Lajja Gauri, the goddess of sexuality,

from Mesopotamia to India.

This writing is a part of the book published on Amazon :

The goddess Lajja Gauri origins

On the footsteps of the universal goddess of sexuality.

« …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Lajja Gauri, the shameless woman … the “ nameless woman” .

.

Lajja Gauri is a generic noun used to name the iconographic representation of the nude

goddess of the fertility cult who offers herself, the legs apart and the vulva prominent.

The noun of “Gauri” appears, in particular, in the chapter V (verses 8-82) and the chapter XI (verses

1-35) of the Devi Mahatmya dedicated to the goddess Durga. As Bhagavati or Devi, Gauri is a

respectful synonym to designate Durga, or another goddess.

“Lajja” means shame, referring to the sexual iconography of the goddess, nude and the legs apart.

This Indian name which associates « Lajja », shame, with « Gauri », goddess, doesn’t have a special

meaning nor a historical reference except those of a Victorian type moral judgment on the subject

of the sculpture represented.

The first artistic representations in India of the goddess are dated, by most of the authors, during the

3rd century ac., but this date can be pushed back until the Shunga period.

Her attitude is deemed to represent a woman in labor in stage of expulsion.

The image of childbirth is attributed to the fertility cult as a symbol of regeneration.

Other scholars see a pornographic image and are reluctant to comment on the artistic

representation and to publish the antiquities discovered during archaeological excavations.

India.Chandraketugarh. 100 bc. Kushan terracotta.1st c.ac.Allahabad museum.

The goddess in Lajja Gauri attitude has remained in the dark history of Art from the major

archaeological excavations of the mid-19th century to the early 60’s of the 20th century, this

periode was still under the influence of the Victorian morality.

The Lajja Gauri attitude is associated with the matriarchal fertility cult dominant in the ancient

civilizations from the earliest ages of humanity to the 3rd millennium bc. It represents an explicit

invitation to sexual intercourse, and then reproduction of the species, in societies threatened by

climatic conditions, wandering, child mortality and disease and then by war and famine.

The flat belly of the goddess demonstrates her intention and her availability for the act of

reproduction. Figured with a swollen belly, it is the image of the childbirth, regeneration of the

species.

Her artistic representation is cultic and not pornographic, this concept has been invented long time

later in history by societies very socially constituted.

Australia.Victoria river district. Marocco.Dchira.Figuid mountains.

The Lajja Gauri attitude : “Nude goddess legs apart showing her vulva” as an invitation to a sexual

act is an universal representation in the civilizations of the Fertility cult.

The flat belly of the goddess confirms her disposition for sexual intercourse.

. Sangameshvara temple.Kudavelli.Andhra Pradesh.Alampur museum.650 ac.

What are the ancestors of this goddess of sexuality ?

- On the footsteps of Lajja Gauri in the ancient kingdoms of the Near East.

- On the footsteps of Lajja Gauri in the Balkans.

Sumer and the Indus valley civilization

On the footsteps of Lajja Gauri in the ancient kingdoms of the Near East.

. Indus valley cylinder seal. Mature Harappa.2700-2300 bc. Private collection.

During the Uruk period (4500-3100 bc), the influence of the Mesopotamian civilization spreads in

the various cultures developed in the Near East : From Anatolia to the Nile valley and the

Balochistan plateau, from the Mediterranean shores and islands to the Persian gulf.

The “Civilization of the goddess” brings together the various settlements in the worship of the Great

mother.

At Uruk, the fertility cult is spreading. The worshipers venerate the goddess of love : Inanna,

daughter of the moon god Nanna and the great lady Ningal.

Uruk trough.3300-3000 bc.Bristish museum. Inanna token : a bundle of reeds. Uruk alabaster.

At Ur, the Fertility cult becomes dominant from 3100 bc. to Sargon of Akkad’s reign, in 2270 bc.,

who extends an empire on all the Near East with Akkad for capital.

The Sumerians from Ur are the main civilization of this period. They worship Inanna, their divine

fertility goddess and her avatars, as the goddess Lamashtu, Lilitu (Ardat-Lili for the Akkadians),

dedicated for causing erotic dreams, simply represented nude, spreading her legs, showing her vulva

for well make understand that it is the way of procreation and birth.

