NATURE

THE KAMyi5L/TiM

WENDY
DONIGER
The Kamasutra,composed in the third
century CE,is the world s most famous
textbook of erotic love. There is nothing
remotely like it even today,and for its time it
was astonishingly sophisticated. Yet, it is all
but ignored as a serious work in its country
of origin—sometimes taken as a matter of
national shame rather than pride—and in
the rest of the world it is a source of amused
amazement and inspires magazine articles that
offer'mattress-quaking sex styles'such as'the
backstairs boogie'and 'the spider web'.
In this scholarly and superbly readable book,
one of the world's foremost authorities on
ancient Indian texts seeks to restore the
Kamasutra to its proper place in the Sanskrit
canon, as a landmark of India's secular
literature. She reveals to us fascinating
aspects of the Kamasutra as a guide to the art
of living for the cosmopolitan beau monde of
ancient India: its emphasis on grooming and
etiquette (including post-coital conversation),
the study and practice of the arts (ranging
from cooking and composing poetry to
colouring one's teeth and mixing perfumes),
and discretion and patience in conducting
affairs (especially adulterous affairs). In
its encyclopaedic social and psychological
narratives, it also displays surprisingly modern
ideas about gender and role-playing, female
sexuality and homosexual desire.
Even as she draws our attention to the many
ways in which the Kamasutra challenges the
conventions of its time(and,often, ours)
in dismissing fertility as the aim of sex, for
instance—Doniger also shows us how it
perpetuates attitudes that have continued
to darken human intercourse: passages that
twin passion with violence,for example,and
fn we
T
THE MARE S TRAP
 THE MARE S TRAP
Nature and Culture in the Kamasutra

Wendy Doniger

SPHAKING

TIGER^
 SPEAXING TIGER PUBLISHING PVT. LTD
4381/4, Ansari Road, Daryaganj
New Delhi 110002
First published by Speaking Tiger 2015
Copyright © Wendy Doniger 2015 CONTENTS

ISBN: 978-93-85288-06-7
elSBN: 978-93-85288-07-4
Introduction
10 9 8 76 5 4 3 2 I
The moral right of the author has been asserted. 1. The Strange and the Familiar in the Kamasutra 17

Class in the Kamasutra 21

ypeset m Adobe Garamond Pro by SURYA, New Delhi The Life ofa Man-about-town 23

ed at Sanat Printers, Kundli The Kamasutra as a Play 26

The Kamasutra and the Contemporary Reader 27

The Positions 31
Nn n f 1 reserved.
transmitted, or stored iirreldelT
tneans, electronic, mechanical nhot P°tm or by any 2. The Kautilyan Kamasutra 35

without the prior n otherwise, The Triple Set ofHuman Aims 37

tte prior permission of the publisher.
The History ofthe Three Texts, and their Intertextuality 39
41
The Indebtedness ofthe Kamasutra to the Arthashastra
42
°t«»i«d,culattd, wkhou/tke plir"' Basic Similarities ofForm and Argument
43
tti any form of bindina ^ Ptior consent. Attitudes to Low-life and Kings
Attitudes to Other Scholars 45
46
Striking Points ofAgreement
48
Spying
Testing 53

The Need to Control the Senses 57

62
The Ajrthashastra and Kamasutra on Sex
66
Sex and Politics
6 CONTENTS
CONTENTS 7

3. The Mythology of the Kamasutra 7. The Rise and Fall of Kama and the Kamasutra 147
71
Mythological Background Kama in the Early History ofIndia 149
73
Tales Told to Encourage Women Detumescence under the British 152
80
Tales Told to Warn Men 154
86 Sir Richard Burton's Version ofthe Kamasutra
The Demise ofKama 159
4. Women in the 163
93 The Rebirth ofKama
The Kamasutra/or Women
95
Women's Rights Notes 165
Women's Sexuality 97

