A Pilgrimage to Khajuraho
By Ila Mukherjee

A PILGRIMAGE to Khajuraho is a documentary film based on the work Tantra & temples of Khajuraho which reflects decades of research of an acclaimed journalist and scholar Aloke Mitra. The film delves deep into analysis of temple architecture and sculpture from the dual perspectives of comparative religion and aesthetics. No scholar had ever dared to solve the mystery of the enigmatic mithuna (erotic) sculpture in Indian temples. He has been able to delve deep to solve the mystery by analysing the tenets of Tantra shastra scientifically and clinically.

Tantra is not a philosophy. It is a science. The western mind is yet to understand the bi-sexual nature of man. An anabolically deficient cell is driven to work repetitively to acquire and anabolise adequate quantities of nutritional substance. From this it is safe to assume that an individual with either predominantly male or female urges seeks union with the complimentry type; in other words, every bi-sexually differentiated individual is incompletely balanced and is forced to restore his internal and external equilibrium.

A human trying to achieve balance, therefore, is comparable to a certain extent with the mating behaviour. This human urge, that is sexual stress, is an innate human compulsion dictated by his cellular life. How this could be controlled or sublimated for the graded path of human development according to tantra has been explained by Mitra in the film. Hence, the apt tantric practice is to speak of this human integrity in terms of motifs of sex-affinity in which the constant union of man and woman gets turned into a symbol.

The world-renowned German Buddhist tantric scholar Dr H.V. Guenther’s comments on Aloke Mitra’s work is significant. He says; "Aloke Mitra has produced a more detailed analysis and a deeper appreciation than any hither to attempted. I consider Aloke Mitra’s work as a major contribution to a subject that has been long neglected and which is yet one of the most important and valuable aspects of Indian culture."

This 75-minute long documentry, therefore, turns a mere "visit" to the temples of Khajuraho by a curious traveller to a pilgrimage to an abode to eternal art and awakening.