In this fire the Gods form the offering, From this offering springs forth the child. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. In the two great epics of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which recreate the desire images of what men and women ought to be, we see the spontaneous urges of the people for free love, and the worship of sex symbols, as the sources of fulfilment, transformed into a prescribed ritual as part of the Hindu Dharmic order.
These habitual repetitions had for centuries made the Slokas, verses, more and more rigid. The caste order imposed on the Dasyus had ironed out the variety of ways of life. The high-bred fictions of super-consciousness led to Mount Kailash in the mists. Below, the Dasyus worshipped the Mother Goddess in secret. She came to be called Lajja Gauri, Shy Woman, with her head cut off, replaced by a garland of leaves, creepers and red oxide of mercury on her pudenda and breasts, and she was prayed to for children in forest shrines, away from the vigilance of the high priests.
The Kamasutra was probably first put into writing in the third century before Christ, during the Mauryan Period. At this time, some of the great sages seem to have taken an interest in love and sexuality, integral aspects of family life. Vatsyayana obviously did not write the Kamasutra himself. Love-making was alive and well in India long before him.
But he did amalgamate many different texts into one corpus. Vatsyayana himself clearly states this in the very first chapter of the book: Salutation to Dharma, Artha and Kama. In the beginning, the Lord of Beings created men and women, and in the form of commandments in one hundred thousand chapters laid down rules for regulating their existence with regard to Dharma, Artha, and Kama.
Some of these commandments, namely those which treated of Dharma, were separately written by Swayambhu Manu; those that related to Artha were compiled by Brihaspati; and those that referred to Kama were expounded by Nandikeshvara, the follower of Mahadeva, in one thousand chapters. Now these kamasutras, Aphorisms of Love, written by Nandikeshvara in one thousand chapters, were reproduced by Shvetaketu, the son of Uddalaka, in an abbreviated form in five hundred chapters, and this work was again similarly reproduced in an abridged form, in one hundred and fifty chapters, by Babhravya, an inhabitant of the Panchala, south of Indraprashta [Delhi].
These one hundred and fifty chapters were then put together under seven heads:. Sadharana, general principles Samprayogika, love play, sexual union Kanya Samprayuktaka, courtship and marriage Bharyadhikarika, the wife Paradarika, seducing the wives of others Vaishika, the prostitute Aupanishadika, secret lore, extraneous stimulation and sexual power. The book on Vaishika, the sixth heading in this work, was separately expounded by Dattaka at the request of the courtesans of Pataliputra, Patna.
In the same manner Charayana explained the first heading. Thus the work being written in parts by different authors was almost unobtainable and, as the parts which were expounded by Dattaka and others treated only of the particular branches of the subject to which each part related, and moreover as the original work of Babhravya was difficult to be mastered on account of its length, Vatsyayana therefore, composed his work in a small volume as an abstract of the whole of the works of the above-named authors.
Apart from the modest avowal that he was merely a later compiler, Vatsyayana was trying to sanctify his work about the pleasures of love between man and woman. The story goes that the young Brahmin Shvetaketu went to a seminar held by the Kuru-Panchalas, somewhere near Indraprashta and lost an argument he had with a Kshatriya called Pravahana Jaivali.
Discomfited, he asked his father, the sage Uddalaka, about the problem. Uddalaka did not know the answers and humbly asked Jaivali to instruct his son, Shvetaketu. Thereupon Jaivali became the guru of the young Brahmin and taught him many things, including all that he knew about the man and woman relationship. Uddalaka himself seems to have become interested in this theme and is referred to in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as an authority on sex relations.
For those who find it odd that rishis were commenting upon sexuality, it must be noted that in ancient India, the saints and sages were not limited in knowing to just the shastras. They were holders and receptacles of every kind of knowledge. Indeed, there is a whole tradition of Kama Shastra or the texts related to love and sexuality before Vatsyayana. He mentions the compendium of Babhravya, known as the author of Kama-Patha of the Rigveda, who was an author from Panchala, south of Indraprashta, to whom he owed much of his information.
Dattaka, referred to as the specialist on courtesans, was obviously a Nagaraka of Pataliputra, a frequenter of the houses of courtesans, such as resided in every capital from early times, an institution of elegant women, who taught good manners and civilized arts to young princes and nobles.
Vatsyayana respectfully mentions his debt to other scholars like Kuchumara, Gonikaputra and Ghotakamukha. By invoking the names of these ancient sages, Vatsyayana lays emphasis on the sacredness of the theme on which he had begun to work.
But Kama being a thing which is practis- ed, even by the brute creation, and which is to be found everywhere, does not need any work on the subject. The non-application of proper means, which we see in the brute creations, is caused by their being unrestrained, and by the females among them only being fit for sexual inter- course at certain seasons and no more, and by their intercourse not being preceded by thought of any kind.
He answers other challenges: The Lokayatikas, who are materialists, believe that a pigeon today is better than a peacock tomorrow, object to religious injunctions because the practice of these may bring some fruit or may not be fruitful at all. For many other reasons. A person who does nothing will enjoy no happiness. Pleasures should not be sought for, because they are obstacles to the practice of Dharma and Artha, which are both superior to them, and are also disliked by meritorious persons.
Pleasures also bring a man into distress, and into contact with low persons; they cause him to commit unrighteous deeds and produce impurity in him; they make him regardless of the future and encourage carelessness and levity.
They are, moreover, the results of Dharma and Artha. Pleasures are, therefore, to be followed with moderation and caution. No one refrains from cooking food, because there are beggars to ask for it, or from sowing seed because there are animals to destroy the corn when it is grown up.
After these explanations, which fix the role of male and female within the Hindu Dharma, Vatsyayana assembles as many facts as possible about sex as a creative human act, dependent on the impulse of love between man and woman. Get newsletters and updates Close.
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You will also receive special offers from our partners that help make this content free for you. You can opt out at any time. Yes, I want the Patheos Hindu Newsletter as well. Hindu 2. General duties and priorities: First five chapters of the book aims at General duties and priorities of a human like education, roles in life. The sexual pleasures: next ten chapters of book are round up with 64 acts which provoke and advance the sexual urges of partner.
Getting a partner for marriage: next five chapters will help us to find a perfect partner for life. How to choose, satisfy them. Duties of a Woman in marriage life: these two chapters are for woman, they teach us role of first wife and other wives. Duties of a man towards many wives and wives of other men. The river of life: these six chapters are on the financial tips and how to make money.
Occult practices. Hope you will love this book. Reproduce, printing and other commercial use in any way of the book is highly prohibited. A practical self explainable guide helpful for beginners for their start-ups. Conversational Hypnosis. Covert Hypnosis. Self Hypnosis.
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