Sexual Freedom 99
101
Women's Voices
105

107

109

Richard Burton on the 'Third Nature' 113

hame-sex Women 118

Bisexuality 120

121

»
The Problem ofDesire ^
PoMional Solutions 129
'^'*'"""1"nd Pharn,aceutical I ■
ne Mare', Trap SoluOm, ,34
and Humans-M.Pa , 136
of.
144
 INTRODUCTION

REDEEMING THE KAMASUTRA

A NEW READING OF THE KAMASUTRA

Two things happened to change my mind about the

Kamasutra since I wrote some of the early essays on which
this book is based.'
First of all, I began reading Kautilya's Arthashastra again
for a new project, and I saw for the first time how closely
Vatsyayana's Kamasutra is based upon it. This insight led to
a new chapter," but it also coloured all my other perceptions
of the Kamasutra-, it's surprising how many of the puzzles in
the Kamasutra are resolved when you realize that it is based
on the Arthashastra. These new insights led me to revise the
older essays in the volume, and to my surprise and delight
they formed a new book, like pieces of a broken vase in a
film that you run backwards to form a whole vase again.
The unifying theme was the tension between nature and
culture.'"
The second thing that changed my understanding of the
Kamasutra was the rise ofa wave of puritanical censorship in
India in the past decade. Small but noisy political and
religious groups have objected not only to works of art
(paintings, books, films) that dealt with aspects ofsexuality,
but to any public demonstration of desire, even to young
i Chapters one, three, four, five and seven.
ii Chapter two,'The Kautilyan Kamasutra .
iii Chapter six,'The Mare's Trap .
 12 THE Mare's trap INTRODUCTION 13

THE COURAGE OF THE KAMASUTRA

rnnrpmnr,
contemporary T J- readers that xUe
Indian remind Even in its day, and despite its popularity in many sectors of
nrracirsn " I •i J^masutra was an the ancient Indian world, the Kamasutra had to fight against
occasion lor national pride nor i l . .
prear and
great ■ kbook,
anri ,wise I not'
a dirty bonk shame,
Hp thatu it was a elements ofHinduism that regarded sex with an ambivalence
volume Dook. Hence the present that was to be rivalled only by that of the nineteenth
century Victorians (such as Burton^). As an example of the
the Afetirim^tTbrtk eigh^ ""O" the passage in unique courage of the Kamasutra, consider the way that
Vatsyayana challenges the basic dharma of fertility. Where
otner women, one ol whom hac Kpp,, j
the Dharmashastra of Manu says that a man has a duty to
night, casnally cites the have sex with his wife during her fertile period,^ and the
gentle with their brides, lest the wnna Mahabharata and Puranas abound in stories of men who
made me realize vet ao ' u
either go to great lengths to fulfil this duty or are punished
had been in India in eadL Kamasutra for neglecting it, Vatsyayana dismisses with one or two
the reign of the Mughals, who hadwTtT '"f short sentences the possibility that the purpose of the sexual
Persian and had commissioned I • ui ,r act might be to produce children^' for the rest of the book,
and Sanskcit 'fT he ignores fertility entirely and is concerned only with the
making the text available, in 2002 ' ^ sexual goal of pleasure (one of the primary meanings of
kama). Similarly, Vatsyayana's completely non-judgmental
translation,^ devoid of the prurienrn' f contemporary
Sir Richard Burton's translation, wo^d'tr attitude to sexual acts between two men^" was even more
daring in his day than it was in ours until very recently
the Kamasutra as a serious book ab k^ resurrect
cosmopolitan beau monde of ancient ^ n ®°P^^isticated, indeed.

decade later, though the new transkri''k ^ ^ But by far the most significant of Vatsyayana's acts of
throughout Europe,^ the Kamasutra is^dll'^ defiance of dharma is his attitude to adultery. Manu regards
in India by anyone who has read " TV rarely discussed adultery as a legal crime, as does the Arthashastra,^ though
without a fight, I am hoping that TA "P they differ about the punishment of the adulterous couple.
better luck in restoring the Kamasutra to"-'' Manu says, 'If a woman who is proud of her relatives or her
the Sanskrit canon and, indeed ' k P'^oper place in
literary landmarks of the great
ereai- Indian
T a- fheritage.
onour role of the V See chapter five,'The Third Nature', and chapter seven, The Rise and
Fall of Kama and the Kamasutra .

vi See chapter four,'Women in the Kamasutra.

