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"The temples are divided into three groups," said Piju. "There is the Western Group, the Eastern Group, and the Southern Group. They are all within a few kilometers of each other. The Western Group is the main group. It contains the highest temple, nearly a 100 feet high, dedicated to Lord Shiva. Another one is dedicated to the incarnation of Lord Vishnu. And still another honors a Parvati deity. One of the oldest temple of the Western Group is dedicated to the goddess Kali. A couple temples celebrate the marriage of Lord Shiva with Parvati. The Parvati temple is famous for its erotic sculptures and its sensuously carved figures of couples making love. The Eastern group is made up mainly of Jain temples dedicated to Adinath and to Parsvanath and contains one of the oldest of them, and one of the youngest with a 13 foot high statue of Adinath. The Southern Group has only two temples. The temples altogether have an interwoven main theme. The theme is simply, woman, woven into a powerful combination of visual and sensual pleasures combined with the worship of deities that brings about a transformation of the body and the soul."
"But the important thing is the invisible, the principle that enables a renaissance," I added. "The principle is called the Principle of the Advantage of the Other. A great war had been fought in Europe 600 years after this renaissance happened in India in which these temples were built. The war in Europe was fought for thirty years and became the worst military atrocity prior to modern times. But the war was stopped in 1648. It was stopped by a principle, the Principle of the Advantage of the Other. Nobody won the war. People realized that war is stupidity. After thirty years of killing one another half of the people of Europe were dead and the country was ruined. So the people got together on the basis of this principle. They said to each other that this killing has to stop. And they realized that it could be stopped if they did the opposite to what they did before. And so, instead of killing one another, they said, let's agree to do what is to the advantage to the other people. Everybody said, that's the principle of peace. So, they let each other have peace. They stopped reprisals. They did everything in their power to make that peace work. The guaranteed each other's sovereignty, and even forgave each others debts. This 'miracle' was the outcome of the Treaty of Westphalia. It created a cultural renaissance in Europe that was so profound that in the light of the renaissance in Europe the first true nation-state republic on the planet was created in far off America, that became the USA. The USA was established on the Principle of the General Welfare. And all of that, of course, was based on the Principle of the Advantage of the Other. But the principle wasn't invented in Europe. That principle was already on the table a thousand years earlier in India. It was applied in India to lovemaking between people. A famous book was composed, the Kama Sutra, that was focused on giving pleasure to a partner in lovemaking. That's the Principle of the Advantage of the Other coming to light. It appears that this book and its principle stood behind the building of the great erotic temples. It appears that the principle that came with it, the Principle of the Advantage of the Other that is reflected in these temples had created a period of renaissance in India that inspired and empowered the people to build 85 of these great temples in a relatively short time."
Tatsuhiko explained to his sons that this principle is enormously important, because it tells us something about ourselves as human beings. "Not only are we all brothers and sisters cross the whole earth, because we are human beings, all of us together. We are also more than that for another reason. We are all brothers and sisters cross the whole earth because we share a common universal humanity. It is in that universal humanity where the Principle of the Advantage of the Other is rooted and imbedded. The brightest civilization, and the most secure civilization, will always be that in which we dedicate ourselves to promote what is to the advantage of other people, because it is in that where we find our own good as we build a great civilization. Without that, of course, as history has shown, we loose everything we have."
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