Kamasutra

by Vatsyayana Mallanaga

  1 Courtesans find sexual pleasure and a natural way of making a living in their sexual relations with men. 2Doing it for sexual pleasure is natural, and for gain is artificial, 3but she makes the artificial, too, appear natural, 4because men trust women who are driven by desire. 5In order to demonstrate that it is natural, she betrays no greed. 6And in order to make the future secure, she does not get money from him by objectionable methods.

  7 She is always well dressed as she looks out on the main street, easily seen but not too much exposed, because she is just like something for sale. 8She makes friends with people through whom she can attract the man, cut him off from other women, ward off losses and rebound from them, get money, and avoid being treated with contempt by her lovers. 9These friends are policemen, officers of the courts, fortune-tellers, bold men, heroes, men who know the same things as she knows, men who have a grasp of the arts,* libertines, panders, clowns, garland-makers, perfumers, wine-merchants, washermen, barbers, beggars, and whichever other men can be used to accomplish her goals.

  10 Lovers who are eligible just for the sake of money are these: an independent man, a man who has just come of age, a rich man, a man whose source of income is transparent, an official, a man who obtains wealth without difficulty, a jealous rival, a man with a steady income, a man who believes he is lucky in love, a braggart, an impotent man, a man who wants to be known as a real man, a man who competes with his equals, a man generous by nature, a man who has influence with a king or a minister of state, a fatalist,* a man who despises wealth, a man who transgresses the instructions of his elders, a man who sets an example for his siblings, a rich only son, a man who wears the sign of a religious order, a man who conceals his sexual desire, a hero, and a doctor.

  11 But men who are rich only in love and fame are eligible lovers because of their good qualities. 12The man’s good qualities are these: he is born of a great family, learned, knowledgeable about all customs, a poet, a skilled storyteller, eloquent, resolute, skilled in the various crafts, concerned for his elders. He has ambition, great endurance, and loyalty, is generous but not envious, and loving to his friends. He is fond of crowds, salons, theatrical performances, parties, and all kinds of games. He is free of disease, sound of limb, full of the breath of life, like a bull, friendly. He does not drink wine. He attracts women and flirts with them but is not in their power. He has an independent income, is not coarse, prone to anger, or nervous.

  13 The woman’s qualities, on the other hand, are these: the woman is beautiful, young, with auspicious marks, sweet, in love with good qualities but not with money, by nature inclined to love and sex, with a steady mind, true to one type,* a seeker of special things, never living in a greedy way, and fond of salons and the arts. 14The following are the common qualities that the woman has, in addition: intelligence, good character, good behaviour, honesty, gratitude, the ability to see far and long, no habit of interrupting or contradicting, a knowledge of the right time and place, and urbanity.* And she is free from depression, excessive laughter, malignant gossip, verbal abuse, anger, greed, dullness, and fickleness. She speaks only when spoken to and is skilled in the Kamasutra and its ancillary sciences.

  15 The inverses of these qualities are the faults. 16These are not eligible lovers: A man wasting away, sick, with worms in his faeces* or ‘crow’s-mouth’, in love with his wife, coarse in speech, miserly, or pitiless; a man whom the elders have thrown out, a thief, or a hypocrite; a man who is addicted to love-sorcery done with roots, who does not care about honour or dishonour, who can be bought for money even by people he hates, or is shameless.

  17 Scholars say: ‘The reasons for taking a lover are passion, fear, gain, rivalry, revenge against an act of hostility, curiosity, partiality, exhaustion, religion, fame, compassion, the words of a friend, diffidence, resemblance to someone loved, wealth, allaying passion, a shared caste, living in a house together, continuity, and the future.’ 18Vatsyayana says: Gain, warding off losses, and love are the reasons. 19Gain, however, should not be thwarted by love, since gain is the chief concern. 20But the relative weight of fear and so forth* should be tested. That is how to decide on a friend, an eligible lover, an ineligible lover, and the reasons for taking a lover.

