Kamasutra

by Vatsyayana Mallanaga

  A man should not be congratulated

  if he happens to succeed at something without knowing its science,

  for it is pure chance, like a bookworm eating a hole

  in the shape of a letter of the alphabet.

  2 The three aims of human life are the three divinities in charge of this work; if they were not divinities it would not be right to bow to them. And there is textual evidence that they are in fact divinities. For the historian tells us: ‘When King Pururavas went from earth to heaven to see Indra, the king of the gods, he saw Religion (Dharma) and the others embodied. As he approached them, he ignored the other two but paid homage to Religion, walking around him in a circle to the right. The other two, unable to put up with this slight, cursed him. Because Pleasure (Kama) had cursed him, he was separated from his wife, Urvashi, and longed for her in her absence. When he had managed to put that right, then, because Power (Artha) had cursed him, he became so excessively greedy that he stole from all four social classes. The Brahmins, who were upset because they could no longer perform the sacrifice or other rituals without the money he had stolen from them, took blades of sharp sacrificial grass in their hands and killed him.’

  5 Desire brings happiness and children, but hatred brings neither, and what sustains someone who has neither happiness nor offspring is like a blade of grass.

  7 Brihaspati composed the text called the Arthashastra.

  8 This is not some other person named Nandin, for the scripture says: ‘While the Great God Shiva was experiencing the pleasures of sex with his wife Uma for a thousand years as the gods count them, Nandin went to guard the door of their bedroom and composed the Kamasutra.’*

  9 Shvetaketu Auddalaki was the son of Uddalaka. Once upon a time, there was so much seduction of other men’s wives in the world that it was said:

  Women are all alike,

  just like cooked rice, your majesty.

  Therefore a man should not get angry with them

  nor fall in love with them, but just make love with them.

  But Auddalaki forbade this state of affairs, and so people said:

  The son of the guru

  forbade Brahmins to drink wine,

  but the seer, Uddalaka’s son, even forbade common people

  to take other people’s wives.

  Then, with his father’s permission,

  Shvetaketu, who had amassed great ascetic power,

  happily composed this text, which distinguishes

  those who are eligible or ineligible for sex.*

  11 A certain Brahmin from Mathura was living in Pataliputra. In his old age he had a son, whose mother died giving birth to him. The father gave him to another Brahmin woman to be her own son and, in time, went to the other world. She named him Dattaka (‘little gift’), because he had been given to her, and she raised him; he learned all the arts and sciences in a short time. One day he had the idea of learning the finest ways of the world, best known by courtesans. And so he went to the courtesans every day, and learned so well that they asked him to instruct them. A woman named Virasena, speaking on behalf of the courtesans de luxe, said to him, ‘Teach us how to give pleasure to men.’ And because of that commission he made a separate book; so the story goes. But another quite plausible story is also widely believed: Dattaka once touched Shiva with his foot in the course of a festival to bless a pregnant woman, and Shiva cursed him to become a woman; after a while he persuaded Shiva to rescind the curse and became a man again, and because of that double knowledge he made the separate book. If he had simply made a separate work out of what Babhravya had said, how would his own book have demonstrated such originality that people would say that he knew both flavours? But if the author of the Kamasutra had known that he had such double knowledge, then he would have said, ‘Dattaka, who knew both flavours, made a separate book.’

  13 The text referred to here is Babhravya’s text.

  1 A man is the main subject here; women’s lack of freedom makes their pursuit of the three human goals dependent upon men. The three aims of human life are combined in the following ways: When a man who wants children unites with his legal but unattractive wife in her fertile season, religion is combined with power. When a man who wants children unites with his legal and attractive wife in her fertile season, religion is combined with pleasure. When an unmarried man takes an unattractive virgin of his own class, power is combined with religion. When a married man takes an attractive virgin of a lower class, power is combined with pleasure. When a man unites with his legal and attractive wife, not in her fertile season but because she is tormented by desire, pleasure is combined with religion. When a married man who has nothing unites with an attractive woman of any class, pleasure is combined with power. These are the single combinations.

  When an unmarried man joins, in the proper manner, with an attractive woman of his own class who has had no other man before him, religion is combined with pleasure and power. When an unmarried man gets an attractive virgin of his own class, power is combined with religion and pleasure. When an unmarried man gets a woman who has money and beauty, and they desire one another, pleasure is combined with religion and power. These are the double combinations.

  2 There is a saying:

  Until the age of sixteen a man is a child,

  as long as he eats rice cooked in milk;

  he is middle-aged until he is seventy;

  and after that he is said to be old.

  4 There are four classes in this world,* the Brahmins and the three others, and there are four stages of life: the chaste student, the householder, the forest dweller, and the renouncer. But since release (moksha) is out of the question for householders, whether they are Brahmins or of other classes, for them the human goals remain a trinity.

  6 He must not pursue pleasure until he has completed his mastery of knowledge. Otherwise, he will violate religion, thereby producing an obstacle to gaining pleasure, and he will fail to get knowledge and power. But there is no rule against acquiring something such as land during this period.

  9 ‘And so forth’ includes jewellery and clothing.

