Introduction

Contents
Introduction....................................................................................... 1
(i) How Kamasutra Compares with Tamil Love Poetry....................3
Meaning of Kama in the Kamasutra and Tamil Love Poetry.......7
How is Tamil Love Poetry is different from post-Kamasutra
writings....................................................................................... 8
'Sex' does not even begin to cover what Kama really meant.....9
Natyasastra, Kamasutra and Tamil Love Poetry........................10
(ii) What is Ancient Tamil Love Poetry?........................................11
Five Phases or Modes of Love...................................................13
Sacred Female Sexuality...........................................................14
Merging of the situational element with the landscape element
................................................................................................. 17
(iii) Storyline................................................................................. 18

The famous Sanskrit treatise the 3rd C. A.D. Kamasutra by

Vatsyayana, has dominated the erotic love traditions of India.
The ancient Tamil love poetry, consisting of 2381 poems (1862 on
love and rest on war) and a grammar with a section on poetics,
written and compiled in different anthologies between 1 st and 5th C.
A.D., offer a psychological study of pre-marital and post-marital
sexual love.

(i) How Kamasutra Compares with Tamil Love

Poetry
Like Kamasutra, Tamil love poetry purports to advice men on sexual
pleasure. Both refer primarily to sexual union. Both cover similar
topics.
Kamasutra

Tamil Love Poetry

the general lifestyle and

attributes of lovers
the compatibility of lovers
the specific phases and
activities of the sex act
itself
the ways and means of
winning and acquiring a
wife
the conduct and
management of sexual
relations
liaisons with other women
dealing with courtesans
esoteric formulas for
whining one's serial goals

Like the first of Kamasutras seven books (or sections), 'General

Observations', Tamil love poetry puts kama (kamam in Tamil) in its

philosophical perspective and describes how the hero should set

himself up for a life of pleasure.
The second book, 'Sex', treats our hero how actually to do it.
Kamasutra describes sixty-four Kama-kalas, or ways to make love.
These are not sixty four positions they are often made out to be but
simply a grand total of different modes and moods of lovemaking.
TLP discusses in details moods of love-making.
Kamasutra famously describes sex techniques but only the second
of the seven books is devoted to sex techniques. Thus Kamasutra,
like Tamil love poetry, perceived sex as an overwhelming 'social art'.
The largest parts of both Kamasutra and TLP are concerned with
how men and women were to manage their liaisons.
Kamasutra's next four books define all the different types of women.
Virgins, other men's wives, courtesans are graded according to
desirability, beauty and sophistication. TLP talks about wives and
courtesan. Few ancient books have described the social and sexual
lives in such intimate details.
Kamasutra

Tamil Love Poetry

PART I: INTRODUCTORY
1. Preface
2. Observations on the three
worldly attainments of
Virtue, Wealth, and Love
3. On the study of the Sixtyfour Arts
4. On the Arrangements of a
House, and Household
Furniture; and about the
Daily Life of a Citizen, his
Companions, Amusements,
etc.
5. About classes of Women
fit and unfit for Congress
with the Citizen, and of
Friends, and Messengers
PART II: ON SEXUAL UNION
1. Kinds of Union according
to Dimensions, Force of

Desire, and Time; and on

the different kinds of Love
2. Of the Embrace
3. On Kissing
4. On Pressing or Marking
with the Nails
5. On Biting, and the ways
of Love to be employed with
regard to Women of
different countries
6. On the various ways of
Lying down, and the
different kinds of Congress
7. On the various ways of
Striking, and of the Sounds
appropriate to them
8. About females acting the
part of Males
9. On holding the Lingam in
the Mouth
10. How to begin and how to
end the Congress. Different
kinds of Congress, and Love
Quarrels
PART III: ABOUT THE
ACQUISITION OF A WIFE
1. Observations on Betrothal
and Marriage
2. About creating
Confidence in the Girl
3. Courtship, and the
manifestation of the feelings
by outward signs and deeds
4. On things to be done only
by the Man, and the
acquisition of the Girl
thereby. Also what is to be
done by a Girl to gain over a
Man and subject him to her
5. On the different Forms of
Marriage
PART IV: ABOUT A WIFE
1. On the manner of living of
a virtuous Woman, and of
her behaviour during the
absence of her Husband
2. On the conduct of the
eldest Wife towards the
other Wives of her Husband,
and of the younger Wife
towards the elder ones. Also
on the conduct of a Virgin
Widow remarried; of a Wife
disliked by her Husband; of
the Women in the King's
Harem; and of a Husband
who has more than one Wife
PART V: ABOUT THE WIVES
OF OTHER PEOPLE
1. On the Characteristics of
Men and Women, and the