She is surrounded with scorpions which are the Sumerian symbol of the sexual intercourse.

Leon Legrain.Ur excavations III, Archaic seal-impressions. Oxford Univ.Press 1936. Plate 14.

Plate 47.

Inanna becomes Ishtar with the Akkadians, venerated by the daughter of Sargon the Great, En Hedu

Anna, great priestess of the Fertility cult, whose hymns are the exaltation of love and intercourse.

Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature .

The Inanna’s hymns, assigned to En Hedu Ana, high priestess in Akkad (2285-2250 bc), show the hot

erotism of the sacred fertility cult :

A balbale to Inana as Nanaya (Inana H)

7-15A. "Let me …… on your …… -- Nanaya, its …… is good. Let me (?) …… on your breast -- Nanaya, its

…… flour is sweet. Let me put …… on your navel -- Nanaya, ……. Come with me, my lady, come with

me, come with me from the entrance to the shrine. May …… for you. {(ms. c adds 1 line:) Come my

beloved sister, let my heart rejoice.}"

“1-9. "…… on your navel. My sweet illustrious sister, ……. On your back ……. My illustrious sister, …… hand. In your vagina …… the gardens. Nanaya, ……. In your anus …… the fields. My illustrious sister, …… the acres. Come to me, my sister, ……." …unknown no. of lines missing .

A šir-namšub to Inana (Inana I)

16-22. When I sit in the alehouse, I am a woman, and I am an exuberant young man. When I am

present at a place of quarrelling, I am a woman, a figurine brought to life. When I sit by the gate of

the tavern, I am a prostitute familiar with the penis; the friend of a man, the girlfriend of a woman.

Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) - 25 -

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16309085/Sumerian-Hymns

The “prostitution temples” devoted to the goddess Inanna, are animated by the priestesses who

manage the religious rites.

Modern prostitution points out the sexual marketing of the body in exchange for money. The

antique “prostitutes” were the priestesses of the fertility cult of Inanna in Sumer, Ishtar in

Babylonia, Astarte for the Canaanites and the Phoenicians, … worshiping the same fertility goddess

under various names.

Cylinder seal. Syria. Ca 1720-1650 bc.

A hymn to Inana as Ninegala (Inana D) :

“ … then, my lady, like the nameless poor, you wear only a single garment. The pearls of a prostitute

are placed around your neck, and you are likely to snatch a man from the tavern.”

It is interesting to note the association of the pearl necklace with the sacred prostitutes.

In iconography, to decorate a sculpture with a pearl necklace would refer to the sexuality in the

fertility cult.

In adorning Inanna and Ishtar with a pearl necklace, the artists wanted to confer the high status of

sacred prostitute, fertility goddess, performed in the cultic rites by the priestesses representing the

goddess.

Terracotta from Susa.2000 bc. Terracotta from Susa. Ishtar. 1700 bc.

Louvre museum Elamite period.1150-1100 bc. Sterling memorial library.

The female sex, source of the life, is worshiped with an obsessive veneration as bear witness the

cultic representations of the period.

The pubis area is represented out of proportion and until the pots, looking like the female body, are

decorated with female sex and handles figuring the breasts.

. Terracottas from Isin Larsa period. Late 3

rd mill.-early 2

nd mill.bc.

The sexual intercourse is divine and the gods are represented in “sacred marriage “(note 1).

What is now pornographic representations are sacred decorations for the ritual practices in the

fertility cult temples.

Marriage of Nanna and Ningal. Sacred marriage.Tello. early 2

nd mill.bc. Ur. 1940-1700 bc.

Larsa excavations. Louvre museum. Sir Leonard Woolley. Ur excavations.

Seal impression.Ur excavations.vol III .Leon Legrain 1936.

The Sumerian Inanna/Akkadian Ishtar is represented nude to symbolize the beauty of the female

body and the great priestess of Love and Fertility, in passive and hieratic attitude.

. Ishtar from Larsa grave. Clay figurine from Susa

This iconic model, with the hands clasped on the chest, seems to come from the earliest fertility

goddess of the El Obeid civilization.

This fertility goddess has a reptilian face and a well marked pubic area. She stands, the hands on the

chest, in hieratic attitude as the figures of Inanna in Ur.