  12 This experience bears fruit because, when it goes on uninterrupted, it results in an emission of semen and, simultaneously, pleasure and bliss.

  14 Power is more important than pleasure, since pleasure can only be achieved with power; and religion is more important than power, since power can only be achieved with religion.

  15 The basis of social life is the behaviour of the four classes and the four stages of life. It is the religious duty of the king to protect this, knowing that it must not change. And he can do that only if he has political power, and his political power lies in his treasury, his law enforcers, and his army, all of which come from power and money. As for a courtesan, she will give up religion (in the form of a lovesick Brahmin) or pleasure (in the form of an attractive man-about-town), thinking, ‘Both of them will come later’, and take up instead with a man even if she does not desire him, thinking, ‘This one will give me money.’

  17 Even animals like cows, whose intellects are shrouded in torpor, visibly manage sex without instruction from a textbook; how much more must this happen among humans, whose intellects consist primarily of passion?* As it is said:

  For desire is satisfied without instruction,

  and does not have to be taught.

  Who is the guru for deer and birds, for the methodology

  to give and take pleasure with those they desire?

  And desire goes on all the time, because the qualities of wanting and hating are always there in the soul. These scholars are people who talk about religion, power, and release.

  20 There is no guarding or any other form of concealment, because the females of the species are loose. Animals mate only during their fertile season. Humans who want children, however, do it during a woman’s fertile season but also outside her fertile season,* in order to enjoy and please the woman. So animals and humans are not the same. And so the law bo
ok says:

  You may have sex with a woman in her fertile season

  —or any time when it is not expressly forbidden.

  And animals engage in sex just until they achieve a climax; they do not wonder, ‘Has he reached his climax or not?’ and therefore wish to mate a second time. And so, since the goal of animals and humans is not the same, animals need no method for sex. Animals, moreover, do not first think, before engaging in sex, ‘What will happen to religion, power, sons, relatives, and the prosperity of our faction?’ Sex just happens to animals in their own way.

  21 Materialists (Lokayatikas) are people whose thinking is limited (ayata) to this world (loka).

  22 Someone will take money in his own hand and put it in someone else’s hand, thinking, ‘In time of need I myself might go there and get back what I lost and use it to get something to eat’, but in fact he is throwing it far away. In precisely the same way, someone who engages in an act such as sacrifice, thinking, ‘I will enjoy this in another life’, actually throws it far away.

  29 Even though Bali was unworthy, because he was a demon, and should have been spurned, he ascended to the throne of Indra, king of the gods, and established himself there until the wheel of fortune turned around, and he was thrown out of that seat and hurled back down into hell. But when the wheel of fortune turns back around again, it will once again send him out of hell and back onto the throne of Indra. And so people say:

  Time ripens and cooks all beings,

  time absorbs all creatures,

  time is awake when all are asleep,

  for no one can fight against time.

  32 Good people, experienced in knowledge or in asceticism, abandon a man who is attached to desire. Bad projects would involve going out to meet a woman at night, jumping over walls, and so forth. A man without a future has lost his strength with venereal diseases like ‘Desire’s donkey’.

  35 Dandakya was out hunting when he saw the daughter of the Brahmin Bhargava in his hermitage. Overwhelmed by passion, he took her up in his chariot and carried her off. When Bhargava returned with the fuel and sacred grass that he had gone off to fetch, and did not see her, he meditated to learn what had happened and then he cursed the king. As a result, Dandakya and his entire family and kingdom were covered by a dust-storm and died. Even today they sing about that place, the Dandaka Wilderness.

  36 The king of the gods, Indra, was aroused by Ahalya; for when he saw her in the hermitage of her husband Gautama, he desired her.* When Gautama returned with the fuel and sacred grass, his wife Ahalya hid Indra in the womb of the house, but just at that moment Gautama took his wife into the inside of the house, with an invitation to make love. Then he realized, with the magic gaze that he had achieved through yoga, that Indra had come there, and seeing that a third seat had been drawn up for him he said, ‘What is this for, since only the two of us, my wife and I, are here?’ Then he became suspicious, and by meditation he saw what had happened; in fury he cursed Indra: ‘You yourself will have a thousand vaginas!’ And so, even though Indra was the king of the gods, desire brought him to this sorry state, which was regarded as his destruction. Even to this day that mark that makes people call him ‘Ahalya’s Lover’ has not vanished. As for Kichaka, he is said to have been superpowerful because he had the strength of a thousand elephants; but even he was destroyed by desire, for Bhima killed him when he lusted after Draupadi.

  38 People must be aware in order to take preventive measures, just as they take measures against the diseases of the body such as indigestion. And there is a saying:

  ‘The existence of men who hate pleasure

  is meaningless as the existence of blades of grass.

  But one must avoid its fatal flaws.’

  Scholars made this a fixed rule.

  39 But atheists, those who lack all ambition, and those who hate pleasure win a happiness that does have thorns, because each of these three groups lacks one of the three aims of human life.

  41 For example, through too much generosity, religion impedes power and pleasure; power, when it overrides all else, impedes religion and pleasure (as it did for Pururavas); and pleasure destroys the other two when it involves women of a higher class (as in the case of Dandakya) or other excesses.

