand path (vAmamArga). Broad and easy it is not, though by no means straight and narrow either. It is true, yoga and bhoga are frequently juxtaposed in Sanskritic sources, but the seductive appeal of their assonance would never arise were it not for an underlying antonymy. Yoga, cognate with yoke, means to harness (the vital breaths), yes, to discipline by denial of bodily impulse.

Bhoga, pleasure, by contrast, arises from sensual gratification--from indulgence versus denial. Thus, the trick to be turned in tantra is to hotwire the system, to reverse motives and paradoxically to practice disciplined indulgence of the flesh-resident vital forces. Practices normally pleasurable (eating meats, drinking wine, and sexual intercourse), become sAdhana means of empowerment, precisely if and only if gratification as a motive can be denied, if consequences like orgasm can be suppressed (the hormones hopefully rechanneled up the spine) or at least deferred as long as possible.

With a quick disclaimer that experts can cite any number of exceptions to the above generalities, the great differences between Buddhist and Hindu formulations of tantric theory, to name only one,92 I propose to consider just two of the 14 major maithuna panels of group sex at Khajuraho93 as exemplifying the yoga of bhoga. The first, from the earliest of the three temples upon which they are found, is semi-light hearted [Plate 22]; the second, from among the latest set, is not. [Plate 23] A detail of the first was already introduced [Plate 21] as an instance of seizure by the hair during good sex (surata-krIDAsu). If the reader can redirect her attention to pedantry for a moment, I find it amazing how frequently in the literature the whole point of this foursome has been missed. To me, at least, and at present, Plate 22 proposes an answer to this question: how great is their love?

Put another way, how great a lover is king Lakzavarman (aka Yazovarman), patron and beneficiary of this temple? Permit me to count the ways this masterpiece would have us believe in his inordinate capacities. So arousing are his presence and amorous attentions that She94 seizes his forelock, throws an arm around his shoulder, the better to climb for a kiss. In effect this sculpture conflates (or intensifies by reduplication?), two postures from the KAmasUtra called latA-sAdhana, clinging like a vine to a tree, and vRkSAdhirUDaka, the tree-climbing pose.95 In VAtsyAyana's definitive words:

When a woman, clinging to a man as a creeper twines round a tree, bends his head down to hers with the desire of kissing him and slightly makes the sound of sut sut, embraces him, and looks lovingly towards him, it is called an embrace like the twining of a creeper.

When a woman, having placed one of her feet on the foot of her lover, and the other on one of his thighs, passes one of her arms round his back, and the other on his shoulders, makes slightly the sounds of singing and cooing, and wishes, as it were, to climb up him in order to have a kiss, it is called an embrace like the climbing of a tree.96

Meanwhile, behind her back, the bearded king affirms consummation of the embrace by displaying an ascending trikoNamudrA, the term being a necessary neologism for themale triangle symbol in tantric yantras (by contrast and in intersecting mesh with the inverted female triangle). This is a unique instance of such a gesture, so far as I know, though a six-pointed star signifying male/female union is one of the best known of Indian symbols, especially as reduplicated five times in (locus classicus) the Zri Yantra.97

But wait! There's much more being said in this prazasti to royal love, in the guise of attendant figures. Despite what others may have hoped, the naked female with her back against the king is not shyly covering herself like an ostensibly modest Venus Pudica.98 Rather, I fear it cannot be denied, given the masturbatory activity of the poor Jain monk on the opposite side,99 that she is too. So that's how strong His love is--enough to excite other women in self-absorbed revery and to turn regretful heads of celibate monks. Is it humor or profound insight into gender difference that while the female prefers to look away, the male is aroused while craning his neck to watch? Pressing on, one may be permitted, I trust, a note of cynicism. How difficult can it have been for a king to shine as the supreme paramour when surrounded by hyper-stimulated, under-gratified varastrIs, each pampered with every luxury save exclusive access to her man, and never too sure of her position in the pecking order? Some yoga.

About the yogic and yes, even tantric, significance of the later example, however, there can be no doubt [Plate 23]. No male could possibly contemplate such acrobatics with three women for bhoga alone. At the very outset I confess to lacking the temerity to attempt any definitive exposition of this group clench, -- not one that occurs among the sanghATaka bandhas of either the KAmasUtra or RatIrahasya, I might add, chapters I.4 and 10 respectively. Instead, as an essential preliminary to some future article, I offer two more relevant texts, one from fiction of the period and the other from the tantric architectural treatise already utilized, RAmacandra KaulAcAra's Zilpa PrakAza. A great story first.

