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xterminal's review
3.0
Eliot Elisofon, Erotic Spirituality: The Vision of Konarak (Collier Books, 1971)
Those hunting this down expecting prurience are bound to be disappointed. Which makes a good deal of sense considering the stone carvings Elisofon is photographing (over, we find out at the very beginning of the book, the strenuous objections of his tourguides, when he first started out in 1949; they can still see prurience where a great deal of it has rubbed off). As well, roughly half the book is taken up first with Elisofon's own introduction to the photographs, and then with an essay by Alan Watts regarding the nature of sexuality in the Hindu religion, especially as it relates both to the temples themselves (Elisofon not only photographs Konarak, but also the nearby Khajuraho, which is also full of erotic sculpture work) and to yoga. In fact, it sometimes seems as if this is just one long advertisement for yoga, with the obvious subtext of “do yoga, all this will become available to you!” (And to be fair, just like the Kama Sutra, there's some stuff pictured here that you're not going to be able to do if you're not in tip-top shape, so maybe Watts is correct in that...)
But the real draw is the photographs themselves, which are quite attractive. Elisofon does focus on the erotic carvings, but the books isn't exclusive to them; Konarak is, after all, a sun temple, and so there is a good deal of other imagery that is equally well-worked. Looked at forty years later, however, it seems a bit dated—not the photographs themselves, of course, but the surrounding text. ***
Those hunting this down expecting prurience are bound to be disappointed. Which makes a good deal of sense considering the stone carvings Elisofon is photographing (over, we find out at the very beginning of the book, the strenuous objections of his tourguides, when he first started out in 1949; they can still see prurience where a great deal of it has rubbed off). As well, roughly half the book is taken up first with Elisofon's own introduction to the photographs, and then with an essay by Alan Watts regarding the nature of sexuality in the Hindu religion, especially as it relates both to the temples themselves (Elisofon not only photographs Konarak, but also the nearby Khajuraho, which is also full of erotic sculpture work) and to yoga. In fact, it sometimes seems as if this is just one long advertisement for yoga, with the obvious subtext of “do yoga, all this will become available to you!” (And to be fair, just like the Kama Sutra, there's some stuff pictured here that you're not going to be able to do if you're not in tip-top shape, so maybe Watts is correct in that...)
But the real draw is the photographs themselves, which are quite attractive. Elisofon does focus on the erotic carvings, but the books isn't exclusive to them; Konarak is, after all, a sun temple, and so there is a good deal of other imagery that is equally well-worked. Looked at forty years later, however, it seems a bit dated—not the photographs themselves, of course, but the surrounding text. ***
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