I spent the past few days in Puri, Orissa. I've been wanting to visit Orissa ever since I read
Gopinath Mohanty's Paraja in 12th grade. While I didn't get to visit a village the way I wanted to, I did get to speak with a few village artists.
The people of Orissa are simple, friendly and artistic. When a person gets married, their house is painted on the outside with the local tribal art called "Shora" (I'm unsure of the spelling/pronunciation). It's very similar to the Warli art of Maharashtra, which is absolutely gorgeous.
One of the artists handed me a brush and a piece of parchment the colour of clay, and told me to try out the unique art style for myself. I enthusiastically dipped the brush into the coconut shell full of white paint, and proceeded to make what I thought would turn out to be a cow. Needless to say, it looked like nothing like a cow. It looked nothing like any animal, for that matter. At least the artist had the decency to turn away while chuckling. I didn't bother to take a picture of it. Just imagine a cross between a donkey and a tree. Ah well.
Moving on. I had the opportunity to visit the famous Konark Sun Temple -- one of the most famous historical sites in India. Some people claim that it rivals the Taj Mahal itself. I've seen both, and while I feel the Taj is more awe-inspiring, I was still absolutely floored by the experience.
The Sun Temple is the main building out of four on the premises. It is also the only one that is almost completely standing; the others are pretty run down. Right in front of the Sun Temple is the Dancing Hall. The statues on either side of the entrance are of a lion on top of an elephant on top of a man. It depicts one religion conquering another. The man is Hinduism, the elephant is Buddhism, and the lion is the return of Hinduism.
The carvings all around and inside the Dancing Hall depict hundreds of dance forms and positions. Each one is unique. A somewhat surprising and amusing revelation was that our female ancestors used purses and high heels! A number of sculptures showed accessories like those -- things we would otherwise consider to be 'modern'.
The Sun Temple itself is modeled after the chariot the Sun God rides, with 24 wheels and 7 horses.
Each wheel is a sun dial, and is divided to represent time. The carvings in this particular wheel tell the story of a woman's day. Things like: waking up, taking care of children, going to the market, and sex at night.
The Sun Temple is divided vertically into 3 unequal parts, to represent the 3 phases of a human's life: childhood, youth, old age. Children are fascinated by animals and enjoy playing, so hundreds of tiny elephants run along the bottom of the temple.
To represent youth, most of the temple is covered with hundreds of sculptures related to sex. Not only are all of the Kama Sutra positions carved into the stone, different scenarios and various fetishes are depicted as well. It seems my ancestors enjoyed group sex and even relations with animals... There are carvings of women with snakes and dogs, of infidelity, of same-gender relationships and anything else you could possibly imagine -- even things you could not. I was pretty taken aback at the amount of detail put into these carvings.
It's interesting that people were more open about physical intimacy hundreds of years ago than they are now, in this country. I do wonder how we went from writing the Kama Sutra to freaking out about a single kiss in a movie...
The third phase in a human's life, that of old age and wisdom, is represented by spirituality. Towards the top of the temple there are carvings of the Sun God and other gods in different meditational poses.
I've included only a few of the pictures my husband and I took. The rest can be found
here.
