xii
Illustrations
IV. From the Temple of Surya— Page 69
This is another life-sized group of many in different sizes on this temple frankly depicting the sexual episode. Though this subject has here perhaps attained its most happy expression, it is the theme of many representations on many Indian temples. For the Hindoo mind openly faced the sexual function as the reality it is, one of the expressions of the divine mind. They held it as a peculiarly sacred and godlike function in themselves. The great number of their religious laws dealing with the sexual, the place it occupies in secular literature, show that its significance in the life of man was recognized by them at its inherent importance. And, as can be seen in these sculptures, they were not content to classify and elucidate its manifestations in writing alone. As though they would insure the uninitiate from any mistake they even illustrated the subject in stone. . . . . One commentator on this work has been so hardy as to suggest it is merely an imaginative depiction of the heavenly joys awaiting the faithful believer. But, distinctive in Indian art as this work is, the Hindoos were too serious artists and too bound up in the legends of their theology to permit us to presume that these sculptures were other than illustrations of religious subjects taken from their mythology. One wonders, however, just why so much of the decorations on a temple to the sun should depict the sexual. Neither the sect of the Sauras (which had its origin in a Persian influence) nor that of Surya (the ancient Vedic divinity of the sun) has as a principal part of its mysteries those connected with the union of the sexes. There is, however, a sect, the Sahtas, worship of woman, which does emphasize the sexual element. Many of the figures on this Audience Hall suggest a fusion of the sect of Surya with that of Naga (or some other sect of serpent worshippers) as well as with that of Sahta.
V. Apsaras humbling an Ascetic— Page 89
The subject of this group suggests the influence of the ideas of a serpent cult. Serpent worship is still one of the religions of India. It was formerly very widespread, and influenced the decoration of many other monuments, especially the Buddhist stupas of Sanchi and Amravati. The intimate association of the serpent with woman in the minds of all primitive peoples is not as obvious as its association with the lingam (phallus). Here the substitution of the serpent for the male organ is suggested. . . . This group appears to illustrate a part of Brahmanical belief associated with the Apsaras. They were originally spirits of the clouds and waters, semi-divine nymphs said to have sprung from the churning of the ocean. In the Rig-Veda there is but one Apsaras, who, as the wife of Gandharva, gave birth to the first mortals Yama and Yami. In the heroic age there are many Apsaras and many Gandharvas who form part of the retinue of Indra, the first as dancers, the second as musicians. One of the uses the gods had for the beautiful Apsaras was a means of humbling the over-
