“There resided in the town of Mudkul a farmer, who was blessed with a daughter of such exquisite beauty, that the creator seemed to have united all his powers in making her perfect.”
Firishtah as quoted in Sewell et al. (2000).
So begins the story of an amorous monarch, king of Vijayanagar, who fell madly in love with the farmer’s daughter. He committed himself to capturing the girl and adding her to his harem. He sent some emissaries and holy men, who with many gifts and praises, tried to woo the girl. It was tradition in those times for a monarch to place a golden jeweled necklace around a maiden so she could be wed and added to his harem. When the bramins attempted to place the necklace on this particular maiden, they could not do so because the distraught and feisty girl simply refused to wear it, much to the consternation of her parents, who were forced to turn away the king’s generous overtures. Upon hearing of this rejection, the monarch was enraged, and mad with love (or wounded pride), he gathered his army and marched to the village. The scheme was dangerous because the village lay outside his dominion. When he arrived there, the villagers (including the girl and her family) had fled. To make matters worse, his troops looted villages along the way, leading to battles that resulted in 2,000 soldiers slain and a broader regional conflict that shaped the history of the Vijayanagar empire.
The Vijayanagar empire grew on the banks of the Tungabhadra River and was one of the most amazing empires that world has ever known. Yet the world knows so little about it. I have to admit that prior to embarking on this journey to India, I had no idea Hampi even existed or why it was such an important site. I decided to go in with a fresh pair of eyes, so I did not do much research. I did bring a book by Sewell et al. (2000), which discusses the history of this empire, but I barely had any time to read the first few chapters. Nevertheless, reading those few chapters was enough to fire up my imagination and visualize an ancient land that bloomed once upon a time.
Bianca and I stood in front of the ancient ruins, marveling at the sight before us. There were voices speaking in the local languages, crowds of families streaming towards the major complex jutting up in the distance.
“Nice cards! Nice cards!” the young vendor approached us as we were admiring a structure that looked like an open air gallery with various stone columns.
"Madam, nice cards for you."
Bianca smiled at him and shook her head.
The vendor insisted.
“No, thank you,” Bianca said.
I walked towards the stone structures with wide eyes and began to climb the stone steps. How many countless others had beheld this amazing ancient stonework? It didn’t matter. It felt as if I was the very first one.
These carvings show mythic beings whose names I cannot recall.
“No, you cannot go,” said the vendor when he saw me begin to climb the steps.
I stopped, confused. Peering through the dark sanctum, I saw a man inside, kneeling or sitting on the floor. His shadow cast by glowing sunlight upon the far wall.
“People pray,” the vendor explained.
“Ah!” I said, finally grasping the situation.
I turned to Bianca. “There is someone in there performing some kind of religious ritual.”
We both looked at each other. Perhaps thinking the same thing.
“They worship in the ruins,” I said. “Fascinating!”
I later learned that the Virupaksha temple is one of the few ancient temples that is still actively used by the faithful. So many locals make the trip there with a few tourists peppered in the mix.
“Nice cards for you, madam,” the vendor was still trailing us as we moved through the streaming crowds.
We made it clear, we were not interested in buying his goods, but he would take no for an answer. I said no in different inflections, but he was still pursuing us. I realized there was some kind of cultural code that neither one of us understood. I did not understand his, and he did not understand mine.
“Tour!” someone else shouted and came up to us.
“No, no tour. Thank you,” I said.
He also started following us along with the card vendor.
We headed into a courtyard near the entrance to the main temple grounds, where there were several guards keeping an eye on things. The two eager entrepreneurs quickly took their leave.
We followed the flow of the crowd in this courtyard to an area where people were taking off or putting on their shoes. The temple is considered sacred ground, so no shoes must be worn inside. For a few rupees, it was possible to store the shoes for later retrieval. There was also a fee for photography, and I definitely paid for that one.
Looking around me, I marveled at the structures looming above me. These temples use repeating motifs that look like fractals. So, it’s easy to get lost in so many details. But as I scanned the edifice, my eyes fell on some eye-catching details.
I am familiar with the erotic temples of India, such as those found in the fabled realm of Karujaho, so it did not surprise me to find such details in this temple. I was immensely delighted.
