Amazon.com: The temple of Konarak: erotic Spirituality;: Photographs Eliot Elisofon; text Alan Watts (9780500231401): Eliot Elisofon: Books

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful photograohy, May 15, 2005

By	wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

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The temples at Konarak and Kajuraho confuse many Western observers. We have some sense of the sacred, and are well (maybe too well) aware of our sexuality. We just don't put the two together. When we look up into a niche in a church's wall, we expect to see statues, but not of couples embracing.

India, around the thirteenth century, saw the duality of man and woman as a holy thing. As an agricultural people, they knew first-hand how the continuing force of fertility sustained them. They also knew the intense human power of intercourse, and saw the sacred in it. That ongoing act of creation sustained their living world, and the gods had seen fit to make man and woman a vital part of it. Of course it was proper to acknowledge that directly. This book captures many beautiful fragments of that acknowledgement.

Elisofon's photos show the general plan of the temple at Konarak, and many of the wonderfully carved details that cover every remaining wall. Some are parables and symbols of a more recognizably religious sort, and some honor other gifts of life, such as music. Many, however portray men and women - sometimes several of each - coupling in every way available to the fertile imaginations of the stonecarvers. There is endless variety in the display, much of which has eroded with time. Still, some of the carvings (p.107 for example) are achingly beautiful.

Alan Watts wrote the explanatory text around the pictures, showing how the sacred notion of sexuality spring naturally from many facts of Hindu life. One facet had to do with praise of the living world, certainly. The physical practices also draw on the same tradition as yoga, using the body in disciplined ways to explore the holy. Yet another interpretation comes from the knowledge that a person's life includes a life among other people. Proper social intercourse is part of a proper life, including the proper behavior of men and women together.

This book calls out to be read and reread, partly for the inherent beauty of the temple carvings. It also reminds my Western sensibility that there are other, possible better ways of combining the human and holy worlds.

//wiredweird