El Obeid. Period 1.

The active sexual position, direct invitation to the intercourse, is performed by the handmaiden of

Inanna, who spreads wide the legs for the sexual act in Lajja Gauri attitude.

Fragment of a vase in dark steatite. Jemdet Nasr period. Sir Leonard Woolley.Ur excavations. Vol IV

. Squatting Lajja Gauri. Seal impressions. Legrain 1936.

The Mesopotamian texts mention Lamashtu or Lilitu (Sumer Dimme) as the handmaiden of Inanna,

the goddess of love and sexuality.

Sumerian terracotta.1950 bc.British mus. Ishtar vase. Early 2nd

mil.bc. Louvre.

“The Queen of the night “ Ishtar/Lamashtu

On a Babylonian cylinder seal, Lamashtu presides at the offering of a young nude lady, an Inanna

handmaiden, to a bearded man, under the patronage of Inanna :

The first assistant of the nude young lady asks Lamashtu, lion-headed and Anzu bird feet, about the

presentation by the second assistant, facing the bearded man in an invitation gesture.

Inanna, owl feet and large pubis area, is in the center of the story, her lower part of the body in the

underworld with the fantastic zoomorphic deities.

Babylonian cylinder seal. 2000-1600 bc. Isin Larsa.

"Where are the standard, the quiver, sexual intercourse, kissing, prostitution, …… running (?)?" "My

master has given them to his daughter."

"Where are forthright speech, deceitful speech, grandiloquent speech, ……, the cultic prostitute, the

holy tavern?" "My master has given them to his daughter."

The electronic text corpus of Sumerian literature : http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk

They are the lascivious deities, sexual predators, seeking to seduce men in the night.

Lamashtu, a scorpion between the legs (intercourse), lion headed and Anzu bird feet, is suckling a

pig and a dog, riding the back of a donkey and holding snakes (penis).

These deities are not preoccupied to warm the childbirth. Sexual predator, Lamashtu will become, in

the later period, the demon of the diseases and the sickness of pregnant women in Babylon.

800 bc. Neo Assyrian. British mus. Lamashtu responsible of sickness. 911-609 bc.Louvre mus.

At the Old Babylonian period, the goddess in Lajja Gauri attitude shows clearly the meaning of the

entrance door of the Ishtar’s shrine.

Akkadian to Old Babylonian.2500-2000 bc. Ashmolean museum.

“ If there was any doubt about the direct sexual reference of this posture (“Baubo-type”: cf. Winter, 1983, 343–

6), it is resolved by plaques from Tell ed-Der and Nippur with a detached erect phallus and testicles set

immediately below the spread-legged woman (McCown and Haines 1967, pl. 137.6; Meyer 1978, pl. 27.6).”

URANET final. Ashmolean.

Nude squatting lady, she follows the fertility goddess Ishtar, associated with the hares, symbol of

prolific reproduction.

. Mesopotamia. 1850 - 1720 bc. Marcopolic collection.

During the 3rd millennium bc., the Fertility cult is dominant in the trade cities of the Indus valley.

The Nude goddess with bangles and her male counterpart, the Proto-Shiva, are the divine deities on

the Saraswati river banks.

. Procession seal.Mohenjo Daro. Mature Harrapa. Incised Indus valley shell. 3000-2000 bc . 2800-2600 bc. Islamabad mus. Barakat Gallery.

The hole in the center of the shell is another fertility symbol. It’s the maternal vulva which receives

the procreation act and gives the birth. The bull drops off its semen inside the hole! This confirms the

Procession seal as a fertility cultic scene.

The trading cosmopolitan people provide their influences and their skill for the Indus valley.

The Sumerians from Ur bring in the art of their cylinder seals and the images of their goddesses.

The first “evidence” of the squatting goddess surrounded with scorpions was found in the earliest

excavation level at Rehman Dheri (early Kot Diji.3200-2800 bc) :

This carved ivory pendant figures a “frog” surrounded with scorpions. This frog represents a stylized

squatting woman and the whole drawing of the pendant is very close the topic of the Sumerian

seals.

Ur seal impression.Early dynastic.2700-2500 bc. Tepe Gawra period.ca 3300 bc.