IV Chapter seven,'The Rise and Fall eft-
vii See chapter five,'The Third Nature .
 14 the mare's trap INTRODUCTION 15

hypocrisy, an attempt to avoid possible prosecution for

kine sho husband with another man, the preaching a doctrine directly contrary to Indian law at the
many ne I T^ ^ frequented by time.
red-hofi burnt on a But there is other, more subtle evidence that Vatsyayana
the evil k h, and may he more genuinely conflicted about adultery. Even
sliehtlv 1° ""P-"'^be Arthashastra is only when the Kamasutra tells stories that the go-between is
husband"''''' ' less imaginative:^ 'If the instructed to tell to the target woman in order to persuade
lovlr sh Tr' b«th [the woman and her her to betray her husband, the actual content ofthe stories is
ears and"" u forgiven, the woman's better designed to warn her off, as the women in the stories
Ptit to deatT'S^ bet paramour shall he invariably suffer and/or come to a had end.""' The stories,
like the verses, are taken from an older, moralistic corpus;
hook (Bool^ F"'^ Kamasutra, which devotes a whole the new material contradicts it. But which one expresses
instruction m'd!^ psychologically acute Vatsyayana's own opinion?
detailing hundreds !!T
with the wives of nrk by which he may sleep IF FREUD HAD MET VATSYAYANA
the very end witk ^atsyayana pulls hack at
miQ A his
to guard k- own wife:
'Verses warning the man not to do it, and Sigmund Freud had a great deal to say about sexual
ambivalence, and if Freud had met Vatsyayana, and analysed
him for us, he might well have helped us to decode what
j . b° knows texts and considers, from the text, Vatsyayana was censoring, both consciously (in order to
in th ^hose tell-tale signs are detailed avoid running afoul of the enforcers of dharma) and
j eussion of the seduction of other men's wives,
B;;;;"b-«ved by his own wives, unconsciously (in his own mixed feelings about much of
what his goal of totality'" forced him to write about). On the
because should never seduce other men's wives, other hand, the chronology of the lives of Freud and Burton
each '•^'^bniques show only one of the two sides of does allow for the historical possibility that Freud might
and b ' dangers are clearly visible,
Tk: u b against both dharma and artha. have had the opportunity to analyse Burton s ambivalent
l h.s bookwtves,
guard „a, undertaken in order
for the benefit of men; sexuality:" Burton lived from 1821 to 1890, Freud from
ya,,.ngen,e„,„K„nld not be learned viii See chapter three,'The Mythology of Kama .
""'"to corrupt the people.^ ix See chapter five,'The Third Nature .
In the light of all rb k X See chapter five,'The Third Nature and chapter seven. The Rise and
tFe ch P r. We might hepreceded
inclinedthistopassage
dismissinittheasrest
mereof
Fall of Kama and the Kamasutra .
 16 the mare's trap

1856 to 1939. Therefore in 1890 u n

of his life, was sixty-nine Pre rl'
been pursuing his research i "^^^^ty-four, and had
years; he .ight easi.; h"« 1"
London...We will, alas, never knol'
In any case, I think Vatsvava n o I
Freud did (and certainly more than 7 1
need Freud to understand rh
THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR
nor to appreciate
the man-about-town in his our.tLTlf!^
" symbolism^^^tofdrive
the IN THE KAMASUTRA^
thatdeep
the Freudpost-colonial
would be ofinsecurities
much uselnh and ^
understand
that are keeping contemporary Ind" ^^'^^lences
the Kamasutra. I think Vatsyay • appreciating
inspire them to oyercome their^^ If H l
this great cultural masterpiece rejoice in

