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Showing posts from October, 2016

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2023 - The Year That Was

Places impact you for a variety of reasons. And the same place impacts different people in different ways. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual experiences, where every single person’s experience is unique. And personally, every spiritual experience is unique, the same person can have different deeply spiritual experiences at different places, at different times. This thought has emerged because of my own experiences over the years, but especially so this year, with different and unique experiences at various places I have visited recently. I began this year with a visit to Baroda (Vadodara) with friends. It was meant to be a relaxed trip, a touristy trip, with our sons. We enjoyed ourselves to the hilt, but the highlight of that trip was a visit to the Lakulisha temple at Pavagadh. It was the iconography of the temple that I connected with, and I spent a few hours simply lost in the details of the figures carved around the temple. There was an indefinable connect with

Khajuraho - Forms of Shiva

Shiva, at Khajuraho , like almost everywhere else, is worshipped in the form of a Lingam. No matter how elaborate and intricate the temple and its sculptures, in the sanctum stands his aniconic form. Lingam in the sanctum of the Vishwanatha Temple

Khajuraho - Forms of Vishnu

I have written about the temples of Khajuraho , and as the philosophy behind them . Yet, there is so much more to see and appreciate, so let me show you the temples through a different lens - by taking you on a visual journey of the temples through their amazing sculptures, identifying some  of the many forms in which deities are portrayed. I begin with the various Forms of Vishnu.. ....

Khajuraho - The Temple as Cosmos

The temples at Khajuraho are , at once, awe-inspiring by their size and architectural splendour; and overwhelming by the profusion and intricacy of the detailing. There is something to admire at every level – from the minutest details only seen up close, to the overall effect as seen from afar, or, in a modern parlance, from the micro the macro scale.

The Magnificent Temples of Khajuraho - Looking beyond the erotic

Jaws dropped in astonishment when I announced that I was taking my 12 year old son to Khajuraho. A barrage of questions followed. “Are you sure?” “Isn’t he too young?” “How will you explain all those erotic sculptures?” Even family members shook their heads and sighed in resignation, as I stood resolute, secure in my assertion that there was more to Khajuraho than just the erotic sculptures!

Khajuraho - The Unexpected

Khajuraho . The very name conjures up exotic images of erotic art on temple walls. However, there is so much more to Khajuraho than just the erotic, or even just temples. Last December, Samhith and I spent three days at Khajuraho, exploring as much of the ancient town as we could, and over the next few weeks, I shall try to show you the Khajuraho that we saw, beginning with this photo clicked at the Kandariya Mahadev Temple. The Kandariya Mahadev is one of the most impressive temples at Khajuraho, and it’s the details which make it so impressive. This particular figure is of Agni, the God of Fire. Here, though, he is one of the Ashta-Dikpalas , the guardians of the 8 directions. Agni guards the South-East, and it’s his placement on the South East wall of the temple, which allows us to identify him here. Notice the finer details, such as his beard…. These photos are among my favourites; among the hundreds I clicked at Khajuraho, thanks to this female Plum-Headed