Khajuraho (in a triveni with Changes in Indology, Mbh ref.)

[mrabe at artic.edu]

Friends in the cross-cultural business,
        Isn't it often the case that statements that seem patently idoitic
or profaning in one context may contain a welcome truth when
sympathetically construed as emenating from a very different
mindset/discipline or language?

For example, when M. Rajagopalan states that photographs of bestiality or
group-sex at Khajuraho do not give "the correct interpretation of what the
Hindu temple stands for," my first impulse is to protest!  The simple act
of exhibiting objective fact cannot be labeled misinterpretation.  The
likelihood that misinterpretations may abound in subsequent literature is a
different problem--one that keeps later generations of scholars gainfully
employed, thank you very much.

In hopes of finding common ground upon which we two M.R.s may stand, I
recall how helpful to was to read, way back when, this cautionary insight
in W.C. Smith's _Meaning and End of Religion_.  Though it has seemed an
obvious truism ever since, it came as Revelation to my undergraduate
attention:  everyone tends to judge their own religious tradition (or other
cultural biases) in the _Ideal_, while scrutinizing the _real_ (however
aberrant) practices of others.

Thus, while some on this list are wondering about the intentions of
architects, royal patrons and their KApAlika ministrants at 11th c.
Khajuraho, others (naturally) wish to reconcile whatever picture may emerge
with normative statements about _The Hindu Temple_ in general. [Good Luck!]

Rather than speculate further about where that purported inscription is in
Khajuraho (on the walls of a 20th c. temple or guest house, perhaps?) I
conclude with an appeal to keep the Indology listserv unchanged. Can we not
tolerate the the rough and tumble that is inherent when participants speak
from such a variety of vantages, even as we learn to exercise the
Trash-button on our e-mail applications with ever-more blinding speed in
this age of infoglut?