xi See chapter six. The Mare's Tr

ap.
The Kamasutra is the oldest extant Indian textbook of
erotic love, and one of the oldest in the world. There is
nothing remotely like it even now, and for its time it was
astonishingly sophisticated; it was already well-known in
India at a time when the Europeans were still swinging in
trees, culturally (and sexually) speaking.
The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary
language ofancient India,^ probably sometime in the second
half of the third century of the Common Era, in North
India, perhaps in Pataliputra (near the present city of Patna,
in Bihar). The two words in its title mean 'desire/love/
pleasure/sex'{kamd)and 'a treatise {sutra). Virtually nothing
is known about the author, Vatsyayana Mallanaga, odier
than his name and what little we learn from the text. Nor do
we know anything about Yashodhara, who wrote the
definitive commentary on the Kamasutra, in the thirteenth
century, a text called Jayamangala. But Vatsyayana tells
us something important about his text, namely, that it is a
distillation ofthe works ofa number ofauthors who preceded
him, authors whose texts have not come down to us.
Vatsyayana cites them often—sometimes in agreement,
sometimes in disagreement though his own voice alw^s
comes through, as ringmaster over the many acts e
incorporates in his sexual circus.
Most people think the is J book about the
positions (often improbable)in sexual intercourse, the eronc
20 THE mare's TRAP THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE KAMASUTRA 21

