What is the lore behind erotic temple carvings? You know those ones, when in a state filled with compliant reverence to the temple gods, you happened to look up and lo there on the roof support fly-columns, were portly men with raging hard ons, women amply displaying their mawing gashes, fellatio, various positions, and if I recall correctly some bestiality as well.
Personally I thought they brought you down to pleasant earth in a similar opposing force with which hinduism took you off on mystical spiritual flights. Intensity bothways, and you try to find yourself somewhere in the middle.
True that in the meantime the thought police, intellectual posers, cultural perverters-- self imposed or external, have rendered it impossible to engage in such titillating adventure such as finding yourself in the land of contradictions, chase the somewhat elusive but brilliant flashes of inspirations perhaps glimpses of truth itself (singularity of the objective and the subjective, inner and the outer, I and you and them).

Who knows?

The story I heard goes like this. Once upon a time in ancient Nepal, society became really orthodox and sex became a sin. As a result people stopped having sex. And abstinence meant lesser babies. So the population dwindled. Less chidlren meant less people to work in the fertile fields of Kathmandu. Agricultural production went down. Things got bad.Then someone in the King's court came up with a idea. He said, what if we show pictures of the gods having sex - maybe people will not think so badly of sex. That's apparently how it all started re. The rest, as they say, is history.

:)

interesting....but then the similar hindu sculptures are all about India ...almost all hindu countries..hindu's never been a religion a way of life..that was lived thousands of centuries ago..just like the mummies in egypt, the sculpture represent the common day to day activies..mahabaharat ramayans..those epics..i don't think that they were all gods and goddesees..so many human errors, everything was sculpted..later on erotic ones were mostly copied like the ones in the Sherpa hotel..or about almost everywhere in patan...ktm..temple..i guess people noticce them more too..i think if i'd paint a nude lady it'll sell better than one in a frock...and therefore the artisans had to sell more of those..to live..thats my 2 cents

Plus i love my religion cause :
a. it doesn't impose on anyone
b. there's sdo much freedom, if you can justify yourself you can get away with murder
c. my ganesh gives me anything and everything that i ask for..provided i fatten him up with more laddoos

I heard Joseph Campbell, of the Power of Myth fame, talks about Nepalese temple architecture in one of the Power of Myth episodes. I am not sure if he addresses this specific aspect of architecture but my curuoisity has peaked and I may buy or rent the series to see what he has to say. I did catch some of the episodes on PBS but must have missed out on the one about Nepal.

By the way, the story I heard was from a guy in Patan who had family in the wooden sculpture business. It is most likely a grandmothers tale passed on down generations and may not have a sound factual or scientific basis.

I saw bits and pieces of Campbell as well, in PBS. I would venture that if the erotic carvings came up at all, would be in the context of uncoiling the kundalini, Astanga yoga, the Brahman...nirvana, you know the drill....but I wonder whether he'd really talk about nirvana through orgasm....as I have heard the tantrics and some yogis allegedly reaching higher state through the acts of coitus, well higher state not nirvana then. Make you wonder where they got willing partners though, thus tales of drug laced prasads, hypnotic eyes, and the dark dark tinge of tantra. There have been rumors though, that the first culture was tantric, and then came the Vedics (mantric) and through propoganda, managed to make tantra dark. I hardly know, who does?

Bizzarre though that sex is so repressed in Nepalese culture, and on the other hand you see carvings like these and then the Kamasutra and as if that didn't confound you enough, Vatsyayana (who wrote kamasutra) was allegedly a bachelor and a celibate (in a way though, that explains some of the most outlandish positions he/she contrived)
Weird still there comes rock and roll, then larry flint, then the huge porn industry and then the likes of Campbell to infuse it all with a dose of easter mysticism. While we, supposedly sitting on the motherlode of meanings and symbolism hee and haw and spoof it off, or feel confounded. There was Rajneesh I guess, but he only gave a thinly veiled excuse to orgy didn't he?
Meanwhile, I flick on the tv and from soda, chewing gum, cars to trojan, sex is selling all.

I suppose Hush, maybe you have it down, naked people grasp attention, so these temple carvings sold religion.