I leaned over and whispered into Bianca’s ear, bringing her attention to the sinuous details.
She looked up, and then her eyes widened. Her lips parted and her cheeks flushed.
“Think of it!” I said excitedly. “Imagine living back then in those olden days. All throughout the day, you encounter these sensual images. At night, the light flickering on the bodies, posing in delightful ways. Their shadows dancing. Throbbing. The whole temple alive in sensual glory. Music. Incense. Then you're supposed to go home, and act as if it's business as usual? What kind of culture was this that glorified human joy, beauty, and sensuality? Our western culture can barely stand a billboard with a girl in a bikini, and here we have this culture that openly celebrated the human form without restraint. Centuries ago!”
Shiva Lingam and flower motif
I was transfixed by the temple and could only imagine the impression that it must’ve made on visitors back then when it was still painted, and its colours shone with the vibrancy of life. The way I understand it, most of the temples were destroyed by invading armies, so we can only imagine what the empire must’ve been like in its heyday, when the temples rose above the land.
Notice the hand pointing at the foot above the ground
I haven’t come across any scholarly work that discusses this highly sensual aspect of ancient Indian architecture. It is meant to turn on and arouse the senses. I’m not just talking about sculptures of naked people and deities. There is much more beyond those ancient gates of wonder.
Sources
Sewell, Robert, Fernão Nunes, and Domingos Paes. 2000. A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India. Asian Educational Services.
Vijayanagara Empire wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire
The Virupaksha temple on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virupaksha_Temple,_Hampi
Dive into another section:
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 6-8, 9, 10, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3
Wow! This building is rich with artistic heritage and history. I love all the erotic cravings. They are beautiful and well done. 😊
This is an amazing and very sensual place. The architects spend a lot of time making it beautiful not just practical.
Oh, that's very interesting.
The religious people of the time may also have used this place for the young people who were entering puberty and considered the courtship of the respective girls and boys to be normal, since their senses were almost exclusively preoccupied with one thing anyway: How to win over the one they had in mind or the one they had set their sights on.
... Perhaps as a guide, perhaps as an inspiration, perhaps even as a shared experience of normal sexuality, these people carved into their temples because it didn't make them uncomfortable.
Similar to how being naked didn't make remote villagers of my parents' and grandparents' generation uncomfortable. They were all very strict Christians, but they didn't have a problem with nudity. We here in Europe also see ourselves as Western, but in some areas we have a nudist culture on the beach. Nudity and nakedness can be very different, can't they? Just like porn and free body culture are fundamentally different things.
Now, thanks for that inspirational posting.
Have you seen the Khajuraho temples? I would tend to agree with you, but once donkeys come into the picture, I bail 😆
Having visited a few of the temples in Hampi, I believe that their design is meant to arouse the senses. It feels almost paradisical interacting with the sensuous architecture around. This sensual arousal is intricately linked to the Hindu metaphysical systems, including the yoga of sexuality, which expresses itself in the visible architectural and artifactual forms scattered throughout the complex. I can only imagine what it would have been like to participate in a ritual at the climax of their history. Mind blowing!
In the west, we seem to have divided sexuality into separate spheres (entertainment, research, health, etc), but in the Indian way of thinking back then, sexuality was an intricate part of one's existence, both physical and spiritual. Something to be celebrated and revered not tucked away in the bedroom or research lab. They overtly made the point in ways that today we find shocking and even inappropriate, especially when mixed with religion. I find the issue endlessly fascinating, from a purely academic interest, naturally. 😅
Once, a long time ago, I was sitting outside the kindergarten with a mum and talking to her. She told me that her then four-year-old son wanted to know how children come into the world and she told him. He replied: "Can I watch the two of you make another child?"
I laughed heartily, but it also had another effect: I thought that modern children rarely have the opportunity to witness the union of man and woman and that they learn everything to do with sex in theory first.
Since parents and children usually sleep in separate rooms, unlike in the days when families shared a single room and children inevitably witnessed their parents' activities (and were not traumatised by it, why, because it was normal), this part of human sexuality remains hidden from them.