Once, as told in the 11th c. Ocean of Story,100 a young Brahmin left town on some errand. In his absence a kApAlika ascetic, skull-mounted khaTvAnga scepter in hand, spied his beautiful wife when approaching their house for alms and cast a spell on her. Immediately she was struck down by fever and died before evening. Before her husband returned home, grief stricken-relatives had placed her body on a funeral pyre. The young man, named CandrasvAmin, arrived just as the flames started shooting into the night sky.

Then from out of the crowd stepped that kApAlika who resurrected her unscathed with a handful of sacred ash (Ziva's vibhUti). Still under a spell, however, she accompanied the kApAlika straight out of town, her husband following in hot pursuit with his bow and arrows. On the banks of the Ganges they entered a cave where the kApAlika had already imprisoned two other women, daughters of the king of Benares and a merchant. Presenting CandrasvAmin's wife, the kApAlika exalted: She, without whom I could not marry you, though I had obtained you [by identical means], has come into my possession; and so my vow has been successfully accomplished. Just then CandrasvAmin jumped forward to grab the kApAlika's khaTvAnga staff and throw out into the river. Thus bereft of his magic powers the scoundrel tried to run; but I drew my bow and killed him with a poisoned arrow, CandrasvAmin later told another king (contemplating multiple-partner sex also, but that's another story)!

Before turning to the equally relevant Zilpa PrakAza, let us consider for a moment the amazing parallels. Not only do Somadeva's story and Candella king VidyAdhara's temple both feature sexual designs between a primary couple and two attendant women, but they both date from the 11th century and are located in the Gangetic heartland of North India; even Benares was under Candella control at the time.101 Too much of a coincidence, even for me, is the fact that the name Candella denotes affiliation with Candra, the moon, as does the Brahmin hero's name, CandrasvAmin. At a minimum, it would be foolish not to infer some common origin for both, and more likely, the story reflects common knowledge of the imagery at Khajuraho and/or lost equivalent images or practices from elsewhere in the Gangetic Doab.

In the Zilpa PrakAza, a leitmotif is the essential role of yantras, schematic geometries into which deities are distributed, for the protection and longevity of temples. One of the most important, incorporating far more participant beings than the panel in question on the KandAriyA MahAdeo, but anyway, is the KAmakalA Yantra. In wry deference to its author's insistence on total secrecy, I forgo the task of summarizing its constituent parts and significance as detailed in verses 508-541 of the text's second prakAza. In fact, for our purposes it suffices to quote but two, astonishingly revealing verses:

This yantra is utterly secret, it should not be shown to everyone (to others). For this reason a love-scene (mithuna mUtri) has to be carved on the lines of the yantra.

In the opinion of KaulAcAras it should be made on the lovely jAngha in the upper part of the wall. The kAmabandha is placed there to give delight to people.102

Returning for one last look at the inverted king in intercourse with one women while fondling two others [Plate 23], I ask the reader's indulgence to make this poetic leap: paraphrasing Mark Twain on the disputed authorship of the Homeric epics, if this panel wasn't intended to conceal by delight the KamakalA Yantra, then it conceals another worthy of the same name, Love-art. And if I may be permitted to defer further exposition till such time as all 14th kAmakalA bandhas at Khajuraho can be studied as a corpus, I take it as proven that some sort of Yoga of Bhoga is being demonstrated, or rather, is being used to camouflage with titillating flesh something still more esoteric and inscrutable to the uninitiated.

4. Phantasmagorical Castles

Of all the metaphoric formulations of the Hindu temple--mountain, palace, altar, divine embodiment, chariot--for me it is the last that provides the surest key to unlocking the mystique surrounding its sexual imagery. To expand upon my favorite phrase to the Pali Text Society Dictionary's definition of vimAna (undeniably the most common architectural term for the sanctuary structure proper), they are "immeasurably" palatial residences of the meritorious celestials (devatAs), capable in myth of appearing suddenly or darting off again at their occupants' will, UFO-like. Exactly like the Candellas planned for their vimAnas at Khajuraho:

