Sexual Imagery On The Phantasmagorical Castles at Khajuraho

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Sexual Imagery on the "Phantasmagorical Castles" at Khajuraho
Vol. 2 No. 2 (November 1, 1996)
by Michael Rabe
Happy Birthday To Us!

Sexual Imagery on the
"Phantasmagorical Castles"
at Khajuraho
Setting the stage.
ISSN 1084-7553
The Artha of Temple KAma.
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Setting the stage.
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For one glorious century starting just before the year 1000 Vikrama
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(A.D. 943), the political center of North India's Imperial formation
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shifted from Kanauj in the Yamuna-Gangetic Doab (Mesopotamia),

southwards to Khajuraho in the heavily-jungled uplands the Vindhyas.
There, a succession of five Candella kings presided over the final, but
Syndication
also finest efflorescence of the NAgara-order temple, an architectural
Issues
style whose origins are can be traced to Gupta-period prototypes in
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the same Bundelkand region, and whose extinction as a vibrant

creative tradition was perpetrated by iconoclastic Islam. Yet as Fate
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would have it (personified in the Zri-LakSmI consort of the Candella
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dynasty's brief Imperium), geographic remoteness insured the

relatively intact survival of a dozen masterpieces of NAgara temple
4
Latest Papers
architecture at Khajuraho. Apparently, they escaped notice of even
Alessandro Cisilin,
India Elections 2014:
The End of Caste
and Politics
SultAn MahmUd himself, who lay futile siege to the impregnable
Monika Horstmann, The

Emergence of the
Nthyog Order in the
Light of
Vernacular Sources
John R. Dupuche, A
Spirituality of Pleasure:
Deciphering
Vijnabhairava
Verse 68
Candella fortress at Kalanjar, not 50 miles away in AD 1022, on his

5
Disclaimer
The views expressed in articles and
reviews are the authors' own and
should not be attributed to the
Asiatica Association.
Editorial Board
Enrica Garzilli
Asiatica Association, Italy
worship in the MAtangezvara, suffers the indignity of two Persian
Managing Editor
survived centuries of neglect (following the final collapse of Candella power in 1308) with remarkable integrity, and
8
soon after initial rediscovery by an Englishman in 1838, concerted efforts to restore them were undertaken, first by
the local Chatarpur rajas, and since by the Archaeological Survey of India.
Returning to consideration of the site in the year 1000 Vikrama, it must have seemed a most propitious time for a
have been the one dedicated therein by the Candella king HarSadeva,
presumably after wresting the fabled
back from the Rashtrakuta invader, Indra III and restoring his feudal liege MahIpAla to the
PratihAra throne in Kanauj. However, since, atypically, its only overtly sexual imagery appears in unpublished
subsidiary niches of the roof-pediments,
Computer Space: The New Nina fonts

and Macros
images at Khajuraho, and the largest Ziva-linga in North India, still in

7
13
ChaNDI PATh
Editor in Chief
inscriptions. But otherwise, especially in their overwhelmingly figural outer fabrics [e.g., Plate 1], these temples
Kalanjar fortress
Autumn Leaves: Kashmiri

Reminiscences
Battuta saw evidence of muslim mutilations, on the consecrated

6
12
Studi Orientali e Linguistici. V

(1994-95)
14th predation out of Ghazni, Afghanistan. It is true that in 1342 Ibn
Gianluca Pastori,
hitherto insignificant tributary of the Imperial PratihAras to concretize dynastic aspirations for genuine sovereignty by
Shaping the Italian
the erection of a magnificent temple. As Ron Inden has noted in his brilliant reconstruction of the Deccan-based
Policy on the
9
imperial formation of the Rashtrakutas, the grand finale of a tributary king's metamorphosis to overlordship in this
North-West Frontier:
period, equivalent to the cakravartin's horse sacrifice of earlier times, was often the construction of major temple.
Giuseppe Tucci and
the Limits of the
Unfortunately, the Candella's earliest royal temple dedication is lost--all but a roughly 1'4" square fragment of what
10
Strategy of Peripheral
must have been an approximately 2' x 5' slab. Because the fragment was found near the VAmana, that temple may
Destabilization (1936-1943)
11
Piero Verni, China
Shadows and Tibet
Flames: The Policy of
Immolations and
Future Scenarios
New Titles
it can receive no further comment here.
Michael Witzel
Harvard University, USA
Editors
Roberto Donatoni
Adelphi Edizioni, Italy
Minoru Hara
Tokyo University, Japan
David N. Lorenzen
El Colegio de Mxico, Mexico
Benjamin Prejado
El Colegio de Mxico, Mexico
Michael Rabe
Saint Xavier University, USA
Debabrata Sensharma
Kurukshetra University, India
Karel van Kooij
Leiden University, The Netherlands
John R. Dupuche, The

Scandalous Tantric
Hymn to Kl
Karprdi-stotra: an
Unexpurgated Translation
HarSadeva's son, Yazovarman, expanded the boundaries of Candella authority
Peter Flgel, Beyond