  [51] Getting a Lover

  21 Even when a lover propositions her, she does not accept him immediately, for men scorn what is easy to get. 22In order to find out the lover’s true feelings she sends him servants with masseurs, singers, and clowns, or people devoted to him. 23If they are not available, she sends the libertine and so forth. From them she finds out if the man is pure or impure, passionate or not passionate, attached to her or not attached, generous or not generous. 24And when she has found out about him, she offers him her love through the mediation of the pander.

  25 Under the pretext of a quail-fight, cock-fight, or ram-fight, or of hearing a parrot or a mynah talk, or of a theatrical spectacle or some art, the libertine brings the man to her home, 26or her to his. 27When the man arrives, she gives him a love-gift, something that will arouse his love or erotic curiosity, saying, ‘This is for you alone, and no one else, to enjoy.’28 She charms him through whatever sort of conversation pleases him and through courtesies. 29When he has gone, she immediately sends after him a servant girl to joke with him and to give him a small gift. 30Or she herself goes, with the libertine, under some pretext. That is how to get a lover.

  31 And there are verses about this:

  When a man comes to her

  she gives him, with love,

  betel and garlands and carefully prepared fragrant oils,

  and she engages him in conversation about the arts.

  32 She gives him things out of affection

  and exchanges things with him;

  and of her own accord

  she lets him know that she wants to make love.

  33 Through love-gifts, hints,

  and courtesies with just one meaning,

  she becomes intimate with her lover, and after that

  she gets him to love her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  [52] Giving the Beloved what He Wants

  1 Once united with the man, she behaves like an only wife in order to make him love her. 2A brief saying sums it up:

  She makes him love her but does not become attached to him, though she acts as if she were attached.

  3 And she represents herself as dependent upon a mother who is cruel by nature and cares about nothing but money, 4or, if she does not have a mother, upon a woman who is like a mother. 5This other woman, however, is not too fond of the lover, 6and tries to take her daughter away by force. 7At this prospect, however, the woman continually exhibits displeasure, loathing, shame, and fear, 8though she does not disobey the other woman’s command. 9She announces that she has a unique disease that has no apparent cause, is not disgusting, cannot be perceived with the eye, and is intermittent. 10She makes this excuse when she has a reason not to go to the lover. 11But she sends a servant girl for his leftover garlands* and betel.

  12 When making love, she expresses wonder at what he does for her. 13She learns the sixty-four arts of love,* 14and when he has taught her these methods, she practises them on him in return, with constant repetition. 15When they are alone together she does what suits his individual personality. 16She tells him her desires. 17She conceals any imperfections of her hidden places. 18In bed, she does not ignore him when he turns toward her. 19She responds when he touches her hidden places. 20She kisses and embraces him when he is asleep. 21She watches him when his mind is elsewhere, and when she is standing on the rooftop porch of her house and he recognizes her there from the main street, she becomes shy and no longer cunning.

  22 She hates anyone he hates, and likes anyone he likes. She takes her pleasure in what gives him pleasure, and rejoices and sorrows as he does. She wants to know about his women. And her anger does not last long. 23She worries that some other woman has left the marks of nails and teeth on him, even when she herself has made them. 24She
does not speak of her passion for him, 25but shows it by her signals. 26And when she is drunk, asleep, or ill, she talks about it* 27and about the man’s good deeds. 28When he is talking, she grasps the point of what he is saying, and when she has considered it, and there is an opportunity to praise him, she speaks; she makes a reply to what he has said, if he is devoted to her. 29She is attentive to all his stories, except when they are about another wife. 30When he sighs, yawns, stumbles, or falls, she wishes him health; 31when he sneezes, cries out, or is startled, she exclaims, ‘Live!’* 32If she becomes depressed, she pretends to be ill or to have the morbid longings that pregnant women have. 33She does not praise another man for his good qualities, 34nor blame another man for the flaws that he has in common with her man.

