A temple dedicated to Surya, the Sun God

Press, 23 October 1976, Page 14

A temple dedicated to Surya, the Sun God

The remains of medieval temples stand along Orissa’s sefacoast, the Bay of Bengal, defying time and tide. The most spectacular — the most awesome — of these is the stone complex at Konarak.

Konarak is a small town in Orissa state (North-East India), a state where ancient India is preserved and alive in an India which is rapidly becoming Westernised, industrialised and disunified.

It was here, standing in the middle of an enormous stone chariot built in the 13th century by the devotion and exquisite craftsmanship of the Hindu worshippers of the SunGood, Surya, that I perceived the culmination of my nine months in India. Before this I had experienced only brief glimpses of the India preconceived in New Zealand, evoked by photographs of ancient architecture, classical Sitar music, Indian legends. Most of the phenomenal attractions I had visited before Konarak were in a state of decay ‘ and so overrun by beggars and busloads of Indian tourists and street sellers that I was not granted a moment’s peace to observe the grandeur of the architecture or to absorb the vibrations of the past. I would seek refuge in the shadow of a pillar and try to begin my journey back to the civilisation that thrived when the temple was continually worshipped in, or when the rajah was at the height df his reign. I would be jolted back to India today with the plea of: “Piasa memsahab,” from a ragged beggar child; or the deamd of: “Excuse me, madam, what is your native country?” from a plump Indian tourist; or: “You want to buy this peacock fan? only one rupee — very cheap,” from a persistent wallah.

But Konarak was different. Undoubtedly the beauty of Konarak was enhanced by the absence of these obstructions. I was able to sit in solitude and strongly feel the energy within the stones composing the temple — energy released by the millions of devotees of Lord Siva who had worshipped within > these walls. In , this state of transcendence I knew of the all-pervading India. No longer existed the extremes of ancient and modern. I realised that I had been viewing India superficially, judging it by Athe standards taught by my own Western conditioning, trying to categorise arid analyse it in terms of my understanding instead of accepting it intuitively — India as it was.

At this point there was no dichotomy; the chasm of confusion between the banks of alienation and identification closed. I saw India like a complex weaving.

The temple to Surya, the Sun-God, is a physical representation built with the indestructible strength of the warp in the form of an enormous chariot in

which Surya is going on his diurnal “joy ride.”

On its 20 'wheels 12ft tall a central, elaborately sculptured pyramid is supported by hundreds of caryatids: celestial courtesans, angel-gods, serpent mermaids, genii and celesital musicians.

Seen from the air, the pyramid centre of Surya’s “float” is a mandala — a f o u r-fold flower-form image. (The madala is used throughout the Hindu-Buddhist world as a symbol of integration and wholeness). The building is square, built in classical Indian style, measuring 100 ft long on each side and 100 ft high. Seven life-size horses and two attendant elephants are sculptured out of one slab of stone. Like most Hindu temples the temple to Surya has an innermost shrine. Here the lingurn — a stone phallus 4ft high — stands upright in the centre.

The lingum symbolises Siva (lord of destruction and evil), one of the paramount trinity of Hindu deities"— tire other two being Bhrama (creator) and Vishnu (protector). The lingum is usually bathed in milk and oil by devotees as a focal point of temple ceremony.

This ritual, as with the erotic sculptures carved in stone slabs and pieced together in the walls of the temple, will be misinterpreted by one who approaches it with the attitude that sexuality and spirituality are polar opposites.

For many Indians, too, the erotic imagery of their ancient temples is as embarrasing as the Karmasutra itself, for they have lost sight of the connection between the ritual and its origin.

The postures assumed by the figures are yogic in nature. Yoga, being a way of correcting our perception of reality by focusing on immediate experience, teaches us not to confuse that we perceive with what we conceive. The act of sexual union as portrayed in the Konarak carvings is a complex and elegant ritual — an act of mutual worship between god and goddess. The emphasis is on prolonged erotic tension in union with the female partner.

The carvings embody a combination of worship and sex and impress that the state of ecstatic joyousness of one is synonomous with the other.

The couples transcend their personalities to become the primordial pair representing the creative and receptive power or the active and passive principle of the universe — as conveyed by Siva and his consort, Shakti. The Konarak structure houses a multitude of couples and groups captured in such blissful states that the mind cannot help contrast the pornographic attitude reflected in the sexual imagery which controls our advertising, thinking, and patterns of relating to one another in the West.