The Hindu Frontier.
Jaina-Vaiava
Syncretism In The
Gujart Diaspora
(part II)
suitably magnificent LakSman temple to house it. The icon, almost certainly
mostly at the expense of their Kalachuri rivals to the south and the imperial
PratihAras, even forcing MahIpAla's successor, DevapAla, to relinquish a
priceless palladium of VaiSNava kingship, a VaikuNTha-ViSNu icon, and built the
gold,
14
and originating in Kashmir,
15
has long since disappeared, but an
Candella-style facsimile in sandstone survives in its sanctum.
16
The impressively
long dedicatory inscription (in 49 verses and a prose colophon), detailing

Yazovarman's ancestry and conquests is actually a posthumous record, dating
Peter Flgel, Beyond

The Hindu Frontier.
Jaina-Vaiava
Syncretism In The
Gujart Diaspora
(part I)
from the year Vikrama 1011 (A.D. 954/5) in his son Dhanga's reign but any
Hugh B. Urban, The

Conservative
Character of Tantra:
Secrecy, Sacrifice and
This-Worldly Power in
Bengali kta Tantra
precisely because it is the earliest dated temple at the site, any attempt to make
patron-specific references in the temple proper (or benefits accruing from its
construction) clearly belong to the father. Rarely noted evidence in support of this
contention is that the father, Yazovarman is also titled LakSavarman (vv. 37, 39),
whence derives the temple's traditional name in a slightly garbled form.
17
Thus,
sense of the sexual imagery at Khajuraho must concentrate first and foremost
upon the LakSman complex [e.g., Plate 2, detail of 1], completed in 954 with 4 subsidiary chapels and a shared
masonry terrace around which the most notorious obscenities at the site appear.
Before cutting to the nitty gritty, three other temples need
introduction by virtue of association with inscriptions (two of
them dated), that name individual patrons. First the
PArzvanAth, largest of the Jain temples on the east edge of
Khajuraho [Plate 3], must be nearly contemporary with the
LakSman--in proximate sculpture style, together they
represent the finest phase of the Candella idiom [Plate 4]. The
PArzvanAth also bears a brief inscription dated to the same
year, Vikrama 1011. Though recopied in 13th c. characters, it
enumerates a gift of seven gardens to the temple on a day
equivalent to Monday April 2, 955 A.D., given by PAhilla,
presumably a minister of state, "held in honor by king
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18
Dhanga."
Much is often made about the relative
discreetness of sexual imagery on Jain temples, but the word

relative needs emphasis, where even goddess LakSmi is not
immune to ViSNu's fondling, and maithuna couples actually
coupling appear in the ambulatory within!
King Dhangadeva's own panegyric (prazasti), dated
equivalent to 1002, was found in rubble at the base of a Ziva
temple now known as the VizvanAth, and is presumed to be its
dedication.
19
This temple too, like the LakSman, was built on
an imperial scale, with subsidiary chapels at the four corners of its high masonry terrace (just one of which
20
survives) . Its primary icon, rivaling in pedigree his father's golden Vaikuntha, was an emerald Ziva-linga, called the
Maraketzvara, descended it was said from Indra's heaven.
21
Coincidentally as well, its even longer dedication (in 64
verses) is also posthumous: though explicitly crediting Dhanga with construction of the temple, it proceeds in v. 55
to commemorate his voluntary suicide by drowning in the sangam at PrayAg:
Having lived for over a hundred years and protected this earth enclosed by
the girdle of seas as its undisputed sovereign, the celebrated king Dhanga
obtained liberation by abandoning this mortal frame at the confluence of the
GangA and the YamunA, with his eyes closed and mind concentrated on and
reciting the name of Rudra Ziva.
22
One wonders if any wives accompanied him in aquatic satI as did the 100 of king
GAngeyadeva, of the rival Kalachuri dynasty, at the same holy confluence some
40 years later.
23
Whether or not in partial reference to his wives, female figures
certainly predominate in the iconography of Dhanga's VizvanAth [Plate 5], as

indeed they do in all the major temples at Khajuraho. The speculation is hardly
idle, for dramatic allusion to captive women in Dhanga's train is explicit grist for
his panegyrist's mill, engraved as fair notice on this very temple:
v. 46.
Who are you?
Wife of the king of KAncI.
Who are you?
Spouse of the chief of RADhA.
Who are you?
Wife of the king of Anga.
Such conversations took place amongst the imprisoned wives, whose lotus-eyes were wet with tears, of his
enemies over whom he had gained victory.
v. 47.
Who and whose are you? What for have you, resplendent as the moon, come here? I am the accomplished
fame [KIrttir-ahaM] of the monarch Dhanga, the sole friend of the learned. After wandering over the whole of
(the) universe, I have come, with whetted curiosity, to behold the beauty of the peaks of the high mountain
ranges of LokAloka.
24
Ironically, though a translation of this inscription was

included in the earliest publication on Khajuraho,
25
these verses have never previously been cited as