  35 She keeps anything he has given her. 36When there has been a false* accusation of infidelity or some misfortune has occurred, she wears no jewellery and refuses to eat. 37And she grieves in unity with him. 38She chooses to leave the region with him and to be ransomed from the king. 39She can live a long life only because she has him. 40When he gets money, or achieves something he wants, or improves his physical strength, she makes an offering to her personal deity, as she had promised in advance. 41She always takes care to dress well and wear jewellery, and takes little food. 42She mentions his name and his lineage in her songs; when she is weary, she lays his hand on her breast and forehead, and she falls asleep in the pleasure that she experiences in that. 43She sits on his lap and goes to sleep there, and when he gets up and moves away from her, she goes after him. 44She wants to have a child by him, and does not want to live longer than he.

  45 When they are alone together, she does not speak of things that he does not know. 46She restrains him from making a vow or fasting, by saying, ‘It is my fault.’ But if this is not possible, then she too takes on that role. 47If there is a quarrel, she says, ‘Even he cannot decide the matter.’* 48She herself looks upon what is his and what is hers as indistinguishable. 49She does not go to parties and so forth without him.

  50 She is proud of wearing leftover garlands and eating leftover food. 51She admires his lineage, character, artistic skill, caste, knowledge, class, wealth, homeland, friends, good qualities, age, and sweetness. 52She urges him to sing, and so forth, if he knows how. “She goes to him with no regard for danger, cold, heat, or rain. 54On the occasion of making funeral offerings for reincarnation in other bodies she says, ‘And let him alone be mine!’* 55She does what he wants with regard to his wishes, tastes, feelings, and character. 56She is suspicious of love-sorcery worked with roots. 57She always argues with her mother about going to him, 58and if her mother forces her to go elsewhere, then she longs for poison, fasting to death, a sword, or a rope. 59And she convinces the man of this, through her secret agents, or she herself makes him grasp her situation. 60But she does not argue about money, 61and she does nothing without her mother.

  62 When he goes on a journey, she makes him swear to return quickly. 63And when he is away, she makes a vow to abstain from washing and she refuses to wear jewellery, except for jewellery with religious meaning and power. Or she wears one conch-shell bangle. 64She remembers things that happened in the past, goes to fortunetellers and oracles who channel supernatural voices, and envies the constellations, the moon, the sun, and the stars. 65When she has a dream-vision of what she longs for, she says, ‘May I be united with him!’ 66If she is disturbed by a dream of what she does not long for, she performs the ritual to set it at peace.

  67 When he is coming home, she performs a ritual to honour the god Kama, 68makes offerings to the deities, 69brings out a full pot* with her girlfriends, 70and performs a ritual to honour the crows.* 71And right after he comes to her for the first time, she does this very same thing, without the ritual to honour the crows.

  72 To a man who is attached to her she says that she will follow him even beyond death.* 73The signs of his being attached to her are that he trusts her with his true feelings, lives in the same way as she does, carries out her plans, is without suspicion, and has no concern for money matters.

  74 All of this has been said to give an example taken from the teachings of Dattaka. What remains unsaid is what a person learns from the experience of the world and from the nature of men. 75And there are two verses about this:

  Because of the subtlety and excessive greed of women

  and the impossibility of knowing their nature,

  the signs of their desire are hard to know,

  even for those who are its object.

  76 Women desire and they become indifferent,

  they arouse love and they abandon;

  even when they are extracting all the money,

  they are not really known.

  CHAPTER THREE

  [53] Ways to Get Money from Him

  1 She has both natural and contrived ways of getting money from a man who is attached to her. 2Scholars have said about this: ‘She should not use contrived means for this, if she can obtain it naturally or get even more through inventiveness.’ 3Vatsyayana says: He will give double the agreed amount when it is embellished through a contrived means.