The following cylinder seal, 2700-2300 bc., of the Mature Harappa period, published for the first

time, from a private collection, shows the “Shameless lady”, in her squatting position, in the Indus

valley civilization.

The Indus script sign between the goat and the zoomorphic buffalo deity confirms its

belonging to the Saraswati river banks civilization as it can be seen on other Indus seals.

A similar figure on a stamp seal of bitumen compound from Susa, published on www.hindunet.org

with reference : Louvre, MDAI, 43, no 1725, shows a same figure and a same Indus sign.

This cylinder seal shows outstanding details:

1 - The water buffalo is personified with a collar around the neck – dancing girl design.

This representation is close another Indus seal figuring a female (with breasts) water buffalo as a deity

fighting with the tiger.

2 - The goat and the buffalo are female and pregnant.

The sculptor having carved this seal in a hard black stone in hollow has had to dig the stone for

obtaining this effect in impression. The big paunch of the buffalo and the goat and the absence of

male sex are deliberate to figure pregnant females.

It’s an outstanding representation in the Harappan seals which figure only male cattle. (cf : Corpus

of Indus seals)

A people of farmers-breeders should have represented pregnant cows or cows with calf, as other

neighboring civilizations, if the subject of the Indus seals was only the trade.

. Ninhursag Temple. Tell Ubaid. Ca 2475 bc. Tell Khafajah (Tutub) early 3

rd mil bc.

This argument militates in favor of the sacred character of the Indus seals.

In this cylinder seal, the pregnant goat and buffalo are associated with the sacred representation of

a fertility goddess dedicated to the procreation in Lajja Gauri attitude.

This Mature Harappan seal confirms the presence of the goddess in the Indus valley at the early

period.

The seal, often quoted, of the nude lady issuing a plant (?) from her womb, is not convincing to be

compared with the squatting goddess.

Harappa. 2100-1750 bc.New Delhi museum.Huntington archives.

The reverse of the seal, on the other hand, figures a woman, legs forward and may be apart too,

pulling her hair with her hands. A nude man seems to drum in front of her.

Interesting to note that the Indus signs on this seal are the same on the reverse and on the obverse.

This links the two figures as the same story. May be, sexual invitation from the lady pulling her hair

during a party, followed by procreation act (if the figure shows a scorpion touching the sex) or a

birth, result of the intercourse (if the figure is a plant).

Seal impressions of Ur show such a nude woman, “pulling her tresses in both sides”. This expression

is associated on the seal impressions of Ur with a party, a dancing and sexual context :

Leon Legrain.Ur excavations III, Archaic seal-impressions. Oxford Univ.Press 1936.

I am not convinced that the headless female from Inamgaon (circa 1200 bc.) draws up a step in the

perpetuation of the image of the crouching goddess.

Upinder Singh. A history of Ancient and Early Medieval India.

See original picture of the Inamgaon Mother Goddess figurines in Indian archaeology

–A Review- 1970-71- Plate XLIV :

http://asi.nic.in/nmma_reviews/Indian%20Archaeology%201970-71%20A%20Review.pdf

Same remark for the nude goddess of Navdatoli (1000-800 bc) :

Indian archaeology A review 1957-58,pl.34.

The picture of a gold leaf from Lauriya Nandangarh published by Edward James Rapson in

The Cambridge History of India shows only a Mauryan fertility goddess type as they can be seen on

the Mauryan ring stones and a steatite plaque from Rajgir (ca 245-105 bc.)

I.A. A Review 1962-63,pl.XII B.

V&A museum. Maurya. Ringstone. British.mus. 3

rd c.bc.Northwest Pakistan.

Some finds in the pre-Maurya period, era of the Janapadas (600-300 bc.), allow to see that the

fertility cult dedicated to the squatting goddess is still enduring in India along the centuries before

the Shunga period.

. Surashtra janapada. Gujarat. Silver karshapana. Surashtra janapada karshapanas

450-300 b.c. coinindia.com

On this Surashtra Janapada punched marked coin, a fertility goddess, the legs apart, shows her vulva in

procreative position. Her arms and legs are shaped like cow paws. In the ancient texts, to compare a lady with

a cow is synonymous of beauty. Lunar symbol in the hair and Shiva’s trident are tied to the Shaktist cult.

