Religion and Erotics in Traditional India
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Religion and Erotics in Traditional India
Archana Verma
It is a common perception of the Indians and of the outsiders that Indian society is very traditional and explicit references and expressions of erotic imageries in words or visual form are against the norm of “Indian tradition.” Seeing the majority of places in India today, it in fact seems to be true. Indian society is not a touching society ie, couples don’t touch each other in public and revealing clothes are still frowned upon in most places. More serious are the orthodox, politicised reaction of the Hindutva forces against any explicit expressions of eroticism in art forms. Their violent opposition to the paintings of MF Hussain and Shivaji Panikkar are well-known by now. The truth however is, that the pre-modern India had no hangups about explicit representations of erotics in art and literature in public spaces...
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