sexual intercourse. The Kamusutra was certainly not the first

Srj of books of its genre, nor was it the last. But the many textbooks of
like 'Assume the pTitbn'" T"p eroticism that follow it, such as the Kokashastra (or
Cosme/,„/m„offering
magazine'12publish H a'""" Ratirahasya) and the Anangaranga, eliminate most of the
WW, 'Cosmo Kamasutra s encyclopaedic social and psychological narratives
^Mes',each with its numerical'degterordTf^-rT' I and concentrate primarily on the sexual positions, of which
they describe many more than are found in the Kamasutra.
offered The website CLASS IN THE KAMASUTRA
compromising positions (Piglet'onT\"p i
Eeyore, and so forth). Palm Pilot h J mounting Whom was it written for? It is difficult to assess how broad a
Sutra: The Kama Sutra T th ^' oopytighted 'Pocket spectrum of ancient Indian society knew the text first hand.
offered 'lying down positions' 'sL" It would be good to have more information about social
positions', 'standing positiom' t ""f 'r^ar-entiy conditions in India at the time of the composition of the
more. There is a Kan,a„„ wriTn! TT'' Kamasutra, but the Kamasutra itself is one of the mam
sources that we have for such data; the text is, in a sense, its
different position every hour M
in The Pleasure of the T ; ,
displays a
Poland Barthes, own context. The world of the Kamasutra is a world of
metaphor for literary as wdl' ^^asutra as a root privilege; the lovers must be rich. Much of the Kamasutra is
must prove to m Th " desire:'The text you about culture, which belonged to those who had leisure an
It is writing. Writing is: th proof exists: means, time and money, none of which was in short supp y
language, its Kama Sutra fth 'Various blisses of for the text's primary intended audience, an mban (an
writing itself).'4 ^ ^t:ience has but one treatise: urbane) elite consisting of princes, high state officials an
^--t for sex is thus the sex of the text. wealthy merchants. ■ i c i ■
The part of the Kamasutra A -e The Kamasutra is almost unique in classical Sanskrit
have been the best-thumbed positions may literature in its near total disregard of class iyama) and caste
sexual censorship, but now 'tt previous ages of {jati). Of course, power relations of many kinds gen er,
-els, films andhnsttLror^'- T''™ wealth, political position, as well as caste—are imp icit
that part is the least useful widely available, throughout the text. But wealth is what cottnts most. The
about lovers must be rich, not necessarily upper-class When t e
powerthe
in aartmarriage,
ofliving_abourf is a book
commirr'^^ ^ng a partner, maintaining text says that the man may get his money from gifts,
^ '^nnrtesan, using drugs^anri as or with conquest, trade, or wages, or from inheritance, or from
' ^bout the positions in
 22 THE mare's TRAP
later, explains, 'If
gifts; a king or warrior, froL Ton
trade; and a servant from
artisan, a travelling bard n
times, once in a single
concern only when vo
sons, and can be disregaTdeJin'^lf't'''
once when the go-betw " other erotic situations;*^
woman stories about 'other
-dl«er in a discussion of po'T
'Sex with a coarse serv
female water-carrier or hnn
this kind ofsex, he does not
Similarly, 'sex with a ^ea
-urtesan and a country
ctween a nran-about-tow
countryside,
borders.^ cow-herding
' villa'' ^countrres beyond the
Vatsyayana disapproves of
tri al women because they co^uld'k
a otic refinement and sensibif
Cha!'"'^°r^' ^ould have
Perha ^ *''^^fton of dIp
n>ake love ;:r
d.ff ""I'''' law
Vatsvava ■ ^^'^tly to women cf
you make love Iff
THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE KAMASUTRA 23
of delicate or rough temperaments; money matters, but
status does not.
^ commoner, from THE LIFE OF A MAN-ABOUT-TOWN
working as an
The world of the Kamasutra is a fantasized world of sex that
' tnentioned just a few is in many ways the prototype for Hugh Hefner's glossy
admitting that class is of Playboy empire. The privilege of the Kamasutra lovers is
expressed in the opulence of the instructions on the home
decorating of the ideal lover. The protagonist of the
to tell the target Kamasutra, literally a 'man-about-town' {nagaraka, from
the Sanskrit nagara, city), lives 'in a city, a capital city, a
market town, or some large gathering where there are good
'''' people, or wherever he has to stay to make a living'.^ He has,
Place with a lower-class as we say of a certain type of man today, no visible means of
1" support. His companions may have quite realistic money
civility,
P'^e between a problems; his wife is entrusted with all the household
climax, or management, including the finances; and his mistresses
work hard to make and keep their money. But we never see
the man-about-town at work.
This is how he spends a typical day:
with rural and First is his morning toilet: He gets up in the morning,
effects on the relieves himself, cleans his teeth, applies fragrant oils in
small quantities, as well as incense, garlands, bees wax and
cultivated man- red lac,looks at his face in a mirror, takes some mouthwash,
and attends to the things that need to be done. He bathes
^ ceper. But for all every day, has his limbs rubbed with oil every second day,
a foam bath every third day, his face shaved every fourth
r""™"''- day, and his body hair removed every fifth or tenth day.
that you All of this is done without fail. And he continually cleans
the sweat from his armpits. In the morning and afternoon
rently to women he eats.
11
24 the mare's trap
YRsKocllia.rR's com
of these details:
atuMow„fi"hrut?''""'''^-
a ball ofmois,rediraTr""'
te is no man-
bees' wax. He puts a ball T
b« cheek and takes some LXb hT"'?
has the hair shaved frr> u- ■
fifth da,,rdtht '
P"M OU, b,rhe roor
that breaks out after any ac
with a rag, to prevent a bad'''^
»Phis.ica,ion ™="»"<! a consequent lack of
Now. ready to 6ce the day h
After eat"
Wnah birds to'sSTgoes T""'"® Pa™^ and
^-fights, engages in LTol:l"
'time with his libertine „ a
a nap. aftein
goes to salons to amuse himseifa
s music and singing. After th
-afi^^lydecoratedid;:^*::;:"
a and his friend, await the wo *=""'""''""g'"acnse,
'/mlarvous with them
7*»"> or goes to get"r
"'"■nan arrive, he and U
TeaTr""
si; . , """ aaaoaked the cloth-
1;air aloZtms?'®'°"' >'"■1 ^rtllri "''h
Tba. is what helrhyX; T
e*/ aay and night. 12
THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE KAMASUTRA 25
^^^ons behind some Busy teaching his birds to talk, he never drops in to check
things at the shop, let alone visit his mother. Throughout
the text, his one concern is the pursuit of pleasure. Well,
"P'
there were undoubtedly men (and women) in ancient India
who had that sort of money and the privilege that came
^'tnall ball of with it; Sanskrit literature tells us, in particular, of wealthy
merchants whose sons engaged in the sorts of adventures,
band to use later. He
erotic and otherwise, that other literatures often reserve for
P''- »-!>body
a razor
hair princes. Vatsyayana insists that anyone, not just the man-
^^he sweat about-town, can live the life of pleasure—if he or she has
constandy removed money.
That is not to say, however, that the pursuit of pleasure
didn't require its own work. Vatsyayana details the sixty-
four arts that need to be learned by anyone (male or female)
who is truly serious about pleasure:
singing; playing musical instruments; dancing; painting;
cutting leaves into shapes; making lines on the floor with
and passes rice-powder and flowers; arranging flowers; colouring the
f he teeth, clothes and limbs; making jewelled floors; preparing
"P and beds; making music on the rims of glasses of water; playing
evening, there water sports; unusual techniques; making garlands and
a bfdroom stringing necklaces; making diadems and headbands;
making costumes; making various earrings; mixing
'"PPing o"' perfumes; putting on jewellery; doing conjuring tricks;
fentale mLengers practising sorcery; sleight of hand; preparing various forms
' ™aelf. And when Te of vegetables, soups and other things to eat; preparing
" '''a mindganfia
and
wines, fruit juices and other things to drink; needlework;
weaving; playing the lute and the drum; telling jokes and
riddles; completing words; reciting difficult words; reading
aloud; staging plays and dialogues; completing verses,
making things out of cloth, wood and cane; woodworking,
carpentry; architecture; the ability to test gold and silver.
 THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE KAMASUTRA 27
26 THE mare's TRAP

