35 She does not know the pleasures of love if he neglects her, thinking, ‘She is too bashful’, but he pollutes her with anxiety if he forces his advances upon her. Then she hates all men, thinking, ‘They are all just like him’, or, because she does not experience the pleasures of love, she leaves him for some other man.
1 A man of indifferent qualities does have qualities such as good looks and a good nature, but lacks a noble birth or money and therefore lacks social status. The neighbour who lives next to the woman’s house does not get her, because of all the quarrels that arise about the boundaries between the two properties and because his money makes him arrogant.
2 If she has fallen in love with him, she will marry him by herself in the love-match wedding that consists of nothing but desire.
3 In the South one can marry the daughter of one’s maternal uncle.
4 A girl outside the family would be someone other than the daughter of the mother’s brother, and not related to the man’s parents at all.
7 The game of the middle finger consists of grabbing the middle finger when it is hidden by the other fingers; in the game of six pebbles, a person cups his hand and throws six small stones up into the air and catches them on the back of his hand.
8 In ‘eyes shut tight’, one person closes his eyes and the others hide; then he opens his eyes, and whomever he finds has to hide his eyes. ‘The start’ is a game played with dark fruits. In ‘striking the wind’, they stretch out their arms like wings and whirl around like a wheel. In ‘heaps of wheat’, they hide a gold coin in one of many piles of rice; then they mix all the piles together and divide them again into portions; each person chooses one portion and looks for the coin in it, and if he does not find it he has to give that portion to someone else. In ‘finger-tips’, one person closes his eyes and the others tap him on the forehead and ask, ‘Who just hit you?’ Other games might be ‘leap-frog’, ‘one-foot’, and so forth.
17 He starts a conversation through the mouth of someone else who arranges the secret meeting.
19 He tells her stories connected with her, such as the story of Shakuntala, the king’s wife.
20 The fine arts are the ones that begin with cutting leaves into shape. He can see her when the moon is in the constellation of the Gemini, or of the Deer’s Head, or of the Pleiades.*
21 He thinks, ‘The daughter of the girl’s nurse should know that I am different from other men, if she has already made love. Otherwise, how could she know the difference?’
27 She does this only when the man questions her.
32 These are the arts of love.
1 These are methods for a man who has no helper. There are also some for a man with a helper. These methods are of two sorts, public and intimate. First he describes the public ones.
4 He shows her a couple of geese and so forth, to suggest his own intentions, the sexual act.
7 In the course of these local games, he confesses his feelings by such things as cutting shapes in leaves, just described.
8 He says, ‘I do not know what has caused this agony in my mind.’ And even if he does not explain it, he talks about it more and more, making it seem the most important thing.
9 He says, ‘In my dream, I made love to a woman who looked just like you.’
14 He wants to climb her like a staircase, to touch her between the legs, on the thighs, on the flanks, and so forth, one after the other.
16 Now he describes the intimate methods.
17 He does this by touching her with his nails.
20 On a seat or a bed, he tells her with his facial expressions but not with words, because of his fear that she will reject him.
23 He says, ‘I have such a headache; do rub it with your hand.’
29 Even a man who has inspired exceptional trust does not succeed, because virgins expect to be wooed many times over.
41 When she is very close to him, she is in the power of kama.
42 She goes along with it so that he does not turn away from her.
44 When the man begs her to arouse him by placing her hand on his own hidden place, then only with difficulty will she touch the man’s hidden place.
45 She reveals neither her feelings nor the parts of her body.
46 She thinks, ‘He will not abandon me.’ She urges him to free her by marrying her with the love-match wedding and then by taking her maidenhead.
52 Their superficial enjoyments come from material possessions like houses. But they do not have the intimate trust, the inner pleasure that comes from sexual ecstasy.
1 He lures the foster-sister who has already been with a man, in order to send her into the other woman’s presence as his authorized envoy.
4 She says, ‘Your parents are greedy and do not understand good qualities, for they throw out a man who does have good qualities and are trying to round up a rich man who has no good qualities.’
5 If the girl thinks, ‘He is not right for me’, the foster-sister tells her about women who chose by their own resolve, not according to their parents’ wish. Kaushika saw the celestial nymph Menaka, whom Indra had sent to him to pose an obstacle to the ascetic power he was generating through his yogic praxis; his passion was ignited and he desired her. She took his semen and right then and there gave birth to a maiden whom she abandoned in the wilderness; then she returned to the sky. The great sage Kanva saw the maiden in the midst of a flock of shakunta birds and in pity took her to his hermitage and brought her up, naming her, because of the circumstances, Shakuntala. In time she grew to the prime of her youth, and when she saw King Dushyanta, who had come there on a hunt, by her own resolve she gave him her hand in marriage. Other virgins, too, became the wives of kings.
6 A greedy father may give a girl in marriage into an illustrious family.
8 If he has only one wife, there will be none of the misery brought by co-wives.
9 Thinking, ‘She does want him, but she sees his faults’, she dispels her fear of ruin, her anxious fear of parents and elders, and her embarrassment toward the people around her.
