The state of Orissa in India is famous for its temples. I had the opportunity to visit a few of those in 1988, and it was a great experience. I was simply amazed by the Konark Sun Temple (above), a masterpiece of Orissan architecture built in the 13th century. From the plinth to the top if its 150 ft structure, the temple is covered with literally thousands of intricate carvings, mostly of human figures. Each are unique and none of them are repeated. To ones surprize, many of them are strongly erotic in nature, and will not be appropriate to be included here. It is still a matter of research why those figures are there, of all places, on the walls of a temple. Here is an example. The panel shown below is about 30 ft wide. It shows a droup of dancers and musicians in performance. Except for a few granite statues, all the sculptures in Konark temple are of softer sandstone, and over the centuries they got corroded heavily by the salty breeze of the Bay of Bengal, only about a mile away.

The temple is built as a huge replica of a chariot. The chariot of the Sun god, which has seven horses, and twenty four wheels. This is one of the wheels, symbolizing the cycle of day and night. The wheels are about 8 ft in diameter.