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had waited outside. Although he had not gone in, he was still feeling embarrassed. And just to hide his embarrassment he told the guest, "Don't take much note of it. It was a small current of thinkers who created these temples, and we are ashamed -- they are so obscene."
The guest said, "Obscene? Then I will have to go again and see, because I did not find anything obscene." Those naked statues look so innocent, so childlike ... and they are not there to provoke your sexuality.
Obscenity is a very subtle phenomenon, very difficult to make a distinction whether something is obscene or not. But this should be the criterion -- I think this is the only criterion: obscenity is when it provokes sexuality in you. And if it does not provoke sexuality but just a sense of tremendous splendor and beauty, it is not obscene. But it will depend on individuals. The same statue may look to someone obscene, and to someone else a beautiful piece of art.
I told the education minister, "Your mind is full of obscenity. This guest from the outside is far more clear. He did not raise a single question about the obscenity of the temple."
But Mahatma Gandhi's mind was full of sex his whole life. When India became free, he thought that now was the chance: either dismantle them, destroy them, or at least do what he had been insisting from the 1930's: if you don't want to destroy them, cover them up with huge mud hills -- the temples are very high. So they will remain there, and once in a while if you want to show them to some special guest from the outside you can remove the mud, clean the place, and then put the mud back again.
It was Rabindranath who opposed Mahatma Gandhi's proposal, saying, "It is sheer stupidity. I have seen those temples; they have inspired me to great heights. Under their inspiration I have written such beautiful poems. And they are the greatest heritage of one of the most significant schools of psychologists, who have penetrated so deeply into human psychology and life energy that they found a way, a device to transform it to make men free of sexuality." Because Rabindranath resisted, Gandhi could not cover them with mud.
It
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