relevant to the site's iconography. Yet undeniably they
are--cut literally from identical sandstone and bonded
as integral units. Thus, with the admitted proviso that
this illustrative figure [Plate 6, another detail from Plate
1] belongs to the earlier king Yazovarman's LakZman
temple, is it not fitting to imagine one such as her
being the visual analogue to the poet YazapAla's
KIrtti--singing yes, but also embodying, a Candella
king's Fame? Reunited at long last, in cyber.
The last temple to be introducted here is also the largest
26
and most perfectly
proportioned [Plate 7], the myriad-peaked sine qua non of NAgara architecture, called the
KandAriyA MahAdeo. Absent a more definitive etymology of the famous name I parse it as
poetic reference to Ziva as Great Lord of the Cavernous Peaks.
27
Such a name is
certainly appropriate, given its wonderful clustering of uruzRnga replications, like foothills
and lesser peaks, surrounding its tautly soaring primary zikhara. While, unfortunately, no
dedicatory prazasti survives for the KandAriyA, the mountain metaphor, so recurrent in
Indian architecture and perfectly captured here, is proclaimed in the Yazovarman's earlier
inscription for the LakSman:
v. 42.
He erected this charming splendid home...(of Visnu) which rivals the peaks of the
mountain of snow; the golden pinnacles of which illumine the sky...at the sight of
which the inhabitants of heaven, met together on festivals, filled with increasing delight, are struck with
wonder.
28
There is, however, a tantalizing single-line epigraph on a pillar of the interior which, according to Krishna Deva,
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corroborates the attribution on stylistic grounds of the KandAriyA MahAdeo to Dhanga's grandson, VidyAdhara
(c.1018-1022):
rAjaVirindasamaye navasura-samAgame varastrInAM
Of the VarastrIs on (the occasion of the) Navasura-samAgama in the time of king Virinda
29
While granting that Virinda may be an affectionate pet name for VidyAdhara,
it is less certain who exactly these varastrIs or choice women might have
been,
30
--royal wives as noted earlier, or commoner-accessible dancers
called devadAsIs? The great Arab historian al-Biruni, who accompanied

MahmUd of Ghazni to the siege of Kalanjar, reported matter of factly that
Hindu kings defrayed military budgets with revenues skimmed from temple
prostitution,
31
but Khajuraho, never a large metropolis and lying considerably
off beaten pilgrimage routes through religious centers like Mathura, PrayAg
and Benares, was more likely the private preserve of Candella kings and
32
their courtiers.
As for the ceremonial context named in the KandAriyA
epigraph, one possible scenario for imagining what navasura-samAgame,

"welcoming the new god" (?), might have entailed, is preserved in KalhaNa's
history of Kashmir, wherein a slightly later king HarSa (1089-1101) was plied
with slave girl goddesses by his courtiers:
Others brought slave girls before him and said they were goddesses. He
worshipped them, and abandoning his exalted position and wealth was
laughed at by the people.
These [slaves girls], instructed by the parasites, who taught them [to give]
counsels etc. [pretended to have obtained] from conversations with the gods,
confused his mind.
Some among these [slave girls] showed themselves eager for amorous
intercourse at those occasions, and the king forsook his good fortune by
touching them with his own body.
As he was anxious to live for a very long time, they [the goddesses] granted
him, when in his foolishness he asked for a long life, hundreds of years to
live.
When he desired to give magic perfection to his body (piNDasiddhi) some
Domba [low-caste laundress] made him swallow a drink which he pretended
was an elixir having that power.
...
What respectable man could relate the other even more shameful practices
of his which he followed to obtain strength and beauty?
33
Somewhere in that spectrum, between consorting with slave goddesses and siddhi-acquiring
practices too shameful for KalhaNa to mention, must figure the celebrated group-clenches of
the KandAriyA MahAdeo [e.g., Plate 8] and their precursors on the LakSman and ViZvanAth
temples. Great significance has been inferred by Michael Meister and Devangana Desai from
their distinctive location, exclusively on antarAla juncture walls between mahAmaNDapa
worship halls and the vimAna sanctuaries proper.
34
Thus it appears, (as a partial explanation),
that three varieties of intimate engagement--sexual, mystical and architectural--overlay one

another as mutually illuminating glosses. Far fetched to be sure, but not without sanction in
texts, and I quote but two. First, from the BRhadAraNyaka UpaniSad these famous lines:
In the embrace of his beloved a man forgets the whole world,--everything both within and
without; in the same way, he who embraces the Self knows neither within nor without.
35
Second, from an Orissan architectural treatise exactly contemporary with Khajuraho's imperial
monuments,
36
these very components of the temple are correlated in gendered terms:
The vimAna is the best bridegroom and the mukhazAlikA main hall is the bride. The place in front, where
37
the bridegroom and the bride meet becomes the place of junction (sandhikSetra).
From these lofty heights of metaphoric fancy (building nuptials, God-consciousness) I