...these towering mansions (are surrounded) by lovely, well-planned gardens...Lotus ponds with cool waters invite to refreshing baths; a host of birds mix their songs with the strains of cymbals and lutes, played by heavenly musicians. Angelic maidens perform their dances, filling the atmosphere with a radiant light which shines from their bodies. Peace and happiness reign everywhere, the joys of such a vimAna cannot be expressed inwords. This elysiam lasts for aeons...103

Shifting facets on this metaphoric jewel of inquiry, I wish to add that implicitly at least, royal temples on the order of those at Khajuraho were semi-funerary in function (their dedications twice posthumous, remember), standing like their Mt. Meru-styled cousins of Cambodian kings, or like the pyramids of Egypt for that matter, as memorial aids for apotheosis of identifiable individual rulers. By way of textual authority for this admittedly bold assertion, I cite Krishna Deva's passing mention of an early 12th c. description of svargArohaNa-prAsAda, lit. temples for flying to heaven.104 Differences or similarities in structural components between the prototypic heavenly-flyers of that text and those on the ground in Khajuraho (and there are important instances of each) are less material here than commonalties of intention, as registered by two epigraphic parallels. First, in the year 1000/01 a Candella feudatory named Kokkala, was:

desirous of crossing the deep ocean [i.e., the abyss of mortality]...,he caused to be erected this (temple, high like?) the spotless great peaks of the mountain of snow, the lofty golden dome of which because it is in contact with the fierce splendour of the sun, became a spotless canopy for the glorious lord VaidyanAtha. 105

Second, and at about the same time, in neighboring Kalachuri country:

By him [PrazAntaziva, a MattamayUra ascetic] was established a temple of Ziva (built) to the north of the palace which was built by the illustrious (Kalachuri king) YuvarAjadeva and was like the shining peak of the KailAsa mountain, which (temple) aspired to be as high as the peak of the Sumeru mountain, was famous on the earth, caused wonder in the three worlds and acted like a stair-case to his famemarching towards heaven.106

All that remains to flesh out here is the peculiar fixation upon sexual gratification that ancient Indian texts promised the heaven-bound. Consistently from the Vedic period the dancing nymphs of heaven called apsaras are said to be eagerly awaiting new arrivals.107 A poignant favorite I offer in closing, together with a matching sculpture type of great frequency at Khajuraho [Plate 24]. According to the MahAbhArata:

Thousands of handsome Apsarases run up in haste to the hero who has been slain in battle (exclaiming) be my husband.108

Accordingly, can we not see special significance in the frequent image of a temple apsaras applying kunkum to the center part of her hair? Since vermillion powder there signifies a married woman, this must be the anticipatory gesture of these varApsarah, the choice nymphs of heaven, preparing for nuptial union with the temple donor upon his decease, and by extension offering an alluring foretaste of paradise to every subsequent visitor to Khajuraho. In the mysterious words of the KandAriyA MahAdeo's brief inscription,109 VarastrIs are welcoming a new god, in the time of king VidyAdhara.

Endnotes

57 His 8th of 10 pronouncements: ...Sexual education through images, of every possible form of sexual enjoyment, is a useful means of mental clarification... Alain Danielou, An Approach to Hindu Erotic Sculpture, Marg, 2:1,2 (1947), p. 89 in 79-91l; see also Mulk Raj Anand, Of KAma KalA, p. 60. Back to the text

58 "If [while he stands] she sits in his hands with her arms round his neck and her legs round his waist, moving herself by putting the toes of one foot against the wall, throwing herself about, crying out and gasping continually, this is the suspended position (avalambitaka)." Kokkoka, Ratirahasya, Alex Comfort trans.as The Koka Shastra (New York: Stein & Day, 1965), p. 140. Without corresponding citations, several other sculpture groups are assigned Sanskrit nomenclature by R. Nath Art of Khajuraho (New Delhi: Abhinav, 1980), plates CLX-CLXXI. Back to the text

59 According to Comfort, in a lengthy note, p. 140. Back to the text

60 Urmila Agarwal, The Mithunas: Why 'Obscene' Sculptures?, Oriental Art XIV (1968), p.260, citing Harrison Foreman, Through Forbidden Tibet (London, 1936), pp. 107-109. Back to the text

61 Danielou's poetic phrase for his rationale no. 6, p. 88. Back to the text

62 Thus illustrating causal laws from a text called the MahAkarma-vibhanga: Heinrich Zimmer, Art of Indian Asia, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), 2 vols., Plate 479 b.Back to the text