Priests and statesmen.... bring in the artisans. Need reasons to make people throng to temples, let's have some visual aid. and you know what happens, once you give people religion, Marx, was it? who said it is the opiate of the masses? Priests and statesmen in cahoots.

Just a fanciful thought, there is no way you could summarize a cultural phenomenon that big, in few sentences and cheap conspiratorial notes.

With the New Age wave seeping into Western life styles, Tantrism sees its revival in Sky Dancing-- eastern erotica served with incense, aromatic oil massage, haunting eastern music, candles and prolonged lovemaking (sex ?). Kamasutra in slow motion. But I digress.

On Tantric sexual art/artifacts, one school of thought theorizes that such explicit acts depicted in stones, wood, paper only serve to celebrate the procreative energies of life/living things. Hence, the unions between the mother goddess and the phallic god.
Tantra yoga on the other hand, also coaxes the acceptance of the sexual nature of human beings. It emphasizes that a healthy attitude toward one's own sexuality serves to remove obsessive behavior, guilt, fear of going to hell ...etc. etc.. Ironically, Tantra Yoga was appreciated (especially by the West) after Freud and Jung came up with their theories on human sexuality. Throw in Campbell's sincere attempts at de-mystifying what even the Hindus have refused to explore, and one can appreciate the tourist boom in Vanaras, Ajanta, Ellora..............., in search of the ultimate Nirvana.

Hey but like Svengali says, sex sells Tantric or not!

Here's my answer to this question:

Sitara and others have already answered your question. Let me add something that I FEEL is missing in their answers:

Erotic carvings are nothing but codes- Tantric codes/mantras. Each act represents a sound such as "Ahm" "Hram" "Krim" and others. So to be a real Tantrik, you have to be able to decode these hidden codes.

If you are really into unlocking the mystery, Rathi Dhan Shumsher's "Kama Kala Rahasya" published by the Royal Nepal Academy sometimes around 2028-2032 BS, might be a good place to start.

Happy decoding!

By all means you should have kept on digressing Sitara, your description had its own motion, no pun intended.

Isn't it funny though that the thing you carry in your pants can raise such awe and reverence, well awe it still does inspire I suppose, but reverence?
There is a certain tongue and cheek kind of attitude when you talk about sex, especially when you are talking carvings, drawings, positions what not. I mean, may be you could get away with it, if you were a silk robe donning, perfumed oil rubbing orgy type of guy who owned a rotating bed, oh wait that's still funny.

Or you could be Sting, touting your eight hour long orgasms

But kind of a beautiful idea ain't it, that rather than you worship some abstraction, you super heighten your own physical attribute and worship that. That's where the reverence comes perhaps? until you get wound up in all your reverence and unless some one said "Ha Ha" things could go awry.

like that guy in tv said, "imagine the faith of our enemies, those guys who want to blow themselves up, to kill us. They believe that when they die they will be greeted by 75 virgins at the gates of heaven. Imagine that kind of faith, When I search high and low and I have meet One in this earth." I digress too

Not exactly a perfect analogy, but kind of like walking into a strip club- outlandish displays, the frilly transparent moves to attract your attention, keeping your gaze enlessly rolling up and down the curves
but then sometimes you get that peace, almost meditative, a surge of epiphany that lasts for a fraction of certain duration, even as kaboos may be shaking frantically few feet away, directly in your line of vison..."This is it. This is what keeps the damn thing moving" But for how long, before long the utter banality of the whole deal gets to you, and you have to laugh. Not only at the dancers but yourself too because you bought the package, no sense in seeking a moral highground then.

Look at the dancers, what may you, laugh, get turned on, scheme whatever, do not touch, that's implicitly known. Because the Mahankal of a bouncer can bear down upon you with great vengeance if you do. This is the shadow you live under. The vaudeville.

Kind of like the same juxtaposition of the ever yearning and soaring spirit of yours in the temple vicinity, of a god who could be a penis! of a god who revels in offering of blood. yet on the columns, just a glance away, blissful copulation, but you can't laugh at least not heartfully, the mood of worship puts you down, and no one else seems to be looking up at this hedonistic orgy going on few feet above their heads, deliberately not acknowledging it....just like the implicit deal you strike in a strip club, that you will not laugh.....but what to do, if not laugh at this set up, of what appears to be a complex set up for a dark comedy