descend to earthiness for a final introductory sampling of the erotic provocations on
view at Khajuraho. Perhaps the site's most idiosyncratic motif is the varastrI/choice
woman provocatively shown in the act of dislodging a scorpion from her thigh by
removing her skirt. Plate 9 is but one of several figures on the KandAriyA MahAdeo
that expose themselves on this pretext and there are other earlier examples at
38
Khajuraho, but none elsewhere to my knowledge until later,
at 12 c. Belur for
example [Plate 10]. Unlike the later, more straight-forward depiction of skirt and
scorpion removed, at Khajuraho the motif has an uncanny ambiguity. Why, for example,
does the lusciously hip-shot poseur gingerly pinch at her skirt's right upper hem, when
the ominous scorpion is firmly planted on her left leg? Pardon the anachronism, but
talk about strip-tease! Not wishing to prolong suspense unnecessarily, I hasten to
credit Devangana Desai with discovery of a site-specific connotation of the scorpion at
Khajuraho:
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KharjUra-vAhaka, the ancient name of Khajuraho, mentioned in King Dhanga's inscription of V.S. 1059
(A.D. 1002), can be interpreted to have two meanings. The well-known meaning of the word kharjUra is
date-palm tree, and vAhaka means a carrier or bearer. So KharjUra-vAhaka can mean date-palm bearer,
and a later legend associates the town with two golden kharjUra trees at its gate. But the word kharjUra also
means a scorpion. So kharjUra-vAhaka [also] means scorpion bearer.
39
But here our interpretations diverge. While she cites a sAdhana verse for Aghora Ziva as wearing a necklace of
scorpions (however, vRScika)
40
I prefer, more directly to the point, to identify these skirt-shedding women
themselves as the eponymous Scorpion-bearers. Or, if not eponyms whence the site was originally named, at least
they constitute namesake allusions to it--they too are kharjUra-bearers. Here it is relevant to note that the oldest
architectural structure at Khajuraho is a yogini precinct,
41
its sixty-four niches devoid of sculpture, I suggest,
because originally live women may have figured there in rites intended to augur military victories.
42
Thus the
kharjUra/scorpion bearing attribute may have belonged to a local manifestation of the preeminent goddess of
victory, DurgA.
43
That said, there is yet another vital facet to disclose in the purport of these unnerving surasundarIs, or divine
beauties with scorpions on their thighs. Looking again at the kharjUra-vAhakI in Plate 9, one would not be mistaken
44
to see hints of inebriation, for kharjUra is also a word for date wine.
Seen in light of this punning zleSa (a literary
ornament much loved by Sanskrit poets), her pose struck becomes a perfect visual analogue to the literary figure
45
known to alaMkArikAs as sandeha, intriguing doubt.
Why indeed, does she delicately lower her garment? Due to
kharjUra fear or arousal? These may be idle witticisms to some, but not, I insist to the sculptor who carved this
masterful image of coquettish seduction. Notice, lest there be lingering doubt, that allusion to drinking is overtly
mimed in the abhinaya gesture of the cupped thumb and fingers of her left hand, pressed, moreover, against a
46
breast as if it were the cup.
Welcome to KharjUravAhaka, the varastrI suggestively pantomimes, with both hands!

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.
47
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,
48
but divergences in matter, even between these relatively contemporary corpora, are far greater than
their commonalties.
49
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
50
Tibet,
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
51
encounter with Mara's daughters just before achieving Buddhahood. Touchstones of renunciation
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
52
punishments,
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
53
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,
54
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
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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.
55
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,
56
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)
57
their territorial loses to Kalachuri GAngeyadeva, c. 1025-1040.
This otherwise plausible scenario is at odds both
with the strictly orthodox tenor of the Candella's surviving temple dedications,
58
and the comparatively chaste
iconography (and epigraphic content) of proven MattamayUra temples and monasteries.
59
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.
60
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 with a few choice ornaments, with their limbs slightly enervated
61
from sexual indulgence.
(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,
62
vessels, mithunas, leaves, creepers etc.
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.
63
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
64
apotropaic qualities.
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,
65
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.
66
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
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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).
67
[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,
68
which is shunned like the den of Death.
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 (bhraSTakriya) found elsewhere in India (much of it comically absurd, like
69
over-the-shoulder self-fellatio ), 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,
70
and in the sex manual closest in date to the Khajuraho temples,
dismissed entirely as unworthy of comment.
71
Yet there is an abundance of good humored variety, at the outermost