63 Coomaraswamy, Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon (London, 1913), pp. 63-65. Back to the text

64 These are thoroughly surveyed by Desai in her chapter 6, Sex in Religion: Magico-Religious Beliefs and Practices. Back to the text

65 According to the MahAbhArata Nala-Damayanti story, the gods appear disguised as men they still don't blink, sweat, cast shadows or quite touch the ground. Elsewhere, of course, apsaras do give birth, after Indra sends them to seduce overly powerful ascetics. Back to the text

66 Contra. Pramod Chandra, The Kaula-Kapalika Cults of Khajuraho, Lalit Kala 1-2 (1955-56) 98-107. Attributes Chandra believed to mark Saiva ascetics (chiefly tonsure, and a scepter like implement with a flaring -head) have subsequently been proven to denote Jain monks, holding the picchikA, peacock-feather whisk for clearing sentient beings from their path. This correct identification was first made by L. K. Tripathi, The Erotic Scenes of Khajuraho and Their Probable Explanation, Bharati vol. 3 (1959-60) 104 f [not located], after discovery of a label inscription beneath one such, identifying him as ZrI sAdhu Nandi Khapanaka, i.e., a kSapaNakaH, according to Monier-Williams, ... a religious mendicant, especially a Jaina mendicant who wears no garments (MBh i.789). Back to the text

67 (The same king who took 100 woman with him, via drowning , above, n. 33) Hermann Goetz, The Historical Background of the Great Temples of KhajurAho, Arts Asiatiques, t. V fasc.1 (1958): 35-47. Back to the text

68 E.g., in Dhanga's prazasti of A.D. 1002: v. 53: "Benevolent Brahmins of pure lineage, busy with the six functions, spotlessly clean though their bodies were smoky due to the smoke from the sacrifices undertaken, were settled by him in mansions, high, like the peaks, of KailAsa, after being honoured by gifts of wealth, grain, cattle and land." Krishna Deva, 1990, vol. I, p. 369 Back to the text

69 Banerji, R.D. The Haihayas of Tripuri and their Monuments, Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, no. 23; and V.V., Mirashi, The Zaiva AcAryas of the MattamayUra Clan, Indian History Quarterly vol. 26 (1950) pp. 1 -16. Back to the text

70 After having the temerity to invade spheres of Candella hegemony; to be fleshed out from S.K. Mitra, p. 75; EI I pp. 219, 222, v. 22. Back to the text

71 SamarangaNa-sUtradhAra 34: 32-34a. "kumArakaizca krIDadbhiryuktA lalitabAhubhiH /
vAsadhAmni nivezyante vicitrAbharaNAmbharAH // 32
ratikrIDAparA nAryo nAyakastu yadRcchAyA /
ApANDudehacchavayaH svalpacAruvibhUSaNAH // 33
kiJcitpratanubhirgAtraiH kAryAH suratalAlasAH / 34a" Translated here for the first time, though first cited in part by Tarapada Bhattacharya, Some Notes on the Mithuna in Indian Art, Rupam, (Jan, 1926) pp. 22-24; and again in his Canons of Indian Art, (Calcutta, 1926), p.230.Back to the text

72 ZeSaM maGdalyavihagaiH zrIvRkSaiH svastikairghaTaiH /
mithunaiH patravallIbhiH pramathaizcopazobhayet //
VarAhmihira, BRhatsaMhitA, 56.15 This and similar citations from the Agni PurAna , HayasirSa-pancarAtra, Mayamatam and Zilparatnam are cited by Bhattacharya. Back to the text

73 Thomas Donaldson, Propitious-Apotropaic Eroticism in the Art of Orissa, Artibus Asiae 35 (1975): 75-100.Back to the text

74 Ibid., p. 88. Back to the text

75 See also, Donaldson's book-length study, Kamadeva's Pleasure Garden: Orissa (Delhi: B.R. Publishing, 1987), and Devangana Desai's chapter VI, Sexin Religion: magico-religious beliefs and Practices, Erotic Sculpture of India: A Socio-cultural Study 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Munishram Manoharlal, 1985). Back to the text

76 Skanda PurANa II.ii.21,45
vajrapAtAdibhaGgAdivArNArthaMyathocitam /
zilpaSAstreSumaNyAdivinyasyapauruZAt // trans. G.V. Tagare (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994), V, p. 125 Back to the text

