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Aaditya and Me by Aditya Joshi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License

Friday, January 08, 2010

Photo blog 2 : Bharatiya sanskriti

The picture on the left is a poster of the film 'Kurbaan' - A poster that was considered inappropriate according to 'Bharatiya Sanskriti' (Indian culture).

The picture on the right is the photograph of a Before-Christ-dated carving from a Buddhist stupa kept at National Museum, Delhi. I have clicked the picture on the right.

When I saw this piece of relic at the museum, it so reminded me of the film poster. Temples and other religious places in Hinduism have depicted human forms in a very bold manner. This is because Hinduism believed that body is a temple too. It was surprising to note that the lady in the statue was shown with complete back nudity. (I cropped the picture below the waist.)




A Bharatiya sanskriti that regarded love as a divine act and depicted human figures in sensuous poses in their temples and other places of worship, today burns down Valentine's day cards and drapes a sari around Kareena.

6 comments:

  1. wot striking resemblance....thts so unbelievable.....awesome

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  2. Well, here goes my 2 paisa worth.

    Art in India has since the days of Ramayana and Mahabharata has been laced with beauty in the form of erotic art, be it Prose, poetry, paintings or Sculptures ; As they say "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and so does obscenity", the very things that depicted the daily lives of couples and courtesans were etched out in the form of sculptures as in Khajuraho or in the form of treatises like Kamasutra.

    Objections to the same has been since time immemorial ; Do you think an Aryabhatta would have approved of a Vatsyayana ? But the objection of the same would not be as vitriolic as seen in the modern era. The reason is each treatise was considered an important contribution to Art, which depicts the Indian culture and way of life. Such a broad-level understanding is painfully missing now.

    Do look at the Khajuraho art in http://arts.indianetzone.com/sculpture/1/khajuraho.htm.

    Also read about the golden age of Indian culture in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire.

    Hope you got the gist of what i wanted to convey !!!

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  3. An awesome thought to which I agree to the fullest..
    This blogpost of yours is my favouritest till date!

    Especially the line below the pic.. :)

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  4. One of d best blogs written! Bharitya Sanskriti also mentioned INSANIYAT which is long lost "word" in d books somewhere rusting in the closet...... :-) ... Very nice AJ

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