72
pale of LakSavarman's precinct--ideally situated, I infer, for repelling the evil eye.
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 doubleoccupancy 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.
73
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),
74
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.
75
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.
76
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.
77
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
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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.
78
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.
79
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,
80
there is seizure by the hair (only) in amorous dalliance, hard are
(only) the two breasts, crooked (only) the brows [etc.]...
81
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 fleshresident 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,
83
group sex at Khajuraho
82
I propose to consider just two of the 14 major maithuna panels of
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
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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
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arousing are his presence and amorous attentions that She
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.
85
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
86
like the climbing of a tree.
Meanwhile, behind her back, the bearded king affirms consummation of the embrace by displaying an ascending
trikoNamudrA, the term being a necessary neologism for the male 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.
87
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.
88
89
Jain monk on the opposite side,
Rather, I fear it cannot be denied, given the masturbatory activity of the poor
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.
90
Once, as told in the 11th c. Ocean of Story,
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.
91
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
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kAmabandha is placed there to give delight to people.
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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 in words. This
elysiam lasts for aeons...
93
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
94
heaven.
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.
95
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 fame marching
96
towards heaven.
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.
97
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)
98
be my husband.
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,
99
VarastrIs are welcoming a new god, in the
time of king VidyAdhara.
Endnotes
1. As defined by Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) esp. ch 6.2 Reconstructions: The Imperial
Formation of the Rashtrakutas.
2. E.g., 5th century ruins at Nachna, Bhumara and especially Deogarh (where an 11th c. Chandella inscription also appears)
J. C. Harle, Gupta Sculpture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.); Joanna Gottfried.Williams, The Art of Gupta India: Empire
and Province (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). The previously cited Encyclopedia of Indian Temple
Architecture, ed. Michael W. Meister, is not yet complete and the volume with coverage of the major monuments at
Khajuraho is still awaited: their antecedents, however, are well documented in Vol II, North India; Part 1, Foundations of
North Indian Style, c. 25- B.C.-A.D. 1100.; Part 2, Period of Early Maturity, c. A.D. 700-900 New Delhi: AIIS, 1991.
3. In their inscriptions Indian kings were frequently beloved of Earth and Fortune, wives of the most regal god, ViSNu, of
whom they in turn were considered aMSas, fractional avatars.
4. Plus half again as many minor shrines of the same period. There is also evidence in rubble piles for a handful of additional
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temples, but legends as recorded in the MahobA Khand (c. 17th c) about an original 85 are specious. For critical appraisal
of the late bardic traditions of Bundelkand, Sisir Kumar Mitra, The Early Rulers of Khajuraho (Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1958),
pp. 6, 12-26.
5. On coming to power in A.D. 999, Mahmud resolved to make annual forays into India and did in fact undertake at least 17
devastating campaigns in the next 28 years. Muhammad Nazim, The Life and Times of SultAn MahmUd of Ghazna
(Lahore: Khalil, & Co., 1973).
6. ...then we came to...KajarrA where there is a great pond about a mile in length near which are temples containing idols
which the Muslims have mutilated. Ibn Battuta (1304-1377), The ReHla of Ibn BaTTUTa (India, Maldive Islands and
Ceylon): translation and commentary by Mahdi Husain. 2nd ed. (reprint): Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1976. Gaekwad's
Oriental Series, no.122, p. 166.
7. And to be fair, a four-line pilgrim's record in devanAgari. The MAtangezvara linga is a polished cream-sandstone cylinder,
looking for all the world like a recycled Maurya pillar fragment, 2.5m high by.93m in diameter. Infrequently published, it
may be seen in figs. 32 and 34 of Shobita Punja, Divine Ecstasy: the Story of Khajuraho, photographs by Toby Sinclair.
(New Delhi; New York: Viking by Penguin Books India, 1992).
8. Captain T.S. Burt, Bengal Engineers, Extract from the Journal of his travel in the hands of Thaker & Co, for the Press,
Bengal Asiatic Society vol VIII Part I (1839) pp. 159-184. Of course, they had never completely disappeared from regional
consciousness, as confirmed by their mention in late medieval ballad cycles. A major pilgrimage fair coinciding with Ziva