  4 She contrives the following pretexts to get money from him: She gets money in order to take from merchants, on credit against future payment, such things as jewellery, cooked food, raw ingredients, drinks, garlands, garments, and perfumes.* 5She praises his wealth to his face. 6She pretends to need money for such things as vows, trees, parks, temples, pools, gardens, festivals, and love-gifts. 7She says that her jewellery was stolen by guards or thieves, as a result of her going to him, 8that her property in the house was lost through fire, someone breaking through a wall, or carelessness, 9and so was some jewellery that the owner has asked to have back, and the man’s jewellery. And she lets him know, through spies, about the expenses she has incurred in order to go to him. 10She incurs debts for his sake, and she quarrels with her mother about the expenses that he has caused her.

  11 She no longer goes to parties given by friends, because she has no presents for them. 12And the valuable present that these friends previously brought her, which she had mentioned previously, now must be reciprocated. 13She abruptly ceases her usual activities. 14She engages artisans on the man’s behalf. 15She does favours for a physician and a minister of state for the sake of a particular project. 16When disasters befall friends who have done her favours, she helps them out. 17She carries out home improvements. She outfits the son of a girlfriend on a ceremonial occasion. There are the longings that a pregnant woman has for special food. She is ill. She cheers up an unhappy friend. 18She sells a part of her jewellery for the man’s sake. 19She shows a merchant the jewellery that she always uses, or the household goods and cooking utensils, in order to sell them. 20When there is a pooling of similar household goods with those of rival courtesans de luxe, she takes the special ones. 21She does not forget former kindnesses, and she speaks warmly of them in public. 22Through spies, she makes sure that he hears about the abundant gains made by rival courtesans de luxe. 23Then, in the man’s presence, she describes to those women her own even greater gains, whether or not this is so, with an air of embarrassment. 24She openly refuses men with whom she has had former connections, when they try to get her to come back to them again by offering her abundant gains. 25She remarks on the generosity of the man’s rivals. 26And if she thinks, ‘He will not come back’, she begs like a child. Those are the ways to get money.

  [54] Signs that his Passion is Cooling

  27 She always knows when his passion is cooling, from the changes in his natural feelings and the look of his face. 28He gives her too little or too much. 29He is close with those who are against her. 30He pretends to do one thing and does something else. 31He abruptly stops doing what he usually does. 32He forgets his promises, or keeps them in the wrong way. 33He speaks with his own people through signs. 34He sleeps somewhere else, making the excuse that he has to do something for a friend. 35He talks secretly with the servant of a woman who was previously hi
s mistress.

  36 Before he realizes it, she finds some pretext and gets her hands on his valuables.* 37A creditor takes them from her hands by force. 38If he argues about this, he can be sued in court. Those are the signs that his passion is cooling.

  [55] Ways to Get Rid of Him

  39 If a man is attached to her and has done favours for her in the past, even if he now yields but little fruit, she keeps him around by lying. 40 But if he has nothing left at all and no resources to do anything about it, she gets rid of him by some contrivance, without any consideration, and gets support from another man. 41She does for him what he does not want, and she does repeatedly what he has criticized. She curls her lip and stamps on the ground with her foot. She talks about things he does not know about. She shows no amazement, but only contempt, for the things he does know about. She punctures his pride. She has affairs with men who are superior to him. She ignores him. She criticizes men who have the same faults. And she stalls when they are alone together. 42She is upset by the things he does for her when they are making love. She does not offer him her mouth. She keeps him away from between her legs. She is disgusted by wounds made by nails or teeth. When he tries to hug her, she repels him by making a ‘needle’ with her arms. Her limbs remain motionless. She crosses her thighs. She wants only to sleep. When she sees that he is exhausted, she urges him on. She laughs at him when he cannot do it, and she shows no pleasure when he can. When she notices that he is aroused, even in the daytime, she goes out to be with a crowd.

  43 She intentionally distorts the meaning of what he says. She laughs when he has not made a joke, and when he has made a joke, she laughs about something else. When he is talking, she looks at her entourage with sidelong glances and slaps them. And when she has interrupted his story, she tells other stories. She talks in public about the bad habits and vices that he cannot give up. Through a servant girl, she insults him where he is vulnerable. 44She does not see him when he comes to her. She asks for things that should not be asked for. And at the end, the release* happens of itself. That is Dattaka’s view of the liaison.