The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.147

Language: English

v1.c9.147.1

**Obscenity**: In describing the merits of Orissan art I must not forget to notice the despicable taste which the artists have displayd by making some of their figures most disgustingly obscene. By this I do not refer to their nudity, for, as justly observed by professor Lübke, "the task of sculpture is to conceive man in the full natural beauty. Hence the nude figure in its strictest sense is required. The perfect harmony and beauty of the whole can only be displayed in the unclothed form". This canon has been more or less accepted by artists and men of taste in every age and clime, and the Uriyās have rather evinced a true sense of the proper sphere of sculpture by chiselling the nude, and not thereby given offence to good taste.⁵⁸ But, they have added thereto certain licentious representations which do not admit of description. Their number is small, and they by no means enter into the general scheme of ornamentation of the temples; but there they are; and their existence cannot but offer a violent shock to all modern sense of propriety and decency. I enquired of many learned pandits at Puri, as to why such offensive figures had been allowed to desecrate the sanctuary of the Divinity; but they could tell me nothing worth hearing. In one instance obscenity in a temple has been accounted for on the supposition of its being expiatory.

v1.c9.147.2

In a note on Kajraha with reference to Rashiduddin's mention of that town, Sir Henry Elliot states that "in the *Prithvirāj Rāyasā* mention is made of a Brāhmaṇ woman, Hemavatī by name, who had committed a little *faux pas* with the moon in human shape, and, as a self-imposed punishment for her indiscretion, held a Bāṇḍā jag, a part of which ceremony consists in sculpturing indecent representations on the walls of temples, and holding up one's foibles to the disgust and ridicule of the world".⁵⁹ The story occurs in the Ist Canto of the Benares MS. of Cānd, and in Mr. Growse's translation of it,⁶⁰ mention is made of the Bhāṇḍava sacrifice, but without any allusion to indecent representations on temples, and I can nowhere find a description of the ceremony in any Sanskrit work. Possibly there may be some authority for it, and the obscenity on Hemavati's temple at Khārjinpur or Kajraha might be accounted for on the supposition that she wished to expiate her fault by a disgustingly public confession. But it is scarcely to be supposed that all the principal sculptured temples of Orissa owe their indecent ornaments to a like cause, and I am disposed to think that the explanation is more ingenious than true. It is much more probable that the indecent figures on the old Central Indian temples were due to the same cause which produced them in Orissa. What that cause was, it is difficult now to say with perfect certainty.

v1.c9.147.3

A vitiated taste aided by general prevalence of immorality might at first sight appear to be the most likely one; but I cannot believe that libidinousness, however depraved, would even think of selecting fanes dedicated to the worship of God, as the most appropriate for its manifestation; for it is worthy of remark that they occur almost exclusively on temples and their attached porches, and never on enclosing walls, gateways, and other non-religious structures. "Our ideas of propriety", according to Voltaire, "lead us to suppose that a ceremony" (like the worship of Priapus), "which appears to us so infamous, could only be invented by licentiousness; but [**66**] it is impossible to believe that depravity of manners would ever have led among any people to the establishment of religious ceremonies. It is probable, on the contrary, that this custom was first introduced in times of simplicity, that the first thought was to honor the deity in the symbol of life which it has given us; such a ceremony may have excited licentiousness among youths, and have appeared ridiculous to men of education in more refined, more corrupt, and more enlightened times", but it never has its origin in such feelings. Besides, vicious propensities have, in India, been everywhere and at all times most emphatically denounced, and there is no creed known in this country which does not condemn it as hateful.

v1.c9.147.4

It is out of the question, therefore, to suppose that a general prevalence of vice would of itself, without the authority of priests and scriptures, suffice to lead to the defilement of holy temples. A religious sanction for it must be sought, and this, I believe, occurs in the fact of most of the temples on which the offensive figures are shown being dedicated to the mystical adoration of the phallic emblem. From a very early period in the history of religion, the phallic element has held a prominent place in the mind of man. Most of the leading religions of the ancient world—the Egyptian, the Chaldean, the Assyrian, and the Mosaic—manifested it in some form or other; and in primitive unsophisticated states of society, when philosophical conceptions of the mystery of generation "had not yet given to the various parts and members of the human body, those names which constitute the special vocabulary of obscenity of the present day, many symbols and representations were not only held inoffensive, but sacred", and their presence on ancient monuments, therefore, cannot be a matter of surprise.

v1.c9.147.5

According to Dulaure the symbolic figure carried in procession during the festival of Osiris and Isis, (*Iśvara* = *Śiva*, and his consort *īśā*) was a representation of the phallus of the bull.⁶¹ In the *Old Testament*, allusion is made to Jewish women manufacturing phalli of gold and of silver.⁶² In an interesting memoir on the worship of Śiva in Europe in former times, Professor Holmboe cites an extract from an ancient history of King St. Olaf, who introduced Christianity in Norway, in which mention is made of a pagan family residing in the province of Nordland, "qui adorait le linga d'un cheval, qu'on avait tué, mais dont on avait conservé le veretrum. Les soirs cette piece passait de main en main non seulement parmi les personnes de la famille, mais encore parmi les hotes qui pussent ctre presents, chaqu ’un récitait un verset en délivrant l’idole a un autre”.⁶³ In one of the apartments of the great palace at Karnak, there are several figures representing “une offrande d’un heros Egyptien a la grande divinité de Thébes au Dieu regénérateur caractérisé par le membre viril en érection,”⁶⁴ and these are repeated in the interior of its great granite Propylon and other places. In obscenity they are scarcely inferior to the works of the Uriyā artists.