RAtri was already (or still) flourishing there when Alexander Cunningham made his archaeological tours through the region
in the mid-19th century. Cunningham's first visit, as reported in the Archaeological Survey of India Report, vol II, was in
January 1852; see also his subsequent reports in vols. VII, X and XXI.
9. Inden, esp. p. 248.
10. To extrapolate from parallels in orthography and content with two subsequent inscriptions, Yazovarman's of Vikrama 1011
(A.D. 954), and Dhangadeva's of V. 1059 (A.D.1002), to be introduced below. This is the implicit inference of their editor,
F. Kielhorn, Inscriptions from Khajuraho, Epigraphia Indica, vol. I (1890-91): 121-153.
11. This attribution is hypothetical, pending my own stylistic analysis of the monuments.
12. Celebrated in the MahAbhArata and purANas, with Gupta-period remains and a natural cave identified with Ziva as
NIlkaNTa, the neck-stained poison-drinker.
13. Kanwar Lal, Immortal Khajuraho (Delhi: Asia Press, 1965), p. 220; and Krishna Deva, Temples of Khajuraho (New Delhi:
Archaeological Survey of India, 1990), vol 1, p. 193, both following Krishna Deva, The Temples of Khajuraho in Central
India, Ancient India no. 15, Bulletin of the ASI (1958), p. 57.
14. In the opinion of Hermann Goetz,The Historical Background of the Great Temples of KhajurAho, Arts Asiatiques, t. V
fasc.1 (1958): 35-47; Given the following record of loot MahmUd of Ghazni seized from much less politically powerful
Mathura, I concur: The booty captured included five idols of gold, one of which was set with two rubies of the value of
50,000 dInArs, 200 idols of silver, and a sapphire of unusually large size. Nazim, , p. 108. The gold images were
estimated to be 15 feet in height and so heavy as to require breaking apart before weighing.
15. Yazovarman's inscription speaks of its acquisition from Ziva's mythic mount KailAsa by a Tibetan king who presented it to
the SAhi kings of the Northwest who passed it on to the PratIhAra king HerambapAla in exchange for a contingent of
elephants and cavalry. Kielhorn, p. 134, v. 43.
16. Multi-headed with VarAha-boar and Narasimha-lion masks protruding on either side of the central human head: Lal, Pl. 27;
Krishna Deva, vol 2, Pl. 41. For examples of the presumed prototype, always with a 4th demonic mask at the rear, see
Pratapaditya Pal, Some Kashmiri-style bronzes and problems of authenticity, John Guy ed., Indian Art and
Connoisseurship: Essays in Honour of Douglas Barrett, (Ahmedabad: Mapin with Indira Gandhi National Centre for the
Arts, New Delhi; Middletown NJ: Grantha, 1995), pp. 86-98.
17. LakSanAth > LakSman [the epic Rama's brother], says Goetz (p. 37), with interposition (unnecessary in my opinion) of
nAth, protector, a frequent component of deity and temple names.
18. Kielhorn, no. III, pp. 135, 136.
19. Kielhorn, no. IV, pp. 137-147; for its translation Krishna Deva, 1990, vol 1, pp. 363-370.
20. The two are also surprisingly close in basic dimensions: the LakSman being 85 ft long by 44 ft in breadth and 89 ft in total
height (including a 9 ft terrace), and the VizvanAth just slightly larger at 87.5 by 46 ft and 91 in height.
21. v. 48 "Glorious in the world is the divine lofty linga, made of emerald (marakata) which was worshipped by Indra, and which
having been obtained from him as a favour by Arjuna was brought to the earth by him for worship by YudhiSThira and
(lastly), was installed by the illustrious Dhanga with due obeisance." Krishna Deva, vol. 1, p. 368. In the next verse a
second image of Siva, presumably the sandstone linga still in situ, is mentioned as installed (pratiSThitaH) by the same
king.
22. Krishna Deva, 1990, vol. 1, p. 369. Though composed in V. 1059 (A.D.1002), the inscription survives as recopied (with two
additional verses) 114 years later, during the reign of Jayavarman.
23. In c.1041 "GAngeyadeva...a thunderbolt falling on the heads of enemies...fond of residing at the foot of the holy fig at
PrayAga...striving after final beatitude...he had found salvation there together with his hundred wives." F. Kielhorn,
Jabalpur Copper-Plate Inscription of Yasahkarnadeva (A.D. 1122), Epigraphia Indica, 2 (1894), p. 6.
24. Krishna Deva, 1990, vol .1, p. 368, with this note appended: "LokAloka is the legendary mountain outside the earth's
sphere where the Sun never reaches. The poet [named KAyastha YazapAla, v. 59] means that his fame went where even
the Sun could not reach." A minor quibble: I take it to mean the temple here at Khajuraho is a metaphoric LokAloka: ie.,
worthy not only of the more commonplace comparison with the Himalayan axis mundi, but with mountains out of this world.
25. J.C.C. Southerland, (appended to Burt, no. 17 above) Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society vol VIII Part I (1839) pp.
159-184.
26. 109 x 59.5 ft and reaching a height of 116.5 ft, according to Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of India Report vol II
(1871), p. 419. Krishna Deva's scaled elevation drawing (1990, vol. 2, Fig. 18) projects a height of 112.5 ft, including its 10
ft terrace.
27. after kandaravat, containing caves, or valleys, and kandara-kAra for mountain in Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English
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Dictionary (1883. reprint ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970). Goetz (p. 36) infers derivation from Maraketzvara, the
Emerald-Lord of Dhanga's inscription, despite the latter having been found at the VizvanAth, 250m to its East. Pramod
Chandra, whom he cites on another point does not (as implied) subscribe to that attribution, in The Kaula-Kapalika Cults
of Khajuraho, Lalit Kala 1-2 (1955-56): 100, but rather the one detailed below. For the transliteration, KandAriyA MahAdeo,
