The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.147.1

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.