77 Loukike kathito nArIbandhaH zilpasamudbhavaH /
vinA nArIM yathA vAsaH krIDA nArIM vinA yathA // II. 392
vinA ca lalanAM loke kIrtirjAyeta niSphalA /
gandharvayakSarakSAMsi pannagAH kinnarAsstathA // 393
darzanAt tatra muhyanti nAgarIbhaGgimuttamAm /
UttamAM ramaNIM jurhAt sarvAlaMkArabhUSitAm // 394
NAnAbhaGjIsamAhAri alsA sA vidhIyate
GavAkSe zikhare vApi mukhazAlaGgamaNDane // 395 Back to the text

78 SthAnaM kAmakalAhInaM tyaktamaNDalamucyate // II. 502
KaulAcAramate hInaM sarvadA tyakhamaNDalam /
KAlakakSasamaM tyaktaM tatsthAnaM gahanopamam // 503 Back to the text

79 at Bagali and elsewhere in Karnataka especially; Desai, Erotic Sculpture of India, plate 124; and S. Settar, The Hoysala Temples: Study on the art\ and architecture of temples constructed during the reign of Hoysalas, 1000-1336 (Bangalore : Kala Yatra Publications, c1991-1992). 2 vol., plates; 262, 270, 271, 310. Back to the text

80 "The Acharyas are of the opinion that this Auparishtaka is the work of a dog and not of a man, because it is a low practice, and opposed to the orders of the Holy Writ... [though later conceding,]...in all these things connected with love, everybody should act according to the custom of his country, and his own inclination." KAmasUtra II.9.22 ff. trans. Sir Richard Burton and F.F. Arbuthnot, The Kama Sutra of Vatsyanana (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1967) p. 118. Back to the text

81 "Why should we concern ourselves about oral congress when VAtsyAyana has declared it as utterly detestable?" Kokkoka, Ratirahasya VIII.66 quoted by Desai, p. 216 but excised from Comfort's translation, The Koka Shastra. Back to the text

82 The evil eye per se is more widely reported from South India, where, not coincidentally, bhraSTa sex acts are a ubiquitous accouterment carved on thewooden temple rathas (chariots). E.g., W.T. Elmore, Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism (1915, reprint New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1984),pp.142-144. "The fear of the evil eye among the Dravidians is most easily explained by this fear of evil spirits...The placing of obscene figures and carvings on idol cars and temples is often explained in the same way." Back to the text

83 As noted earlier (n. 16), Ibn BaTTUTa visited KajarrA in 1342: "At the four corners of the pond [a mile long] are cupolas in which live a body of the jogis who have clotted their hair and let them grow so that they became as long as their bodies and on account of their practicing asceticism their colour had become extremely yellow. Many Musalmans follow them in order to take lessons from then" He goes on to report in this context that "one of [these yogis, in far South India] made pills for SultAn GhiyAs ud-dIn ad DAnghAnI, king of Ma'bar--pills which the latter was to take for strengthening his pleasure of love. Among the ingredients of the pills were iron filings. This effect pleased the sultAn, who took them in more than necessary quantity and died." The ReHla of Ibn BaTTUTa, p. 166. Back to the text

84 Cunningham, Khajuraho in Archaeological Survey of India Report vol. II, pp. 420-437.Back to the text

85 L.K. Tripathi, The Erotic Scenes of Khajuraho and Their ProbableExplanation, Bharat vol. 3 (1959-60) p. 93; and cited by others including, Hiram W. Woodward, The Laksamana Temple, Khajuraho, and Its Meaning, Ars Orientalis vol. 19 (1989), p. 28. Back to the text

86 The same term in a compound, AvarNa-devatA, is standard for the named protective deities that are commonly assigned niches, aligned with the cardinal directions. E.g. Back to the text

87 Above, n. 34. Back to the text

88 Consider South Indian parallels, for example, where temple names typically subsume the patron's, like Cola RAjaRaja I's RAjarAjezvara at TanjAvUr, India's largest temple ever, built exactly at the same time as the KandAriyA MahAdeo. For earlier instances of this pattern, see my chapter, Royal Temple Dedications of the Pallava Dynasty, Donald S. Lopez, ed., Religions of India in Practice,Princeton Readings in Religion series, (Princeton University Press, 1995): 235-243. Back to the text

89 vv. 25 and 27 of a large back stone inside the NIlakaNTha temple, d. Vikrama Samvat 1258 (A.D. 1201), emphasis supplied, trans. Lieutenant Maisey, Bengal Asiatic Society Journal, vol. XVII (1838), p. 313; reprinted by Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of India Report vol. XXI (1885), p. 37. Back to the text

