The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.147.2

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.