metallurgy; knowledge of the colour and form of jewels; than anything else. The man and woman whose sex lives ate
sk. 1 at nutturmg trees; knowledge of ram-fights, cockfights described here ate called the hero and heroine, and the men
andquail-fi^ts; teaching parrots and mynah birds to talk; who assist the hero ate called the libertine, pander and
s 1 at rubbing, massaging and hairdressing; the ability to clown. All of these ate terms for stock characters in Sanskrit
speak ,n sign language; understanding languages made to dramas—the hero and heroine, sidekick, supporting player
seem foreign; knowledge of local dialects; skill at making and jester. Is the Kamasutra a play about sex? Certainly it
flower carts; knowledge of omens; alphabets for use in has a dramatic sequence, and, like most classical Indian
making magical diagrams;alphabets for memorizing; group dramas, it has seven acts. In Act One, which literally sets the
recitation; improvising poetry; knowledge of dictionaries stage for the drama, the bachelor sets up his pad; in Act
and thesauruses; knowledge of metre; literary work; the art Two, he perfects his sexual technique. Then he seduces a
of impersonation; the art of using clothes for disguise; virgin (Act Three), gets married and lives with a wife or
special forms of gambling; the game of dice; children's wives (Act Four); tiring of her (or them), he seduces other
games; etiquette; the science ofstratemr-a i- ■ men's wives(Act Five); and when he tires ofthat, he frequents
of athletic skills."
courtesans (Act Six). Finally, when he is too old to manage
And while we are still reeling i■ it at all, he resorts to aphrodisiacs and magic spells (Act
j. , . j 8 trom this list, Vatsyayana
immediately reminds us that there is. in addition,an enttely Seven).
difcent cluster of sixty-four arts of love,.' which include
eight forms ofeach of the main erotic activities; embracing, THE KAMASUTRA AND THE CONTEMPORARY READER
kissing, scratching h„i„g ,exual positions, moaning, the The Kamasutra is firmly situated within the value system of
woman playing the man's part and nr.l 17 a -A
^1 1 . ,. , , r iL ana oral sex.'A rapid
calculation brings the tab to 128 arrc . • r .
what might be called the ancient 'Indian way; it shares
could hardly master even after ,h .hat one many of its unstated assumptions with those of traditional
andalongapprenticeship-t"^ Indian texts. And yet, it is also a unique text, unusual for its
time—closet, in some ways, to outs.
the Kamasutra was intended
^ea to it-Clearly
be useftil mainly for the Two worlds in the Kamasutra intersect for contemporary
man-about-town—and, indepH
eed, ,-l
the ^
woman-about-town.' readers, both Indian and non-Indian: sex and ancient India.
THE KAMASUTRA AS A PLAY
We assume that the understanding ofsex will be familiar to
us, since sex is universal, and that the representations of
What is its genre? Beneath the veneer of a r u i ancient India will be strange to us, since that world existed
the Kamasutra resembles a ixr
worki ofr dramatic
^ sexual textbook,
fiction mote long ago and (for non-Indians) in a galaxy fat away, his is
largely the case, but there ate interesting reversals of
i See chapter four,'Women in t-ka.
uie Kamasutra'.
 28 the mare's trap THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE KAMASUTRA 29

