Khajuraho Erotica

I think I’ll keep this one short and sweet. After all, I was only here one day and you don’t need me to give you a play by play on all the erotica. We’ve got pictures for that. First, a warning. Content may offend some prudes, and kids, don’t try this at home.

Why all the sex at the temples of Kahajuraho? One theory goes that the Tantric images depict the gratification of the baser instincts, one way to transcend the evils of the world and attain enlighenment. Not a bad way to do it, I’m sure we all agree. However it would be an exageration to imply that these temples, a premiere tourist attraction, are stacked with 10th Century Karmasutra. Commonly they depict gods and nymphs, men and women, daily life and war. Of course sex is part of it. The fun, as it turned out for Sebastian, Mareke and I, was looking for it.

I don’t think either of us had ever combed over such fine, intricate carvings with such oblivion to time. Oh there were some cheeky bits and legendary manoeveres. A line of elephants circled the Lakshamana temple facing out. All that is except one with his head turned, watching a man bend over his lady(?) from behind. In another scene a monkey interupts some lovers who laugh as it watches them. On the larger temples were entwinements of bodys, finely engraved right down to the last testicle. A man pleasures 3 women in some kind of upside down position which cant be that good – all the blood would run to his head! (at least a triple meaning there guys).

I’d looked through a few books on the street to see what the temples had in store and I was looking for one particular image. It takes some balls to approach an Indian and ask if they’ve seen ‘the man having sex with his horse’. No one understood ‘satisfying his need with his steed’.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 3rd, 2005 at 12:52 pm and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.