reason why Women reject

the Addresses of Men. About
Men who have Success with
Women, and about Women
who are easily gained over
2. About making
Acquaintance with the
Woman, and of the efforts to
gain her over
3. Examination of the State
of a Woman's mind
4. The Business of a GoBetween
5. On the Love of Persons in
authority with the Wives of
other People
6. About the Women of the
Royal Harem, and of the
keeping of one's own Wife
PART VI: ABOUT
COURTESANS
1. Of the Causes of a
Courtesan resorting to Men;
of the means of Attaching to
herself the Man desired, and
the kind of Man that it is
desirable to be acquainted
with
2. Of a Courtesan living with
a Man as his Wife
3. Of the Means of getting
Money; of the Signs of a
Lover who is beginning to be
Weary, and of the way to
get rid of him
4. About a Reunion with a
former Lover
5. Of different kinds of Gain
6. Of Gains and Losses,
attendant Gains and Losses,
and Doubts; and lastly, the
different kinds of Courtesans
PART VII: ON THE MEANS OF
ATTRACTING OTHERS TO
ONE'S SELF
1. On Personal Adornment,
subjugating the hearts of
others, and of tonic
medicines
2. Of the means of exciting
Desire, and of the ways of
enlarging the Lingam.
Miscellaneous Experiments
and Receipts

Kamasutra was written for a pleasure-seeking playboy -- for

'nagarka' (lit. tr. 'he of the city'). According to Kamasutra, sex with a
peasant' was the lowest type of lovemaking. The lowest castes were
relegated to satellite villages beyond the city while the more
prosperous city-dwellers built their homes in sturdy brick with fine
porches and balconied roofs where lovers lingered after sex.
Kamasutra declares itself to be written by Nandi, the servant of bird
Shiva. IA declares itself to be written by Shiva himself.
But Kamasutra was something more ambitious than just a 'sex
handbook'. It was far more ambitious and profound. It was wedded
to the Brahmin traditions of the past. It reflected those traditions.
The knowledge recommended by Kamasutra constituted much more
than simply knowing how to execute diverse sex techniques. The
heroes were routinely compared with the god of love, Kamadeva in
Kamasutra and Murugan in Tamil poetry, in beauty and singled
sexual prowess.
In the Kamasutra, the sexual art was itself accompanied by a vast
array of material, verbal and gestural which were thought to be
integral to its enjoyment. These were deemed so important that a
number of them were considered to be 'determinative' of the very
emotion of sexual pleasure. Vatsyayana called these 'fine arts' and
lists 64 of them.
Vatsyayana says that by distinguishing herself in sixty-four silpaKalas (not kama-kalas) will allow a woman to successfully keep her
husband under her thumb,'even if he has a thousand women in his
harem'.
7

The sexual relations for the people were a part of wide aestheticised
lifestyle. It is perhaps no surprise that the major discourses which
expanded much of the knowledge of the Kamasutra were
increasingly treatises in drama and poetry.
Like Kamasutra, Tamil Love poetry is unequivocally on the side of
pleasure. Sexual love is the fundamental human element on which
Tamil Love poetry is based.
How is Tamil Love Poetry is different from post-Kamasutra
writings
Systematic treatise on love exists only in ancient Tamil love poetry.
Besides Kamasutra, there is also a vast body of poetic writings in
various genres on courtship, love and sex. There are, for example,
numerous plays. There are story cycles of famous lovers. There are
literary texts which deal with love affairs of courtesans. Finally and
importantly, there are larger number of anthologies and free
floating independent verses commenting on, or sketching scenarios
between lovers. These verses, stretching from the sublime to the
vulgar, are typically populated by anonymous and generic 'lovers.
Completing the picture is an extensive technical literature on
poetics, beginning with the Natysastra, and continuing throughout
medieval India, which instructs poets and readers on the
conventions for writing and appreciating love poetry. It sets out the
qualities, scenarios and behaviours appropriate to the male and
female lovers/ characters, as well as a cast of supporting characters
who appeared in connection with their affairs. The literature is in
many aspects crucial, for in setting out the conventions of literary