11 ‘If he takes you by force, it will not be your fault.’
16 Her relatives think, ‘If the king hears that the man has done this, then he will have him punished.’
19 The man buys, with money, the help of a woman who is affectionate toward him and was connected with him in the past because their parents were friends.*
22 He uses money to enlist the neighbour’s help.
25 The wedding in the manner of the Ghouls involves taking a girl who is sleeping or drunk. A pretext might be saying, ‘I forgot my ring when I came here; let us go there.’ This takes place when the moon is in the constellation of the Deer’s Head.
26 Here he does not bring the fire and so forth, because there is no dharma.
27 The use of force distinguishes the wedding of the Ogres.
28 The Brahma wedding is better than the love-match wedding, which is better than the wedding of the Demons, the Demons better than the Ghouls, and the Ghouls better than the Ogres.
4 He quotes Gonardiya out of respect, since he was the author of the book on this subject.
5 The older relatives are her father-in-law and so forth.
6 She plants herbs such as coriander and ginger, and vegetables such as beets.
7 The open ground is to walk on.
13 His passion for her may cool if he does not see her with her body well dressed.
14 If he has spent wrongly,* he will be taken for a poor man. He would be embarrassed if she told him in the company of other people.
19 She says, ‘Do not do it again’, but not too much, lest he be humiliated.
26 She does this in order to demonstrate her devotion to him.
31 The services are those that she does for her husband.
33 She uses the water and the froth for drinks for the women servants, the husks to plug holes, the uncooked kernels to feed the poultry, and the coals to make iron pots.
43 She makes her bed near her m
other-in-law and her mother-in-law’s people, for the sake of her own purity.
44 The daily tasks including managing food and drink, and the special occasions would include celebrating the birth of a child. The tasks that the man has begun might be establishing a temple to the gods, or a park.
47 Her ordinary clothes would be those that she wears during his absence.
3 She establishes herself higher than the co-wife.
4 She has to make an effort, because she does not want to do this; to demonstrate her affection, she makes it known to the man by means of a female servant.
5 For she thinks, ‘This mistake may make her unlucky in love.’
6 She reveals details that the man has not seen, to make affection grow between her and him.
7 This is how a woman with no children acts toward a woman who has children.
10 She feigns sympathy for the woman who is the object of the quarrel and covertly encourages her to keep the quarrel going.
22 She serves him more in bed, so that he will love her more than he loves the other women.
23 Since the man would not trust it if she told it herself, she lets someone else tell it.
24 The token is special because it is more than the other wives have.
34 The man who is well-endowed and brings enjoyments is different from the man who is poorly endowed and lacks the capacity for enjoyments. But a woman who walks out again and again becomes a special kind of courtesan.
35 Even if he is well-endowed and brings enjoyments, if his mind is not compatible she will not find complete pleasure. And so this man and the other are different. Thus V shows that, by this criterion, she will not go on to yet another man.
39 She leaves him of her own accord when it is his fault.
42 Her knowledge is greater than the man’s.
43 There is an occasion for her quarrel if there have been frequent breaks between them, if he has an affair with a loose woman, if he stays away for two nights, or if he does not sleep with her when it is her turn.
44 In private, in bed with the man, she practises the arts beginning with ‘embracing’ and ending with ‘a man’s sexual strokes’.
45 The arts that can be revealed are the fine arts, such as cutting leaves into shapes. Her skill is a means of dispelling her husband’s lack of love for her.
50 Whatever way he wants to make love, even if she does not want to, she should do it that way, in order to bring him to satisfaction.
51 She does not say, ‘You do not love me any more.’ She does not show him contrariness by hiding any part of her body.
52 She thinks, ‘By this device I will get him to incline to me.’
53 The woman who must be concealed may be another man’s wife.
62 The queens are in the centre rooms. In quarters outside these rooms are the second-hand women; outside these, the courtesans; and further out, the dancing girls.
66 The work of making love should be their one concern.
67 He must not put up with their infidelities, or else, if these deceptions are tolerated, they will do it again.
70 The one who is shy, he pleases by confiding in her privately; the one concerned about her status among the co-wives, by honouring her in public; the one who is proud, by giving her gifts as tokens of his esteem.
71 Picnics are for the woman who likes that sort of thing; luxuries for the one who is frivolous and extravagant; honours to her family are for the one who is always thinking about doing something for her relatives; and pleasure in bed is for the one who loves to make love.
1 Thus V reminds the reader of the reasons, apart from pleasure and children, that have been explained in the discussion of the types of women who can be lovers [1.5.4–31].
15 He makes advances for no special reason other than pleasure.
19 She thinks, ‘My child is still suckling at my breast.’
20 An overripe woman is ashamed to be forced to show her body to strange men.
21 The death of someone she loved, for example, turns her away even if she has begun to want someone.
22 Because her husband is always near her, she does not see how to get away to make love.
24 She thinks, ‘His mind is difficult to grasp’, and because she does not understand him well, her mind and heart do not imagine him.