Even when people were predominantly Christians and perceived themselves as such, sex was not necessarily something objectionable, I think. But even if it did involve a certain threshold of shame for people, bearing children at home, for example, was also nothing unusual and so the children already in the family were able to witness birth as one aspect of sex.
It was only when we began to take births out of the home environment that not only the parental act of union but now also the maternal act of birth became inaccessible to children. Now, the third aspect would be courtship and specific rituals and traditions.
For example, I don't believe that western religion can be primarily linked to prudery, although that has become very entrenched in thinking, but that technology and prosperity can largely be seen as the cause of people making their biological and natural sexual urges and adult practices inaccessible to children - unintentionally, in fact.
Modern people tend to make the mistake of looking at the past from the present perspective and merely recognising ideological or religious beliefs and convictions for sexual shame or inhibition. They rarely see what is going on right under their noses.
My assumption is that first there was technological progress and this began to bring about a certain closed-mindedness with regard to sexual permissiveness.
The separation of work and life is another important indicator. If children can't see adults in their courtship rituals, they know little about courtship themselves. How are modern people supposed to learn about how a man wins a woman and vice versa if they never witness such natural processes? Engagements, weddings, traditions where the age of a man or a woman plays a role, are all in decline and lost meaning.
Since people want to witness other peoples sex activities and rituals, they shifted this need to the world of the screen. Since the screen is only second hand, it poorly serves what the individual might long for. Porn and prostitution is a phenomena and from what I think, an expression of what can go wrong when humans suppress their biology.
When children reach puberty, they have no idea what masculinity and femininity actually mean. As a result, both they and their parents begin to fear this time, because the naturalness and simplicity of learning by watching their own relatives is no longer guaranteed.
So, yeah, I agree very much with what you said above and tried to give my explanation to that. I hope you don't mind the long comment.
Children today have way more access to sexual content than we ever did as kids, thanks to computers. We're innocent babes compared to what your typical teenager can access online. As you said,
I'm not so sure. It appears that prostitution (or similar behavior) also exists in non-human animals (Wikipedia). If this behavior persists in animal populations, then it must have an evolutionary advantage. Porn is a more recent development (evolutionarily speaking), though we've been painting sex scenes for a long time. Animals also enjoy watching porn of their own species, though I have yet to hear of animals making sex videos in the wild 🤣
LoL :D - so you gave yourself the answer, there is no prostitution going on in the animal kingdom. Or, I have a completely different understanding of the term prostitution.
A very daring statement, I'd say. Would not sign it.
Watching an act of coupling because you happen to come across it (for example, a couple having a sweet secret rendezvous in the woods) or going to a whore and paying for it are two completely different things. I am unable to put a link to human evolution on that.
I find porn abysmally disgusting as a trade, but not purely random or spontaneous sex performance between male and female; which is not porn but them simply having sex. There only needs to be a certain erotic tension and not even the act itself in its entirety to make my heart beat faster. I bet you are the same ;)
Because modern people seem to take fewer opportunities to make such random observations (or be the ones observed) doesn't mean that porn is a good choice. It is not for me. You wouldn't want your wife/girlfriend, your daughter or even mum to be getting it on, would you? Or who prostitutes herself online?
Since porn is also a matter of fact, I will not give it my credit. It needs to stay in the dirty corner, since it won't go away. I think that is realistic but I am not making myself an advocate for it.
I don't mind porn. I think it's a wonderful invention and a surefire way to boot up the kinky circuits of the brain.
Well, you could argue that I am prostituting myself online right now. I have certain skills and knowledge that I'm willing to share with you for a like. So, don't forget to leave me a tip 😉
I could, but I wouldn't. Since you are not making yourself naked in front of me, and I didn't ask for it.
To my question if you'd want your madam/sister/daughter to sell porn, whether off- or online, I take no answer for a "no". Except you beg to differ ;)
It's a fascinating building, so much good architecture and all those details... it's amazing!😍
These ruins are beautifully and intricately carved. It's a place full of surprises.
That's the most beautiful thing, when something surprises us. Beautiful place!
Congratulations @litguru! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 19000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
👏 Keep Up the good work on Hive ♦️ 👏
🙏 Don't forget to Support Back 🙏