representation, it makes reference to and shares terminology with

the presumptive literature on erotic proper.
There are, of course, important differences of perspective and
subject matter between various poetic genres and, further, between
those texts which advised poets how to write about love.
Some poems, for example, present rustic, village or even pastoral,
scenes. In general, poetic discourses are far less explicit with regard
to sexual act itself then erotological, being more concerned with
various aspect of wider process of courtship from wooing, seduction
and symptoms of desire, to sexual longing and lovers quarrels.
Poetic discourses divided the experience of erotic love into the
categories of 'union' and 'separation' and became increasingly preoccupied with the experience of love-in-separation -- the effective
world of the lover longing for the beloved. This pre-occupation was
not only a clever poetic technique, it also allowed and contributed
to investing erotic love with wider social concerns.
'Sex' does not even begin to cover what Kama really meant
Kama was -- and still is -- ranked as one of the three fundamental
goals of human existence with artha and dharma. It is the triple
path rather then kama alone, that Vat declares to be the subject of
his text. He opens his book by saluting the trio. They are in mutual
agreement. Together they define all human life. Study of dharma
and artha were flourishing by the time Kamasutra was written.
Authoritative works on dharma and artha had already become
standards. Vat copied the Arthasartha's structure. Their forms are
very close.

The Kamasutra was intended to be a study of all aspects of human

behavior and understanding. At around the same time, Bharat had
finished his Natysastra, a definite treatise of dance and theatre.
Patanjali had composed Mahabhasya, ancient science of grammar.
Aho Athasashe and other....
Dharma could be called 'rules and religion'. Artha - 'wealth and
worldly affairs' kamasutra gives probably the best defintion of
Dharma and Artha. It is the triple path, rather than Kama alone,
that vat describes to be the subject of his text. Kama-kala are not
just tools of successful love-making; they lie at the heart of what
constitutes an educated man.
Natyasastra, Kamasutra and Tamil Love Poetry
Natysastra and Kamasutra were very close. Not only in age (both
were cotemporary -- give or take a century), or in their obsession
with classification and categorization (kamasutra's coital positions
need to introduction while Natysastra describes thirty-two types of
gait, but in their shared sense of erotic.
Love making in the kamasutra is gilded with layers of meaning.
Take, for instance, 'the twining vine', in which 'as the vine twines
around a great dammar tree; so she twines around him 'and bends
his face down to her to kiss him'. Or 'climbing the tree', in which she
rests one of her feet on her lover's foot and other on his thigh and
acts as if she were climbing his body in order to claim a kiss. As the
lovers engage in sex, she uses the cries of doe, cuckoo, pigeon,
parrot, bee. [compare this with flora and fauna in Akam poet].
Natyasastra also takes the performer how to mimic movement of
birds and animals and how to produce delicious coos and cries.
10

In Akam poetry, the hero meets the heroine for the first time in the
millet field. The scene follows kamasutra like a rulebook. When a
young girl is attracted to a man, Vat says ...
The heroine obeys Vat to the letter, she ...
Bharta's Natyasastra offers nine rasas, each of which corresponds to
a basic human emotion. The greatest of all rasas was sringara, the
rasa of the erotic.
Despite the unabashed eroticism of classical era literature, India's
culture was still troubled by sex as it had ever had been.
page 44.

(ii) What is Ancient Tamil Love Poetry?

We know of 2380 ancient poems from the Ettuttokai (Eight
anthologies) and Pattuppatu (Ten Songs). Ettuttokai (Eight
Anthologies) are Narrinai, Kuruntokai, Ainkurunaru, Pattirruppattu,
Akanandru, Purananaru, Kalittokai, and Paripatal.
Pattuppatu (Ten Songs):
1. Porunarar ruppatai
2. Cirupavarruppatai
3. Perumpatiarruppatai
4. Mullaippattu
5. Maturaikkanci
6. Netunalvatai
7. Kuricippattu
8. Pattinappalai
9. Malaipatukatam
10.Tirumurukarruppatai
Akam and Puram
The subject matter of poetry is divided in two main categories
akam and puram. Akam deals with love between man and woman.
11

