I have had this little book with me for a long time, over three decades if I remember right, and I remember flipping through it once before, but this time I thought I would really get a n understanding of it. The translators took great pains to study these texts - and there were several of these texts around the aspect of lovemaking. They begin by saying that the East considered a study of sex an essential part of man's education and culture. Now of course it is not that anymore because no one has any education of sex and culture and if all one has is a distorted twisted version of it.
The book itself is divided into 7 parts -
Introduction
Sexual Union
Acquisition of Wife
Wife
Wives of Other Men
Courtesans
Means of Attracting others to Yourself
The topics considered give a fair idea about how the thinking was those days (or how our thinking has changed or not changed over the years). The Kama Sutra means 'Aphorisms of Love' and it is to the credit of these two gentlemen who found Vatsyayana mentioned in other texts and researched his classic work on love. Other texts around the subject in India which seems to have a lot of literature in this area are 'Rathirahasya' or 'Koka Sastra' by Kokkoka, 'Panchasakya' by Jyotirishya, 'Light of Fire' by Pradipa, 'Ratimanjari' by Jayadeva, and Anunga Runga' by Kulliamul. In English they refer to two books which are 'Kalogynomia' which is about the Laws of Female Beauty by T Bell and 'Every Woman's Book' by Dr Waters.
Vatsyayana seems to have lived between the 1st and the 6th century. The famous classification of women is in Koka Shastra which classifies women into four types - Padmini, Chitrini, Shankhini and Hastini.
According to the texts Lord Brahma created man and woman and in the form of 100000 chapters laid down rules with respect to Dharma, Artha and Kama. Men should study the Kama Sutra. Even young maids before marriage. After marriage they can study it with the consent of their husbands.
There are 64 arts to be studied by females - and they include singing, dancing, tailoring, making beds, magic or sorcery, culinary, mimicry, cock fighting, poetry, gymnastics, gambling and so on - pretty much all that a man may need without employing anyone at all! For amusement they can go to social gatherings, drinking parties, picnics, social discourses.
They list out women not to be engaged with - extremely white women, and black women, female friends, ascetics, and those turned out of caste. Any woman who has been engaged by 5 men is a fit and proper person to be engaged. However wives of a learned brahmin, a king, close relatives should not be engaged with. It is a bit apparent who might have written these texts!
The kinds of sexual unions are classified according to dimensions, force of desire or passion etc. They are named as Horse, Bull, Deer, Elephant Equal and Unequal and various combinations of the same. The acts themselves are names as Riding, Yawning and Congress of a Cow. Desire can be Small, Middling or Intense.
There is also four kinds of love - love acquired by continual habit, from imagination, from belief and from perception of external objects.
There are 64 types of embraces - touching, piercing, rubbing, milk and water embrace, climbing of trees, mix of sesame seed in rice are some of those. Similarly types of kissing include nominal, throbbing, touching, straight bent turned, pressed, kiss of the upper lip, fighting of the tongue, kiss that kindles love, transferred kiss etc. There's also piercing or marking or scratching with nails as an act of love which includes circle, half moon, tiger's claw, jump of a hare, peacock's foot and such. In biting one has the range of a hidden bite, swollen bite, pout, coral and jewel, line of jewels and such.
Interestingly some of these masters have also researched on women of certain parts of the country and have given the general idea of what they like and dislike for eg. women of Avantika do not have good manners or women of Andhra who have tender bodies and are full of enjoyment and like voluptuous pleasures!
Far as positions go there is the high congress, low congress, equal congress, deer woman, position of the wife of Indra, clasping position, rising position, twining, mare's position, suspended congress, united congress, splitting of bamboo, congress of cow, blows of the bull. During congress one is allowed to strike with passion - shoulder, head, between breasts, back, back of hand, fingers, fist, open palm etc (comes with a caution of some king who hit blows and the partner died - so be gentle and don't get carried away). Interestingly the sounds one can make are also listed - hin, thundering sound, cooing sound, weeping sound, phut, phat, sut, lat (I am not joking this is there)
There are those women who are acting the parts of the man during congress - friction, piercing, rolling, giving a blow, blow of a boar, of a bull, a sparrow etc.