This preoccupation of seduction, by the choice of the Indian artists to represent a beautiful and sexy

lady for inciting the worshipers to the fertility cult, is the same in the representation of the Great

Mother of the Mauryan period in northern India.

Grey ware terracotta. Mathura. 400-300 b.c. Private collection.

This fertility goddess of the upper Indus valley (Mathura,Taxila, ...) is slim and pretty. She is nude,

the body only decorated with strips and lotus seeds, symbol of the seed.

The terracotta statue is punch marked with the same mode that the coins of the period, to bring

wealth to the worshipers, with the solar symbols which can be found on the Maghada kingdom

coinage.

Maghada. 300 b.c. Columbia edu. Maghada. 300 b.c. Noble coins.

This fertility goddess with bangles of seeds, in all her majesty, is the direct heir of the Nude goddess

with bangles of the Indus valley. Same her, she is the Great mother, the One before the one, in a

matriarchal society of the Hindu gods that paves the way to the birth of the goddess Durga, during

the Shunga empire.

IGNCA. Maurya. 320-200 b.c. LACMA.Mathura 300 b.c

LACMA. Mathura. 200 b.c. Guimet mus. 4

th-3

rd c.b.c. N.Delhi Nat. mus. Mathura. 3

rd c.bc.

Goddess of wealth, she bears a purse. By extension, she is too the goddess protecting the family, as

Parvati further. Good mother, she breast-feeds and takes care her child.

Beside this Great Mother, too divine for the only sexual and procreative preoccupation, the cult of

Lajja Gauri is spreading in India at the end of the last millennium bc.

In the Mauryan period, friezes of the squatting goddess decorate a fertility ring stone.

. Metmuseum. Maurya. 323-185 b.c.

Slim waist squatting fertility goddess, the legs apart. The goddesses are circling the hole of the ring

stone with their vulva, hole figuring the way of procreation.

The seals of the Kashmir Smat consecrate the goddess Lajja Gauri in the 2nd c. a.c.

Silver seal. Kashmir Smat. 2

nd c. a.c. Private collection. Impression of a bronze seal. 2

nd c. a.c.

The squatting position can have two interpretations:

- A sexual invitation to procreation, goal of the fertility cult.

- A childbirth position, result of the procreation.

The scholar Jitamitra Prasada Simhadeba is wondering about the representations of Lajja Gauri in

Tantric Art of Orissa, p.66 :

“ Pregnant lady should have large swelling of the belly. Strangely enough, the Lajja Gouri images are

not shown with swelled belly. Most probably the iconographical details were forgotten by the

artists…”

A swelled belly is shown on the following representations of the Indian medieval era :

Ancient Indian coins. Ibibo.com Early medieval coin of Vidarbha.indiacoingallery.com

In the other hand, the images of Lajja Gauri represent, for most of them, a sexy lady with a slim

waist, only worried to show the details of her vulva in a invitation for sex.

Kushan. 1st

c a.c. IGNCA. Allahabad museum. Mansar.Pravarapur. 1st

half 5th

c.ac. RUG.

Amravati.Maharashtra. 150-300 a.c. State museum Chennai.

The artists devote their skill to the beauty of a young and slim woman body and their statues cause

other emotions than those of a childbirth.

Naganatha temple.650 ac. Badami. Sangameshvara temple.650 ac. Andrah Pradesh.

Deccan. Naman Ahuja. Indianiconography.info

. Mahakut. 7

th c. ac. Madhya Pradesh.ca 6thc.Metmuseum.

The Doctor Baba Mishra remarks in the Headless goddess of Nuapada-Orissa :

“The vulva region is carefully carved. Probably the artist had shown the clitoris, which is, however,

illegible at present… But sufficient care was taken to exhibit its genital prominently…the figurine

does, not only reveals its fertility and vegetative feature but also demonstrates a stark sexuality

about it.”

Nuapada.Orissa. Limestone.

The goddess Lajja Gauri, arms raised, legs apart, offering her vulva is clearly dedicated to the sexual

intercourse as the goddess of sexuality.

Kumara temple.Aihole.early 7th c.ac.Chalukyas of Vatapi.