25 She thinks, ‘Sex with him will not be a long-term prospect.’
26 She thinks, ‘He will make me the laughing-stock of society.’
27 She thinks, ‘He does what his friends tell him to do; he has nothing but scorn for me.’
28 She thinks, ‘His advances are all hollow, without any true motive.’
30 She is of dull sexual energy, and fears that he is a ‘stallion’.
31 A country girl or an unsophisticated girl would be shy of such a man.
34 She thinks, ‘Because he is so low, one of my girlfriends or some other person will look down on me.’
37 She thinks, ‘Something bad may happen either to his body or to his money, if he makes love to me.’
38 She notices a disease in her body, for example, or a bad smell.
42 There actually are a few women who have regard for religion and the violation of religion.
44 Love for her husband, regard for her children, the fact that she is past her prime or overwhelmed by unhappiness, and regard for religion [5.1.18–21, 42]—these are causes inherent in the woman, connected with her nobility, and he can counteract this tendency by making her passion for him grow.*
45 If she is unable to find an opportunity to get away, or thinks, ‘I would not want anything unpleasant to happen to him’, or if she sees her own shortcomings [5.1.22, 37, 38], he shows her how to manage it.
46 If she thinks, ‘He is inscrutable’, or, ‘He is a man-about-town, accomplished in all the arts’, or ‘He has always treated me just as a friend’, or ‘My husband has employed him to test me’ [5.1.24, 31, 32, 41]—these are causes inherent in him, exciting her respect. But when he becomes very intimate, her awe of him trickles away.
47 If she fears, ‘His advances are just a tease’; or thinks, ‘He does not know the right time and place’, or, ‘He is an object of contempt’, or ‘He does not understand’, or ‘He has grey hair’ [5.1.28, 33–35, 40]—these are causes inherent in him, exciting her contempt. His pride, and his demonstration of his knowledge of the texts and the arts, washes away the contempt.
48 If she thinks, ‘He is propositioning me in an insulting way’, or, ‘His face cannot keep a secret’, or, ‘His affection is all for his friends’ [5.1.23, 26, 27]—these are causes inherent in him, exciting her contempt. He prostrates himself when he is making advances in a place where they are entirely alone.
49 If she thinks, ‘How glamorous he is’, ‘His sexual energy is too fierce’, ‘He is a “hare”, of dull sexual energy’, or ‘If I am discovered, my own people will throw me out’ [5.1.29, 30, 36, 39]—these are causes inherent in her, exciting her fear.
50 The impetuous man acts quickly, without thinking a lot about it; he just waits for a word from the woman.
52 She stands at the door, hoping to see men. Supplanted for no cause, because she is not promiscuous or anything of that sort, she cannot bear that and seeks another man. Both a woman who hates her husband, even if he has good qualities, and a woman who is hated by her husband, are fickle. The woman who is unrestrained toward the things that should be restrained, by her very nature goes astray. The woman who has no children sees no children coming from her husband and goes to other men.
53 The woman raised in the house of her relatives shatters her good behaviour as soon as she becomes independent. The woman whose children have died goes to other men because she thinks, ‘Whatever child is born to my husband, that child dies’, or simply because she has no children. The wife of an actor, or of a dancer or mime artist, is usually a courtesan; a wife who has many young brothers-in-law is usually given some experience by them.
54 When he failed to get her, she married an
other man, but he can win her now, because of her former love for him. A woman who takes sides can be won by the man whose side she takes. A woman whose husband travels a lot is broken down by celibacy; how could she not desire other men? The wife of a man who is jealous, without cause, is sooner or later carried off by voluptuaries. If a man does not clean his body, his wife turns away from him because he is so putrid, so foul. ‘Too pure’ is the name of a specific caste, whose women are generally courtesans. A procrastinator is a man who decides to accomplish some task but does not actually begin it at that time. A jeweller’s wife is always going to the market, where she gets a bad reputation. A villager’s wife is easily won by the man-about-town. A man whose body smells bad makes her nervous. An old man is no longer capable of sex.
55 ‘A woman desires any attractive man she sees’ [5.1.8], but she may become anxious if she cannot see a way of devising some means by which they can make love. When she sees the means, however, she is no longer anxious.
3 Women who act rashly shatter their good character; if they speak freely with the man, what need is there for a messenger for them? But women of the opposite sort have often shattered their good character and converse with restraint. Now, the pursuit of a woman who is acting rashly for the first time is forbidden, even in order ‘to ward off fatal blows to the body’ [5.1.3]. But knowing that a man cannot pursue a woman by himself without achieving intimacy, V describes the causes of intimacy.
5 He sees her only after he has sent a messenger.
20 He himself uses the woman’s things and gets her to use his.
22 When the man gives her the perfume by the hand of another person, he marks its container with his teeth and nails; when he gives it himself, he gives it with signals.
24 He caresses her armpits and the places where her thighs join her torso, but not her sexual organ.
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