I follow Krishna Deva.
28. Krishna Deva, 1990, vol. 1, p. 346
29. Ibid, p. 371.
30. Krishna Deva has found one or two not-terribly helpful textual citations from Bhoja's 11th c. samarangaNa-sUtradhara and
the much earlier arthazAstra of Kautilya, ibid, pp. 370, 371.
31. Al-Biruni, Kitab-ul-Hind, trans. E.C. Sachau under Alberuni's India, 2 vol. (London: 1910) II, p. 157. J.C. Harle derides
A.L. Basham for positing linkage between devadAsi prostitution and temple iconography: respectively The Art and
Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent. (The Pelican History of Art). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books; New York: Viking
Penguin, 1986), p. 238, n. 56, and The Wonder that was India (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954), p. 362 (citing the
then-unpublished opinion of P. Rawson). Vociferous defense of the devadAsI hypothesis is made by Nirad C. Chaudhuri,
The Continent of Circe: being an essay on the peoples of India (London: Chatto & Windus, 1965) pp. 217-220;
approvingly cited by David Lorenzen, The KApAlikas and KAlAmukha: Two Lost Zaivite Sects (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1972) p. 139. For concurring views and much documentation see also Y. Krishan, The Erotic Sculptures
of India, Artibus Asiae 34 (1972), pp. 331-343; Devangana Desai, Erotic Sculpture of India: a Socio-Cultural Study (2nd
ed. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1985); Thomas Donaldson, Kamadeva's Pleasure Garden: Orissa (Delhi: B.R.
Publishing Corp, 1987) and David Kopf, Dancing Virgin, Sexual Slave, Divine Courtesan or Celestial Dancer: In Search
of the Historic DevadAsI, George Kliger, ed., Bharata Natyam in Cultural Perspective (Delhi: American Institute of Indian
Studies and Manohar, 1993), pp. 144-180.
32. A rare non-royal temple donation was jointly made by a palace guard (pratihAra) and prima dancer (mahAnAcanI),
PadmAvatI, at Kalanjar in 1129; Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of India Report vol XXI (1885), p 34.
33. KahlaNa, RAjatarangiNI VII, 1129-35, trans. M.A. Stein (1900. reprint Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979) vol 1, pp. 355,
356.
34. Michael W. Meister, Juncture and Conjunction: Punning and Temple Architecture, Artibus Asiae XLI (1979): 226-228;
Devananga Desai, Puns and Intentional Language at Khajuraho, Kusumanjali: New Interpretation of Indian Art & Culture:
Sh. C. Sivaramamurti commemoration volume, ed, M.S. Nagaraja Rao (Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1987) vol. 2, pp.
99-108.
35. BRhadAraNyaka UpaniSad IV.3.21. First art historian to cite this passages, Ananda Coomaraswamy, La Doctrine de la
"Binunit" Etude Traditionelles, 1937, pp. 289-301; then in turn by Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple (Calcutta: University
of Calcutta, 1946), vol. 2, p. 346; Alain Danielou, An Approach to Hindu Erotic Sculpture, Marg, 2:1,2 (1947), p. 88; Allan
Watts, photographs Eliot Elisofon, Erotic Spirituality: The Vision of Konarak (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 90; and in
the final paragraph of the most handsomely illustrated of all books on the subject, Krishna Deva, photographs by [Ms.]
Darshan Lall, Khajuraho (New Delhi: Bhrijbasi Printers Ltd 1987), p. 205.
36. RAmacandra KaulAcAra, Zilpa PrakAza, Alice Boner and Sadasiva Rath Sarma, trans. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966): as the
temple components it prescribes are best exemplified by the VarAhI at Caurasi (p. xix), I accept Thomas Donaldson's 10th
century date for the latter as most likely for the text (rather than the translators' broader 9-12th c. time frame): Donaldson,
pp. 422, 423.
37. Zilpa Prakaza II.595b, 596a; trans., p. 111.
38. The so-called scorpion beneath a 5th c. Mathura figure fragment, is more likely a lizard [godhikA], with all due respect to
Pramod Chandra, The Sculpture of India: 3000 B.C.-1300 A.D. (Cambridge: MA, Harvard University Press and National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1985), fig. 26, p. 79.
39. Desai, 1987, p. 384.
40. bhuangakeyUaradharam sarpahAropavItinam /
gonasam kaTisUtram ca gale vRzcikamAlikAm //
...
ity-aghore tRtIyo rudraH; AparAjitapRcchA 212,15 and almost verbatim in RUpamaNDana IV.6.
41. Indeed, according to Krishna Deva, (1990, vol. 1, p. 26)the earliest among fourteen other yoginI temples known in North
India, mostly clustered in regions surrounding Khajuraho.
42. This was its remembered purpose among local Brahmins in the 19th century: Cunningham (1871), p. 417. I infer recourse
to living yoginIs, not only from the absence of stone images (not withstanding 3 that were found--not matching as parts of a
set), both also from the peculiar passageway, just 20" wide, cut through the south end of the rectangular precinct, beside
the principal shrine. Obviously, its location is ideal for emanations from a primary deity to make their entrance,
unbeknownst, perhaps, to some knowing only of the temple's visible north entrance. Of course, textual sources leave no
doubt that actual women (at times coercively) were pressed into service for tantric rites of all kinds. E.g., Sir John
Woodroffe, Zakti and Zakta 6th ed (Madras: Ganesh & Co, 1965), pp. 609-610. 617 ff on three classes of women for
pancatattva secret ritual: wives and among non-wives, a) those for bhogya enjoyment; b) those for pUjya veneration (only).
43. Groupings of 64 and 81 yoginIs are inextricably linked with permutations of nava-(9) DurgAs, and other groupings of one
central deity and 8 AvarNa attendants. For details, Vidya Dehejia, YoginI, Cult and Temples, A Tantric Tradition (New
Delhi: National Museum, 1986).
44. Third among twelve varieties of liquor said to be enumerated by Pulastya: 1 panasa (bread-fruit, jack-liquor); 2 drAkshA