To concentrate the attention on her genital way, the Indian artists did not figure the head or replace

it by a lotus flower, the fertility symbol of the bearer of the seed. More, in the early medieval

representations, the goddess is armless to simply reduce her expression to the procreative system.

Deccan. Naman Ahuja. Indianiconography.info. Osmanabad. Gov. images from an old book.

Ter . 3rd

c. ac. British museum. Indian Archaeology 1969-70.

Such representations cannot be connected with the pregnancy and the childbirth in absence of a

swollen belly and the arms down, pushing for favoring the expulsion.

Pregnancy and childbirth : Talismanic bangles. Shunga empire period.

The worshipers are not misunderstanding when they link the Lajja Gauri attitude with the menstrual

blood.

Kamakhya temple. Guwahati. Assam. India.

The Fertility cult goddesses are lunar deities. Ancient civilizations have had been aware of the

similarity between the number of days of the lunar cycle and the one of the menses cycle.

Blood sacrifices are associated with the procreation act in the fertility rites.

Menstruation, the flood of blood, is considered as a fertilizer fluid preparing the fertile period of the

female. When the woman is fertilized, the flood of blood stops and the female is pregnant, the goal

is reached. When the young female has her first menstruations (puberty), it’s the signal that she is

able to be fertilized. When she loses her menstruations (menopause), she cannot be fertilized more.

Human and further animal blood sacrifices, alcoholic drinks, take part in the sexual ritual of the

fertility cult. Animal sacrifices and blood offering are still enduring now in the Hindu Durga Puja.

Nepal. Kirtipur. Sacrifice altar and Puja red powder, symbolic blood, on Durga statue.

It is surprising to note the strong artistic link between the early Hindu art and the enduring design of

the early Mesopotamian art passed in India through the Indus valley civilization.

Human Swastika : Sealing from Ur. Shunga period. Uttar Pradesh. Metmuseum.

A terracotta from Chandraketugarh, Shunga period, shows a Lajja Gauri touching her sex with a

scorpion early Mesopotamian design. Another scorpion, with a design close to that of the discussed

seal from Harappa, is figured near the goddess, who wears bangles on ankles, collar as the Indus

great goddess. Lajja gauri keeps her head in this time of the Mauryan period.

. Chandraketugarh.ca 100 bc. Similar scorpions surrounding with Inanna symbol.3rd mill bc.LACMA.

The scorpion is the Sumerian symbol of the sexual intercourse.

Tell Asmar.2900-2400 bc. Scorpion under the couch. oi.uchicago.edu Seal impression.Leon Legrain 1936.

The Sumerian image of the hand maiden of Inanna/Ishtar, goddess of erotic pleasure and sexual

intercourse, with hair stretched in both sides in Lajja Gauri attitude, and the symbol of her cultic

function, the scorpion, has spread until the Indus valley civilization.

. Syrian seal. 2900-2700 bc. Marcopolic collection. . Upper register : Lajja Gauri and cross of female sex symbols. Lower register : scorpions and swastikas.

Note 1 : The sacred marriage.

The “eye idol” of the Syrian temple of Tell Brak represents a combined couple, a “sacred marriage”

and not the eyes of an idol.

A seal dated in the Late Uruk-early Jemdet Nasr period gives the explanation of the “eye idol” and

figures a ladder to make well understand the link between the figures.

. Metmuseum. 3300-2900 bc.

Christie’s sales 5488 on 7/10/2010 4

th mill.bc sale 9088 on 25/4/2001. 3000 bc.

The combined couple is the necessary union of the male and the female for giving the life. It’s the

symbol of the reproduction by union, the “sacred marriage” of the fertility cult which gives a future

to the humans.

Coupled eye idols. Early Jemdet Nasr period seal. Jebel Aruda. Syria.

The sacred union, symbolized by the double headed icon, is represented from the Natufian times in

the Near East.

Ain Sakhri lovers.Natufian. Israel. Jordan. 7

th mill.bc. Ain Ghazal.

Cappadoccia. Anatolia. 3

rd mill.bc.

The numerous and little “eye idol” figurines found in the Syrian temples should be votive idols given

by the worshiper couples to hope for having descendants.

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