90 alternatively twisted, crimped, by contrast to negative connotations of *bhanga* in terms of social order or polity; see also the translators note 16. Back to the text

91 tasya ZrI DhaGgdevo=bhUt=putraH pAtraM jaya-zriyaH /
asaMkhya-saMkhya-vikhyAtaH khaDga-dhArA-parAkramah//
CitraM yad-ari-nArINAM hRdaye virah-AnalaH /
ajasram=azru-pAnIya-sicyamAno=pi varddhate//
BhaGgo=ntaHpurik-AlakeSu surata-krIDAsu keza-grahaH kAThinyaM
kucayor=bhruvoH...
emphasis supplied: NAnyaura Plate A of Dhanga, dated equivalent to November 6, 998; trans. F. Kielhorn, Three Chandella Copper-Plate Grants, Indian Antiquary vol. XVI (1887), pp. 203, 204. Back to the text

92 For an excellent introduction to tantra in all its diversity, see Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom 2nd ed., (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1969), chapters, 6-8.Back to the text

93 Namely the vertical sets of two each on the anatArala walls of the LakSman, and three each at the same locations on the VizvanAth and KandAriyA MahAdeo. Back to the text

94 queen, goddess, courtesan...it is all the same--Everywoman. Back to the text

95 For citations on the former, Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple, vol. 2, p. 347. Back to the text

96 Burton trans., p. 94. Back to the text

97 For a readily accessible commentary, Heinrich Zimmer, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization ed.Joseph Campbell (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1946). Back to the text

98 Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (New York: Doubleday, 1956), p. 130. Back to the text

99 Tell-tale picchikA, or rajoharaNa, whisk topped with peacock feathers, in hand. Back to the text

100 Somadeva Bhatta (11th cent.), Kathasaritsagara. i.e., The Ocean of Story, C. H. Tawney's trans., ed. N. M. Penzer (Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass, [1968]), vol.IX, pp. 68-70. Back to the text

101 Whence Dhanga's NAnyaura copper plate A was issued in 998; F. Kielhorn, Three Chandella Copper-Plate Grants, Indian Antiquary vol. XVI (1887), pp.201-204. Bengal-based PAlas were also active in the area as were the Kalachuris, especially under GangeyAdeva and Karnadeva in the mid-11th century (as noted earlier, no. 33). Back to the text

102 Zilpa PrakAza, II. 538, 539; trans. p. 106. Back to the text

103 The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary ed. T. W. Rhys Davids and William Stede (Chipstead, Surrey: Pali Text Society, 1925), 4 v (in 1), p. 89. Back to the text

104 Such is the title of a sole recovered chapter from the SiddhArtha pRicchA, as reported in the Gujarati journal SvAdhyAya vol. V: 2 (1967-68): 191-198, by M.A. Dhaky and P.O. Sompura; cited in passing by Krishna Deva in Temples of Khajuraho vol. 1, p. 33. Back to the text

105 With emphasis supplied, to the phrase gahanottArArthinA. Which of the Khajuraho temples he dedicated to Siva as [healer] VaidyanAth is unknown: the inscription is now preserved in the VizvaNath, attributed by most to king Dhanga; F. Kielhorn, Inscriptions from Khajuraho, no. V, Epigraphia Indica, vol. I (1890-91): 152. Back to the text

106 Emphasis supplied to the phrase, yat=svarggaM vrajatas tadIya-yasa(za)saH sopAna-mArggAyate; R.D. Banerji, The Gurgi Inscription of Prabodhasiva, Epigraphia Indica vol. 22 (1933-34), v. 11, p.133. Back to the text

107 For full citations on the retention of sexual capacity in heaven, from the Rg and Atharva Vedas, Zatapatha BrAhmaNa and the UpaniSads, etc., John Muir, Further quotations from the hymns on the subject of paradise and future punishment, Original Sanskrit Texts (London: 1868-1873; reprint 3rd ed., Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1967) vol. 5, pp. 305-313. Back to the text

108 VarApsaraH-sahasrANI zUram Ayodhane hatam / tvaramANA'bhidhAvanti mama bhartA bhaved iti // MahAbhArata XII. 3657; Muir trans, p. 308. Back to the text

109 Above, n.39. Back to the text