ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON  DAY 335/99/11: KHAJURAHO, INDIA

Most Khajuraho temples were built between 885 CE and 1000 CE by the Chandela dynasty, and the temple complex comprised 85 temples by the 12th century, spread over 20 square kilometers. Of these, only about 25 temples have survived, spread over six square kilometers, including the Kandariya Mahadeva Temple decorated with sculptures of intricate detail, symbolism and expression of ancient Indian art. When the erotic sculptures were built, the boys lived in hermitages, being brahmcharis (bachelor) until they attained manhood, and the sexually explicit sculptures helped them to learn about the worldly role of 'householder'.

The Khajuraho temples feature sexual or erotic art and tantric sexual practices outside and inside the temples.  The erotic arts are part of the Hindu tradition of treating kama as an essential and proper part of human life, and its symbolic or explicit display is common in Hindu temples.

Kama is sexual desire and broadly includes any desire, wish, passion, pleasure, or enjoyment of art and beauty, and enjoyment of love. The earliest foundations of the kamasutra are found in ancient Vedic era literature of Hinduism:

"A fire – that is what a woman is, Gautama.
Her firewood is the vulva,
her smoke is the pubic hair,
her flame is the vagina,
when one penetrates her, that is her embers,
and her sparks are the climax.
In that very fire the gods offer semen,
and from that offering springs a man.

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 6.2.13, c. 700 BCE"

Our 1980 westbound Trip Book reads: “DAY 11. 28.09.80

Arrived at Khajuraho around 1.30. Had a beaut crunchy lunch, cleaned up & got ourselves primed for Erotica.

Wow!!!

MUST re-enrol in my yoga classes when I get back to Canada if I’m ever to get into those positions.

Still reckon standing on the head cannot be a comfy position.

2 hr tour by a well spoken guide who pronounced “arse” most classily.

Dennis was your bottom that itchy??

Wendy lay in a very compromising position so she could “get it all in”.

The sites at Khajuraho made Marion and Sara very hungry – so we went to the Restaurant - & Corrie decided to come along too, as she said she couldn’t understand any of it – what do you expect @ 18 years of age?”
 

Khajuraho was a courier’s dream tourist stop. I didn’t have to give my own spiel in places like this, as the local tour guides are well versed in all of the temples and positions, and are more than happy to show a western group of mainly females the local sites, even asking Corrie if she’d like to be shown this or that position …... (or maybe that was me).

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=khajuraho+erotic+temples&qpvt=khajuraho+erotic+temples&form=IGRE&first=1&scenario=ImageBasicHover

↑ Day 98 ↓ Day 100