  2 The prime of her youth is the period while she is still in her father’s house.

  6 If just one person who knows the text practises it, another learns it from him, and another from him, and so on, no matter how far removed.

  8 Even people who are not astronomers pick up the information from somewhere or other. But in this case, too, the text is the ultimate source.

  14 The word ‘but’ is used to distinguish women from men, who, because of their independence, easily find instructors. The foster-sister is the daughter of her wet-nurse. Her own sister, that is, her older sister, can teach her if she trusts her enough to make love with another man right under her eyes. Otherwise a sister would not want to teach even her own sister, because of their rivalry.

  15 They cut shapes out of the leaves of trees such as birches, to decorate their foreheads; they make lines in the form of designs on the jewelled floors of temples of Sarasvati or the god Kama, with rice-powder of various colours. Unusual techniques are various spells to make someone stop loving someone else, or to reduce someone to a single sense organ, or turn his hair grey, and so forth, as will be described in the discussion of ‘Erotic Esoterica’ [Book Seven]. They complete words by putting on the final syllable; difficult words can be tongue-twisters or anagrams; they complete verses by adding the last quarter to a verse of four parts. Woodworking is useful for making things like sex tools, carpentry for making things like chairs and beds. Massage done with the feet is called rubbing, massaging the head with the hands is called hairdressing, and massaging the rest of the body with the hands is called massage. Languages made to seem foreign are strings of real words, which, by the transposition of syllables, become devoid of real meaning and can be used as a secret code. Alphabets for memorizing are textbooks that teach the technique for remembering what has been heard or written; literary work consists in making poetry and poetical ornaments. Clothes are used to disguise something small to make it look big, and something big to make it look small. Athletic skills include things like hunting.

  17 While a prostitute is generally called by the common title of courtesan (veshya), this woman wins the special title of courtesan de luxe (ganika), because she has these special marks of a courtesan de luxe.

  20 She can make a living by teaching these sciences.

  1 If he is a Brahmin, he gets his money from gifts; a king or warrior, from conquest; a commoner, from trade; and a servant, from wages earned by working as an artisan, a travelling bard, or something of that sort.

  4 The inner bedroom is where the wives sleep. The outer bedroom is for sex. The couch is for the man to sleep on after sex. That is what decent people do; but the lovers of courtesans sleep together with them in the bedroom, and have no need for a couch. And so there is a saying:

  The lover makes love with his beloved

  wherever he happens to be,

  but a wise man, a pure man,

  does not sleep there on that polluted bed.

  The lemon bark is chewed to dispel the bad taste in the mouth and prevent bad breath; about this there is a saying:

  The lover who, in the evening, sucks

  a stick of lemon bark, smeared with honey,

  is not plagued by foul breath

  when he is caught in the net of his woman’s arms.

  The book is understood to be a book of recent poetry, to read aloud.

  5 He uses oil in small quantities, because he is no man-about-town if he uses large amounts. He colours his lips with a ball of moist red lac and fixes it with a small ball of beeswax. He puts a ball of sweet-smelling mouth-wash in his cheek and takes some betel in his hand to use later. He does what needs to be done to accomplish the three goals of human life.

  6 He has the hair shaved f
rom his hidden place with a razor every fifth day, and then, every tenth day, has his body hair pulled out by the roots, because it grows so fast. The sweat that breaks out after any activity must be constantly removed with a rag, to prevent a bad smell and a consequent lack of sophistication.

  16 Visiting players are actors and dancers who arrive from somewhere else. If one of the visiting players falls ill or is in mourning, or attends a celebration such as a wedding, one of the invited players takes his place, in order not to cancel the performance, or if one of the invited players has a misfortune or a celebration, one of the visiting players takes his place.

  17 Visitors are men who have the standing of men-about-town and come from somewhere else to see the festival. They honour them with such things as garlands and perfumed oils, and protect them by giving them assistance in case of disaster. The companies are made up of the players and men-about-town, invited and visiting.

  27 Here he mentions the general games: Goblin Night is a night of pleasure, on which, because the goblins are near, most people light lamps. Full Moon Vigil takes place on the night of the full moon when the moon is in the Pleiades (October-November), when the moon is especially bright, and people play with swings and lamps. The Spring Festival is the festival of the god Kama, which people celebrate by playing, dancing, singing, and making music. Those are the widespread games.

  28 Here he describes the regional games. The game of lotus stems is played near ponds; people play games with new leaves in the forests, after the first rain; ‘one silk-cotton tree’ is a game, played in Vidarbha, in which they find one single, great silk-cotton (shalmali) tree laden with blossoms and play with its blossoms. The festivals and so forth are just for the men-about-town, while the public games are for both the common people and the men-about-town.

  31 He is said to have nothing but his body because he has no son or wife. His collapsible chair is a small seat on sticks that swings down from his back to support his body. The libertine is called a pithamarda (‘stool-crusher’) because he gives his instructions while ‘crushing’ a collapsible chair called a ‘stool’. With this, he lives the life of a scholar.