Hearken, O Mādhava, what more can I say?
Nought can I find to compare with love:

Though the sun of the East should rise in the West,
Yet would not love be far from the worthy,

Or if I should write the stars of heaven on earth,
Or if I could pour from my hands the water of all the sea.

-- Vidyapati

I feel my body vanishing into the dust whereon my beloved walks.

I feel one with the water of the lake where he bathes.

Oh friend, my love crosses death's boundary when I meet him.

My heart melts in the light and merges in the mirror whereby he views his
face.

I move with the air to kiss him when he waves his fan, and wherever he
wanders I enclose him like the sky.

Govindadas says, “You are the gold-setting, fair maiden, he is the
emerald”

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows – then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, – then let your heart say in awe, “God moves in passion.”
And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

-- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Open your eyes ...

Open your eyes ...

Mirror-pond of stars …

Suddenly a summer

shower

Dimples the water.

-- Sesshi

He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty(and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)—a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

“This, my dear Socrates”, said the stranger of Mantineia, “is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute.... But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.Would that be an ignoble life?”

-- Plato, Symposium

Thursday, February 8, 2024

3-Headed Ithyphallic Shiva (?) on a Lotus, from a temple in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.


A couple of pics taken by me in my romp around Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.

This seems to be an image of a 3-headed Shiva, on a temple in the vicinity of the Liṅgarāj Temple.




































I’m not absolutely sure of the identity of the God, but given that it’s ithyphallic, Shiva seems to be the best candidate.

The hands are mostly broken, and it’s difficult to ascertain what objects the deity is holding.

I’m wondering if this is akin to the Sadāshiva Maheshamūrti statue at Elephanta, where the right head depicts the ferocious masculine aspect, and the left head depicts the beautiful, sensual feminine.

I’m also not sure whether we can see the deity’s fangs.

It appears to be so.

A similar image is found at the 64-Yoginī Temple at Hirapur (very close to Bhubaneshwar) and some (with a few differences) at the Brahmeshwar Temple in BBSR.

Shiva is invariably depicted with an erect phallus in the temples of Odisha.

That is supposed to be the sign of absolute & total control over the seminal flow & sex drive: the sign of a Yogin.

It is a little strange to modern sensibilities, though, that a Yogin will be depicted with a perpetually erect penis.

Also, Shiva is ithyphallic in temples of Odisha in all sorts of positions & situations – whether He is dancing, or in a depiction of what looks like His marriage with Pārvatī in the Parashurāmeshwar Temple.

In images like this one, He’s seen sitting on a lotus whose stalk grows out of (what looks like) the navel of a smiling, recumbent figure.

Whatever that means.

There seems to be an esoteric Yogic significance, but I can’t be sure.







































This is a similar image from the Chaunsath (64) Yoginī Temple at Hirapur, taken by me in January 2017:






























The extant temples of Odisha are replete with graphic erotica, and seem to contain little references to any of our ancient mythological texts.

Who are all these men and women who are having wild sex all over the place?

It looks like nobody knows the answers to these questions today.

Or maybe some people do, maybe a few hundred in the whole world, but they choose to remain silent, and let these mysteries tantalize & agonize the rest of mankind.

The gods & goddesses are, undoubtedly, canonical, but you’ll be hardput to find many images depicting scenes from, say, the Mahābhārata.

Of course, they’ve probably been lost, because the temples are heavily destroyed & denuded.

Yet, even the remaining figures hardly meet the typical religious Hindu’s’ expectations, and almost nobody could tell you who is who.

This particular temple seems to have been excavated in the past few years, and most of it is painfully damaged – the images are severely eroded, and many figures lost.

Yet, there was something, and it is worth a perusal.




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