Puram deals with war, heroism, etc. Three quarters of the total
corpus of classical Tamil poetry may be classified as akam.
Chronology of the Ancient Tamil (akam) Poetry
Most scholars agree that the chronology of the texts of classical
Tamil poetry and poetics is as follows:
1-3 C. A.D. The earliest corpus of akam poetry (compiled in Kur,
Nar and Ak); the old layer of TP (Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 5);
4 C. A.D. Anthologization of Kur, Nar and Ak; the oldest body of the
colophons; the composition of the poems in Ain;
5 C. A.D. Composition of the poems in Kal; the new layer of TP and
its final redaction
5-6 C. A.D. Composition of IA; the main corpus of the colophons.
8 C. A.D. Nakkirars commentary on IA
Five Phases or Modes of Love
There are five phases or modes of love, divided into two categories
of pre-marital and post-marital love. Their order roughly
corresponds to the course of love between the hero and the
heroine.
Each phase or mode of love consists of three aspects or
components:
I.

First, basic things such as place, season, time of day or night.

II.

Things born such landscapes flora and fauna, its inhabitants,

their occupation, gods and foods.

12

III.

Proper, specific attributes peculiar to each landscape, such as

the feelings and situations of the dramatis personae in the love
poetry. The third aspect is about the themes of the modes.

Five
Phases or
Modes of
Love
Pre-Marital
Mountain
country/
Kurinci

Landscape
or Place

Hero and Heroine

Themes

Stage of Love
Mountains

Seaside/
Neytal

Seashore

Neither
Wastelan
d / Palai

Wasteland

First meeting of
lovers
Love at first sight
Clandestine,
secret meetings
by day or night
Gossip
Heroines parents
watching over
them
Revelation of their
secret love, etc
Impatient lover
who must undergo
forced separation
through the fear of
being found out;
Pangs of
separation

Separation from
homes and loved
ones in pursuit of
wealth or reasons
of war,
Elopement, etc.

Background Setting &

Motifs used in Poems

Post-Marital Love
Woodland Forest
/ Mullai
pasture

Wifes patient
awaiting for hero/
husbands return
Advent of rainy
season when hero
is expected to
come back
Heros return
journey

Waterfalls,
mountain pools
Parrots and
peacocks,
Millet fields, wild
rice
Hunter tribes
Flower:
God: Murukan
Season: autumn
Time: midnight
Melody:
Drying fish,
Thieving seagulls,
Fisher folk.
Flower:
God:
Season:
Time:
Melody:
Hot deserts
peopled with
highway thieves,
vultures,
dry wells,
hot noon time
summer sun
Flower:
God:
Season:
Time:
Melody:
Thick woods,
forest pools,
rabbits,
deer,
harvesting and
thrashing millet,
tending cattle
Flower:
God:
Season:
Time:

13

River
Plain/
Marutam

Agricultural
lowland

Hero leaving his

wife (heroine) for
courtesan
The wifes
sulkiness
Hero wishing
reconciliation, etc.

Melody:
Complex social
structures,
set in centers of
culture
Flower:
God:
Season:
Time:
Melody:

Sex and marriage are interwoven with seasonal cycles and

agricultural events. They are interdependent and magically
reinforce each other.
These worlds or landscapes correspond to certain aspects of human
relationships. This is the most remarkable feature of the ancient
Tamil canon of the akam poetry.
Each element of the theme has a particular meaning which is
inherent in the theme. However, the living poetic tradition allows
numerous sidesteps from this canon (for example, the neytal theme
is composed of elements borrowed from the other themes; the palai
theme has blurred contours as well).
Sacred Female Sexuality
The main situations of the five tinai themes relate to particular
types or patterns of behaviour.
The aim of this behaviour is to attain control over the sacred force
ananku. The control can assume various forms depending on what
kind of situation the woman is engaged in at a particular point:
1. whether the force is guarded by her parents (pre-marital love),
2. whether the force is tamed by her husband (married life) or

