M. L. Varadpande - Love in Ancient India

M.L. Varadpande, 2007

First published 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the author and the publisher.

ISBN: 81-8328-050-1

Published by

Wisdom Tree

4779/23, Ansari Road,

Darya Ganj,

New Delhi-110002

Published by Shobit Arya for Wisdom Tree; copy edited by Swapna Raghu Sanand and Manju Gupta; designed by Kamal P. Jammual; typeset at Marks & Strokes, New Delhi 110028 and printed at Print Perfect, New Delhi -110064

jfrpzs oks rq

uSo kkL=a u p e%

okRL;k;u

Ratichakre pravitte tu naiva shastram na cha kramah

Vatsyayana

(When the wheel of Kama

is set into motion,

there is then

no Shastra and no order!)

C ONTENTS 1. God of Love 2. Business of Love 3. Learning of Love 4. Rituals of Love 5. Art of Love 6. Poetry of Love 7. Tales of Love 8. Practice of Love 9. Cult of Love

Select Bibliography

Index

Thank you for evaluating PDF to ePub Converter.

To get full version, you need to purchase the software from: http://www.pdf-epub-converter.com/convert-to-epub-purchase.html

Chapter One

G OD OF L OVE

I ndian mythology considers Kama as god of love. Kama literally means lust, passion, desire, sexual longing, sensuality, pleasure and enjoyment. Kama, the god of love, is all these things personified.

The ancient Indian books of knowledge, Vedas, say that Kama was born at the beginning of creation. He is described as virility of mind, manaso retah. The arrow of the god of love is described in a hymn of Atharva Veda as one having wings of mental agony. Its shaft is made of a wish to enjoy carnal pleasures, samkalpa. The metal point of this shaft is the desire to make love, it says.

The above-mentioned hymn in the Atharva Veda, with Mitravarum and Kamabana as its deities, is a kind of magic spell used to seduce a woman and make her yield to the desire of her lover. In the same Veda, there are three hymns dedicated to deity Smara, who is none else but Kama.

The word kama as the desire to share bed with ones lover has been mentioned well before the Atharva and the Rig Veda. A dialogue- hymn in Rig Veda involving Yama, the first ancestor, and his twin sister Yami, is full of passion. Yami implores Yama to make love to her. She says:

The desire, kama, of Yama has approached me, Yami, to lie with me in

the same bed. Let us exert ourselves in union like two wheels of a

chariot.

L OVE IN A NCIENT I NDIA

Vatsyayana is the author of the world famous classic, Kamasutra. Kamasutra defines kama as a tendency of the five sense organs, propelled by the mind to beget pleasure, pravritti.