Glass Barriers

a novel by Rolf A. F. Witzsche

Episode 5A of the series The Lodging for the Rose

Page 97

Chapter 6 - The Erotic Temples of Khajuraho

      "It's a cute story," I interjected. "But this passive compliance hardly justifies the building of 85 magnificent temples that rank among the finest in the world. This isn't done for the sake of a legend. Nothing short of a widely understood universal principle could have caused the massive activity that we see reflected here. Passive demands don't cut it on a big scale, like we should do this and that. But an understood active principle can produce wonders, and evidently has done so."

      Indira nodded and said that there another story floating about, according to which the erotica of Khajuraho had a more positive purpose. She said that under Hindu law all boys lived in hermitages until they attained manhood. "To help them make the transition to the worldly role of a householder and family man the erotica was created to help them to prepare themselves for the earthly passions by studying the temple sculptures that depicted the passions. The temples can therefore be seen as a celebration of woman in her myriad moods and facets, such as dancing with joyous abandon, or brushing her hair, or writing letters, or applying kohl to her eyes, or playing with her child, and so forth. That's innocent but infinitely seductive and beautiful to a young boy."

      "I don't think that this narrow focus is sufficient to build a great society with a powerful economy that can produce these kinds of constructions and so many of them," I countered her. "No, Indira, I suspect that something bigger was involved, something universal, something that motivated and enriched the whole of society."

      "You may be right," said Indira.

      "Nothing else makes sense," I said. "I think that Mozart's Cherubino from Figaro, would confirm that I am right," I added. "Anything less than what moves the whole society is hardly enough of a reason to build 85 beautiful temples for. Those temples were evidently built to meet a much deeper need than to provide emotional training and frivolous entertainment for boys. A project on this scale was nothing less than a national project, with a vital national purpose, reflecting a national celebration of something profound. All people must have benefited, including the kingdom itself. It appears that the general society, as both men and women, had found a new and beautiful face in their revival of Hinduism, and a new attitude towards one-another that was focused on being there for one-another and enriching one-another's life. I think the rulers of that realm discovered the Principle of the General Welfare as a powerful impetus for the developing the kingdom. Naturally, society supported the kingdom. And so, the building of the temples appears to have been merely a reflection of a richly satisfying movement in society. It takes a vibrant society to build so many beautiful structures and so many almost at once. This wasn't a slavery-produced phenomenon. Society's heart and soul stood behind it. This was an active thing and an honest thing. It was something akin to a deep reaching renaissance, something that reflected the Principle of Universal Love all the way down to the grassroots level. That period might indeed be called a renaissance one day, even though it was created within the sphere of a kingdom. This means that a renaissance results primarily from the recognition of profound principles, rather than from a specific form of government."

      "That's highly significant, isn't it?" said Indira. "It might have been a model renaissance that created these beautiful things in such abundance."

      "Anything less would not have been sufficient," I replied. "It must have been a case of spiritual economics. Most likely the kingdom suffered major defeats from external forces, if not massacres, by which the society's cultural vitality was also defeated. But until that happened, nobody would likely have dreamed that collapse would ever happen, just as we dream the same dream today. None of the builders of these tempels, and craftsmen, and artists, would likely have imagined that their beautiful age would come to a close and that most of their fabulous creations would crumble into dust, and that many of theit countless beautiful stone carvings that were painstakingly wrought would be crushed and used as fill for road building."


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