14

3. whether she herself is capable at harnessing it (ascetic practices

performed during separation).
The idea of attaining control is ever present in one form or another.
A loving couple in Indian and particularly in Tamil culture is granted
a sacral status, merging with figures of gods.
The heroes, who are represented in the cycles of love situations
forming the subject matter of Tamil lyrical poetry, are identified with
different mythological figures.
A possible explanation for this seems to lie in the idea of ananku,
woman being its bearer. A perfect illustration for this is a remark
made by a pardhan, clan poet-singer of the Gonds, which
undoubtedly reflects the traditional Dravidian view of woman's
nature:
"During one and the same day a woman appears in various forms.
When she leaves the household at dawn carrying a jug on her head
she is a bad omen since now her name is Khaparadhari, an evil
spirit carrying a potsherd.
Yet in a few minutes' time she returns with the jug full of water. Now
she is Mata Kalsahin, the best and noblest among the goddesses.
The pardhan who sees her is now ready to worship her. He drops a
paisa into the jug and walks on, hopeful, with a singing heart. The
woman then enters her house and starts cleaning the kitchen. She
is now the goddess Bahiri Batoran who drives cholera out of the
village. Yet when she starts sweeping the yard and the path in front
of her house she turns to an ordinary sweeper. Yet in another
minute she changes once more when she goes to tend the cows;
15

she then becomes Mata Laksmi, goddess of fortune and wealth.

Now the time comes to feed the family, and she turns to Mata Anna
Kumari, goddess of grain. In the evening, when she lights the lamps,
she is Mad Dia Motin, the goddess glittering like pearls. Then she
feeds the baby and sends it to bed thus becoming Mata Chawar
Motin. At night she turns to an insatiable lover whose lust must be
satisfied. Therefore she is the goddess who devours her husband,
like Lanka Dahin who destroyed Lanka with flames". 1
The nature of the heroine as represented in ancient Tamil poetry
goes through similar phases depending on the particular condition
of the sacred force inherent in her. Each particular state
presupposes a manifestation of a particular deity in the heroine and
a particular mode of her behaviour. The latter is fixed in a number of
cases by an appropriate rite or its phase. In such a way the meaning
of poetry situations and the contours of corresponding mythological
figures are revealed.
Love Theme

Corresponds to

Characterized by

Kurinci

stage of the
onset of puberty
in the young girl
or to the first
sexual
intercourse
performing of
the separation
rite
period of
preparation for
the family
reunion following
the period of
impurity
a deviation from
the norm
(pirital), is a
sojourn in a
dangerous

the union of the

male and female
principles,
punarcci

Mullai
Marutam

Palai

the vow of
chastity (iruttal);
purification
through a
quarrel, rivalry
with the
courtesan,
fertility
the
accumulation of
the force

Mythological
Heroine
Valli

Pattini, the
goddess of
wifely virtue
Devasena

Korravai (Durga)

1 Hivale 1946; Quoted from Dubiansky

16

Neytal, as has
already been
pointed out, falls
out of this
system,

"heated" state
the situational
element of this
theme has a
composite
character and is
primarily linked
with the sphere
of emotions

pangs of
separation
(irarikal)

Goddess Minas

Merging of the situational element with the landscape

element
In the mythological mind of the early Tamil, love situations were
tightly interwoven with certain processes in Nature.
This view arose from the basic concept of the sacred energy
inherent in equal measure in Nature and in woman. Therefore
similar states of this energy are recognizable in love situations and
in the seasonal cycle.
Thus parallel routes for events and images are constructed.
In our analysis of ancient Tamil poetry we deal with at least three
such parallels: situational (ritual), landscape and mythological.
Their fundamental link is to be found in their function: to represent,
by various means, one basic mythologeme: the female sacred
energy.
In much the same way as each condition experienced by a woman
is characterised by an appropriate state of the energy inherent in
her, the landscapes of the five regions, likewise, correspond to
certain phases of the calendar: each phase is paralleled by an
appropriate state of the energy in woman and is associated with a
definite idea (contamination, purity, virtue, fertility, withering,
energy accumulation, rejuvenation, fruitbearing etc.).
17

This is the foundation upon which the ideological and semantic

parallelism between the poetry situations and the natural
environment rests.
From this soil grows one of the cardinal principles of ancient Tamil
poetics: symbolic representation of the actions and states of the
poetry's characters and the meaning of the lyrical situation with its
various shades, through images of landscape.
This is the way the main landscapes (or regions) were formed in the
poetry: the regions which represent geographically recognizable
areas and, simultaneously, acquire symbolic meanings.
Becoming symbols they attain a certain degree of autonomy: each
region comes to represent a particular stage of love relationship and
the idea central to it.
The principle of correspondence between the landscape, the
characters and the love situation, being characteristic of ancient
Tamil love poetry, forms foundation for a system of poetic imagery
which is capable of producing an indirect symbolic characterisation
of the heroes as well as expressing shades in their relationships and
the deeper meaning of the situation as such.

