Khajuraho: The Land of Kinky Temples

My second stop, Khajuraho, led to the emergence of a pattern that would continue throughout the rest of our India travels. Of course, since it was the first occurence, at this point, it was not yet a recognizable pattern. I honestly believed that Khajuraho was and would remain my very favorite city in India.

I loved the tranquility and accessibility of this small town and the temples we had come to see were remarkable beyond all expectations. It was unfathomable to me that any place on our itinerary could surpass this one. That is, until I got to the next city and felt the need to proclaim that one my all-time favorite, bestest place ever. I did this a total of four times.

The reason we went to Khajuraho, and the reason anybody goes to this remote town with practically non-existent rail service in Madhya Pradesh, was to see the UNESCO World Heritage kinky temples. Mind you, I don't think they are officially billed as "kinky temples", but they may as well be. The Hindu and Jain temples, built between 950 and 1150, feature thousands of delicately carved figures.

The majority of these show Hindu deities or people engaged in everyday activities, however, it is 10-15% of the work that gets all the attention. These are euphemistically referred to as the "erotics" but what they are is beautifully executed historic porn. Think of a man/ woman/ farm animal combination and chances are it is there on display, carved in stone, for the world to see. It does not take much of a stretch of the imagination to see why this lures tourists from all over the world.

What baffled me is that they do not get more visitors or even more press, for that matter. Isn't "sex sells" the golden rule of advertising? Perhaps it's just me, but before we started researching India, I had never even heard of these temples. They may have been declared one of the Seven Wonders of India, but where they belong is on the better-publicized list of Seven World Wonders. Never mind the erotics, those are just the tawdry come-ons that draws the visitor in, it is the artistry and the symmetry of the temples that left me open-mouthed and in love with Khajuraho. To think that human hands had taken blocks of stone and created thousands of these graceful, lively figures, each with its own unique contented expression and yet Rio's Big-Ass Jesus in on the World Wonder list, and not this, is almost too much to bear. While I was walking around contemplating this, I decided that I would come up with my own list of 7 World Wonders, but since, counting Khajuraho, I am still only at 5 sights worthy of the title, my list will have to wait.

There were initially 85 temples, all built during the Chandela dynasty. When the dynasty disappeared, so did the temples. They were abandoned and dense jungle grew up and around the temples, protecting them from discovery by the Mughals, who would have surely seen to their destruction. In the mid to late 19th century, a British soldier stumbled upon them and after extensive excavations, 25 temples were unearthed. The missing temples were either torn down to be reused as building materials (it is disturbingly common to see carved figures adorning the side of a home or the inside of a water well) or still lay undiscovered. The surviving ones are spread out over an area of 8 square miles and are divided into 3 groups: western, eastern and southern.

The western group is the best preserved and thus the one recognized by UNESCO and not coincidentally, the only one that charges an admission fee. It is also the only place where it is possible to rent an audioguide, but be warned, the walkman-style tape players used are relics that may have once belonged to the original sculptors themselves. The content is quite good at explaining the history of the temples and pointing out many details that one might otherwise miss, but the players are pitiful. They are held together with rubber bands and require the listener to struggle to keep the tape from falling out while constantly pressing stop and play (good luck if you mess up since there is no rewind or ff) while you wander in search of the next numbered sign. If only the temples received the recognition they are justly entitled to, maybe then, the caretakers could invest in digital players, just like every other touristical site on earth.

After a morning exploring the western group, we took a rickshaw tour to the eastern and southern groups. Along the way, we stopped to walk through a small rural village. It is here that I would like to explore the second common myth about India, that it is a filthy, neglected place with garbage and dung everywhere you look. Berti's Mythbuster conclusion #2: yes and no. The streets of the village (and by extension, all of India) are shared by cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, cows, dogs, goats, monkeys, buffalo and pedestrians, all contributing in their own special way to the ambient pollution. It is not difficult to find garbage piled in the streets and I can attest to the ease with which one can step into an unidentifiable piles of shit with alarming frequency (and for the record, I don't care what they say in Romania, it is not good luck....to paraphrase my friend, Todd, if it was, it would not keep happening over and over). However, it is just as common to spot people, from morning to night, sweeping, scrubbing, wiping or tidying up their homes and businesses (not just in the village, put in every single place we visited).It is a Sisyphean task that most sensible people would abandon immediately. How do you possibly compete against the onslaught that is India? Yet, they do, every single day. The effort, although not always rewarded, is very much there. So, while I can not say that the sanitation levels match those in, say, western Europe, it is an absolute fallacy to accuse anyone of neglect or of not caring. If anything, I say they are to be admired for keeping up the effort against such tall odds.

For pristine vistas and clean air, one can visit a part of the jungle that once enveloped the temples. Panna National Park is the perfect antidote to that temple'd out feeling and at, 57 kilometers distance, makes for a very easy day trip. It is billed as a tiger preserve, but at best, that is now a misnomer and at worst, it is an outright lie. Only a few years ago, Panna had 34 tigers but soulless poachers and corrupt park officials colluded to bring that number down to zero. Supposedly security has been increased and three tigers have been relocated from other parks and outfitted with collars, but perhaps due to an awareness of the fate their predecessors met, they are wisely keeping a low-profile. Despite the efforts of our enthusiastic guide, there were no felines sightings to be had. Instead, during our early morning game drive we saw spotted deer, sambal deer, languar monkeys, plenty of birds and some rocks that our guide insisted were crocodiles. Had we not gone in with hopes of seeing a tiger, our drive would have rated as a really great way to begin the day appreciating nature, and to be honest that is how I felt about it, but it's not easy getting over the kind of disappointment that absent tigers can generate. Our guide tried to console us by promising regular tiger sightings by 2012. Call me an optimist but I think I will take him up on it. It is, after all, my favorite city.




















What I loved was the amount of detail, check out the pattern of the bed spread under the 69 couple and how her hair is flowing over the side of the bed.


A buffalo cooling off in a local village pond.


These detached sculptures now make up a make-shift altar in a small village we visited.


Jain Temples in the Eastern Group.


Panna National Park.


A spotted deer.


An Indian Roller.

Comments

  1. Khajuraho is in my top 5 favorite places to go to India until now ;) and I
    completly love how you encourage people to visit India by presenting them
    Berti's Mythbuster conclusion....well done woman !!!!
    We had a lot of fun here ... driving ... erotic temples ...Do you remember when Lena wanted to wear short pants ? !! that was cool !!! and Super Mario...and Momo...and the tigers that we didnt see ;)) ...yoga class...and many more... old village and the beautiful children ...people have to go there if they want to know more :))

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