The culture and civilization of India directly and indirectly influenced world civilizations and human development. However, during the last 800-900 years, due to invasion and the rule of different invaders and looters over large/some parts of India, its true intellectual impact on the world decreased badly. India has been constantly presented as a poor, uneducated, and uncultured civilizations. This happened mainly because of political interests, foreign rulers, and later after independence for more than 50 years by a leftist ecosystem that, from inside, disliked Indian civilizations but presented their work as liberal. In this process, such intellectual groups tried their best to dilute almost all positive aspects of Indian culture. All cultures have drawbacks and social issues, and India is not an exception, but this ecosystem never presented the excellent and exceptional contributions of Indian civilizations. Many achievements of India were either credited to foreign rulers or manipulated in a very smart way.

Among many such examples of manipulation, the naked and erotic statues and art found on ancient temples (India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan etc. Once a part of Bharat/India) are often presented as proof that kings and people in ancient India were very attracted to sex, that open sex was part of Indian civilizations, and that any kind of sexual behavior was allowed, similar to some trends in modern Western societies. Some even wrongly claim that ancient Indians had sex with animals for pleasure by referring to art on temples of Ellora, Ajanta, Khajuraho and many more. Other so-called Indologists and intellectuals, who try to appear soft and sympathetic to Indian culture, explain that these arts were created on the instructions of ancient kings at a time when many people were losing interest in family life and becoming sannyasis by leaving everything to search for God. According to them, the sculptures were meant to stop people from taking sannyasa and to teach them the importance of sex for the proper growth of the next generation and civilizations. Many Indian and foreign professors from JNU, JU, AMU, Harvard, Columbia, MIT, and other universities have always given such explanations, as they have their own vested interests and want to prove the western way of life superior.

But, the true meaning of these sexual arts, nude statues of young women, and Kamasutra-type carvings found even today in many southern Indian temples (also@newly built temples) on entrance gates, walls, and before the main deity is that they were a test of how much a person is still attached to worldly life. If you enter a temple and are still distracted by these arts, by beautiful women with naked bodies, sexual scenes, erotic statues then you are not yet eligible for self-realization and the understanding of God. But if you see them simply as stone and sculpture, without disturbance, then you are on the true path of understanding God and His creation. It is very important to note that in most temples such arts appear on the entrance or outer walls, and sometimes in a few inner rooms, but never in the room of the main deity. This truly means that as you proceed on the spiritual path, you must leave everything outside even the greatest pleasure, which is sex, and your worldly wealth symbolized by elephants, horses, flowers, fishes, etc. It symbolizes that wealth, sexual pleasure, and even your family cannot go with you. You have to leave everything before searching for God and self-realization. The other Indian spiritual meaning of such carvings is briefly pointed below..

• In Indian philosophy the human body is not sinful but a sacred vessel of divinity. Nude figures represent purity and the natural form of creation, not vulgarity.
• Erotic sculptures appear only on outer walls because temple design follows a symbolic journey from worldly life outside to spiritual purity inside. They mark the boundary one must mentally cross before reaching the divine.
• Desire (kama) is one of the four legitimate aims of human life. Temples acknowledge its place in society while also showing that higher spiritual goals lie beyond it.
• Some carvings express the Tantric idea of the union of Shiva (consciousness) and Shakti (energy). These images depict cosmic creation and spiritual unity rather than physical acts.
• Temple art also served as a record of society its aesthetics, values, prosperity, and daily life. Erotic figures reflect openness toward human experience, not moral decline.

By Dr. Santosh K. Tiwari

Further Reading/ Ref.

1. Danielou, A., 2001. The Hindu temple: Deification of eroticism. Inner Traditions/Bear & Co.
2. Nag, M., 1996. Paradox of eroticism and sexual abstinence in Hindu culture. Global bioethics, 9(1-4), pp.171-185.
3. Dange, S.A., 1977. Sex in Stone and the Vedic Mithuna. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 58, pp.543-560.
4. Vijayakumar, S., 2017. The Sacred and the Sensual. Experiencing Eroticain Temples of Khajuraho. Via. Tourism Review, (11-12).
5. Krishan, Y., 1972. The erotic sculptures of India. Artibus Asiae, 34(4), pp.331-343.