There's stuff about eunuchs - there are two kinds of eunuchs - those disguised as male and those disguised as female and they are allowed to have normal congress, biting, piercing, kissing, mango, swallowing etc. The word Auparishakta or mouth congress is specifically for eunuchs to earn a livelihood and can also be practiced by unchaste and wanton women, female attendants, serving maids. Some Acharyas opine that this is the work of a dog and opposed to dharma. However Vatsyayana apears to be the most forward thinking of the lot of said that the Holy Writ does not affect those who serve as courtesans and the law prohibits the practice only with married women. Vastyayana also held that everyone can do what they want.
Again they have some rules on who can engage in mouth congress - male servants on master, women on women etc.For such things courtesans abandon men of good qualities and become attached to low persons such as slaves or elephant drivers but never with a learned brahmin, a minister or a man of good reputation.
There's an entire list of things to do on how to begin and end congress - sit, sing, talk, wash, eat betel, embrace, look at the moonlight and such stuff - chaps had a lot of leisure those days. Again there are types such as loving congress of subsequent love, artificial love, transferred love, deceitful congress, spontaneous love etc. There's also something about love quarrels.
To acquire a wife, look for a woman of same caste, a virgin, in accordance with the Holy Writ (one who is no longer a maiden should ever be loved). Also avoid those whose nose is depressed, whose nostrils are turned up, who has crooked thighs, who is polluted or disfigured (many more such are listed).
To get the girl to love and marry any of these methods are good - disparage husband to be, befriend brother, give her intoxicating substance when asleep, kidnap her, kill the guards and carry her off. Simple, get her at any cost. Crazy!
Causes to remarry are also given - foul or ill temper of wife, dislike of wife, want of offspring, continual births of daughters, incontinence of husband (finally the husband makes an appearance)
There are some rules for the eldest wife and how she must conduct with other wives. Also rules for the women of a harem. To get wives of other men there are some conditions - can resort to it to save his own life - if one can prove that you are excused I guess.
One interesting thing was the ten degrees of how love progresses to death - and those who have suffered in love will identify with the stages - Starts with love of the eye, attachment of the mind, constant reflection, destruction of sleep, emaciation of body,turning away from objects of enjoyment, removal of shame, madness, fainting and death. Fairly accurate!
Men who succeed with women are good storytellers, bring presents, talk well, know weak spots. Women who are easily gained over are - standing at the door, looking out, wife of ab actor, whose husband is inferior etc. There are some ways on how to be a go between between a man and a women he loves
Another interesting passage was about how a 'virtuous woman who has affection for her husband should act in conformity with his wishes as if he were a divine being...know arrangement of flowers, take care of family, gardens, avoid company of female beggars, female Buddhist mendicants, unchaste women, know what husband likes and dislikes...when going out do nothing against his will...any misconduct of his do not blame him...keep secrets, make ghee, pound rice...' Very practical men who wrote this.
To gain over women they say the man must make conversation, seduce only one woman at a time etc. Then there are rules for knowing a woman's state of mind, for go betweens, for women of royal harem, for courtesans (includes getting money from lover, getting rid of him, reunion with former lovers). To attract others to yourself eat the powder of a blue lotus with ghee and honey! There are means of increasing sexual vigour, ways of exciting desire (recipes) ways of enlarging lingam,(oils and stuff like that)
...
It's a crazy read and one can well imagine who must have made these rules and how they were followed. But to make a science of it and categorise it and classify and educate, one must applaud the gentlemen involved, of whom Vatsyayana seems to be the most progressive. Surely, those who follow these rules must be benefiting from the above in the practice of the art of love. Unfortunately today we have no education of any sort in India and most education seems to be coming from the West in a most unscientific way!
No comments:
Post a Comment