(iii) Storyline
In the first situation of the kurinci theme, some maidens from a
mountain hunting tribe of kuravar go to a field where millet is
ripening to shout and scare away birds and wild animals (a maritime
version of the same situation: fisher-girls are scaring away birds
from the fish).

18

A young man who has been hunting in the wood comes to the field
(the sea-shore in the littoral version). He is attracted by one of the
maidens, they exchange glances and fall in love with each other.
Back in their homes they miss one another and dream of meeting
again. Their meeting is arranged by the young man's close friend.
At later stages of their relationship this function of an intermediary
is taken by the heroine's close friend who carries messages,
arranges the heroes' clandestine meetings and carries out
negotiations with the hero to tell him of the pangs of love suffered
by her friend. Their trysts are indeed secret, as the heroine's
parents are quite strict toward their daughter's ways. When the
millet is ripe and the time to reap the crops has come the parents
lock the door of their house and never take their eyes off their
daughter. The heroes' meetings are rare, not easily arranged. As a
rule, the lovers meet at night.
Scarce meetings and the agony of parting affect the heroine's
health and good looks: she has become thin, sallow, her beauty is
fading. The parents are worried by their daughter's condition and,
anxious to find out the cause of it, call in a velan, Murukan's priest.
He duly arrives and, having diagnosed the case as possession by an
evil spirit, arranges an exorcism rite to be conducted at night, with
shamanic dances and sacrifice, ecstatic appeals to Murukan,
chanting, drum beating and the ringing of bells (veriyatal). Telling
the heroine's parents how matters stand in their daughter's heart
the friend thus hints at the real cause of distress and thus reveals
the mystery. This step marks the beginning of the family's
preparations for the wedding, being, as a matter of fact a
19

recognition of the lovers' de facto relationship. The news spreads

across the village. Meanwhile the heroine's confidante, in her
address to the hero, relates to him details of his sweetheart's
miserable state and mentions, as well, that rumours are spreading
that worry the girl. Thus indirectly she makes it clear that the stage
of secret love is over, and the lovers should enter a legal marriage
without further delay.
If there are obstacles on the way of the hero towards the subject of
his passion when the heroine's friend or her parents set barriers
to their clandestine meetings the hero, driven mad by despair,
will resort to an extreme measure the custom of "riding a
palmyra palm horse," matalerutal: mourning his fate, he will sit
astride a prickly palmyra palm branch, while his friends are carrying
him in this uncomfortable posture through the village.
In case the heroine's parents refuse their consent to the marriage,
the young lovers revert to elopement. They settle for a while in the
wilderness, then return to their home village to be acknowledged as
man and wife. If the parents' consent has been obtained and the
parties involved agree to marriage, the wedding is arranged. During
the wedding ceremony the newly-weds are scattered with the "rain"
of flowers and rice and are bestowed with greetings and wishes for
a happy family life.5
The married life of the heroes is generally represented in the poetry
as a state of separation. The husband leaves his wife and goes to
war (or, "to do a man's duty," that is to plunder, to obtain wealth).
He promises to be back at a fixed time. The heroine is in distress,
yet reserved, trying not to show her feelings and only when the
20

appointed time comes (usually at the onset of the rainy season,

when her suffering reaches climax) does she convey her hitherto
suppressed emotions to the understanding confidante.
Another motif related to married life is the hero's profligacy. He
leaves the household to meet a courtesan. The young wife is
overcome with jealousy, she accuses the husband of being base,
makes caustic remarks when he himself returns after his adventures
or sends a messenger to carry out negotiations about the terms of
reconciliation. The terms being negotiated, the young wife is still
hesitant, not knowing whether she should accept his apologies.
Finally the quarrel is settled, the family's happiness restored.

21