(grapes); 3. kharjUrI (from the date-palm); 4 common palm (tAlI), 5 coconut (nArikela); 6 ikSu (sugar cane); 7 the
MAdhvIka plant; 8 saira (long pepper); 9 arishTa (soap-berry); 10 mAdhUka (Bassia Latifolia); 11 GauDi or Maireya (rum
from molasses); and 12 surA (arrack from rice or other grain). Monier-Williams Brahmanism and Hinduism, p.194.
45. E.g., DaNDin, KAvyAdarza .2.26, cited by Edwin Mahaffey Gerow, A Glossary of Indian Figures of Speech (The Hague:
Mouton, 1971), p.166, 312. Lest think I'm over reaching, a verse from DaNDin's KAvyAdarza is quoted in a Candella
inscription: in a still-unpublished monograh I discuss numerous visual analogues to alaMkArika figures of speech at
MAmallapuram, the Pallava port that DaNDin is known to have visited in c. 700.
46. In effect the figure is performing a charade, an antarAlApa prahelikA in the terminology of Sanskrit alaMkArikAs. Ludwik
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Sternbach, Indian Riddles: a Forgotten Chapter in the List of Sanskrit Literature (Hosiarpur, Vishveshvaranand Vedic
Research Institute, 1975), pp. 67-84
47. 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.
48. "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.
49. According to Comfort, in a lengthy note, p. 140.
50. Urmila Agarwal, The Mithunas: Why 'Obscene' Sculptures?, Oriental Art XIV (1968), p.260, citing Harrison Foreman,
Through Forbidden Tibet (London, 1936), pp. 107-109.
51. Danielou's poetic phrase for his rationale no. 6, p. 88.
52. 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.
53. Coomaraswamy, Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon (London, 1913), pp. 63-65.
54. These are thoroughly surveyed by Desai in her chapter 6, Sex in Religion: Magico-Religious Beliefs and Practices.
55. 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.
56. 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 [still on order], 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).
57. (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.
58. 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
59. 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.
60. 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.
61. 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.
62. 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.
63. Thomas Donaldson, Propitious-Apotropaic Eroticism in the Art of Orissa, Artibus Asiae 35 (1975): 75-100.
64. Ibid., p. 88.
65. See also, Donaldson's book-length study, Kamadeva's Pleasure Garden: Orissa (Delhi: B.R. Publishing, 1987), and
Devangana Desai's chapter VI, Sex in Religion: magico-religious beliefs and Practices, Erotic Sculpture of India: A
Socio-cultural Study 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Munishram Manoharlal, 1985).
66. Skanda PurANa II.ii.21,45
vajrapAtAdibhaGgAdivArNArthaMyathocitam /
zilpaSAstreSumaNyAdivinyasyapauruZAt //
trans. G.V. Tagare (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994), V, p. 125
67. 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
68. SthAnaM kAmakalAhInaM tyaktamaNDalamucyate // II. 502
KaulAcAramate hInaM sarvadA tyakhamaNDalam /
KAlakakSasamaM tyaktaM tatsthAnaM gahanopamam // 503
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69. 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.
70. "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.
71. "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.
72. The evil eye per se is more widely reported from South India, where, not coincidentally, bhraSTa sex acts are a ubiquitous
accouterment carved on the wooden 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."
73. 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.
74. Cunningham, Khajuraho in Archaeological Survey of India Report vol. II, pp. 420-437.
75. L.K. Tripathi, The Erotic Scenes of Khajuraho and Their Probable Explanation, 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.
76. 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.
77. Above, n. 34.
78. 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.
79. 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.
80. alternatively twisted, crimped, by contrast to negative connotations of *bhanga* in terms of social order or polity; see also
the translators note 16.
81. 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.
82. 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.
83. 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
84. queen, goddess, courtesan...it is all the same--Everywoman.
85. For citations on the former, Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple, vol. 2, p. 347.
86. Burton trans., p. 94.
87. For a readily accessible commentary, Heinrich Zimmer, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization ed.Joseph
Campbell (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1946).
88. Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (New York: Doubleday, 1956), p. 130.
89. Tell-tale picchikA, or rajoharaNa, whisk topped with peacock feathers, in hand.
90. 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.
91. 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).
92. Zilpa PrakAza, II. 538, 539; trans. p. 106.
93. 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.
94. 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
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Khajuraho vol. 1, p. 33.

95. 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.
96. 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.
97. 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.
98. VarApsaraH-sahasrANI zUram Ayodhane hatam / tvaramANA'bhidhAvanti mama bhartA bhaved iti //
MahAbhArata XII. 3657; Muir trans, p. 308.
99. Above, n.39.
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