hates, this is good for him, this is bad for him', a consideration
that must resonate with many contemporary readers, cooking
for someone they love, balancing the desire to please (perhaps
with a Bearnaise sauce? Or a curry made with lots of ghee?)
with the concern for the rising cholesterol level.
or ancient India • In the realm of culture, too, there are moments that travel
contemporary well across the centuries from Vatsyayana's time to ours.
day: his morning toilet is n ofthe man's There is the charming item, in the Borgesian list of arts, of
alas, scnedule
'"'IS, schedule in
in things
things lit
lit iu-• ^1° not. making music on the rims of glasses of water, something
It IS the constant intersectL'^^^^f'^^
intersectL'^^^^f tnynah birds to speak,
speak. that people do nowadays, too. There is the passage in which
very odd!','Oh,1 know i, U ^ perceptions—'How the boy teases the girl when they are swimming together,
the strange appeal of the fO —that constitutes diving down and coming up near her, touching her, and
then diving down again;^^ this is familiar territory for me, at
on whom he's set his si k tvho tells the woman least; it was already an old trick when I was a young girl at
pretending that It was ah ^ dream, summer camp in the Adirondacks, and boys would do this
woman who does the same ,h' ""l",*" and the sort of thing. On the other hand, the magic formulas used
pang offamiliarity when reari'^^^' tvill feel a guilty to enhance penis size'" remain truly foreign to people of the
^ woman interested i„ ge„tng a man
reom
« s attentionsuggesting that
in a crowded
twenty-first century; a comparison with Viagra is superficially
useful here, but it does not get you far enough to take this
""dnng sure to brush him ''t '""'dting from him. part of the text seriously on its own terms. Magic and drugs,
cross him.re This is an a"""V" - reaches the life in the harem, the world of courtesans—these parts
a culrure, far moretT®'' '^ing to know of the Kamasutra make you think,'How very different these
«" atand on one leg ^an knowing that you people are from us.' Or, as a Victorian gentleman cited by
t~:u;^"'™'""arr;::*':T-
associat- • ^"^^-^pccific list of
^^e iive.
tnihar are cheek-by-
Hilaire Beiloc remarked after seeing Shakespeare s Antony
and Cleopatra,'How different, how very different, from the
home life of our own dear Queen.'
wCur;'^' '"dudehl^r" "« For South Asians, there are bits of the text that are
*'reiylext7""''' "°*'dWoman
and fmds 4'f.this''''
whh wfol e" a magician
" startlingly familiar from the everyday world of India today.
is ^k , ° ts cooking for her For people who grew up elsewhere, these become accessible
chapter serfT^
"« he likes, this is what he
iii See chapter six,'The Mare's Trap'.
Trap'.
 30 the Mare's trap THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE KAMASUTRA 31

mly through rather distant analogies. Betel, for instance, with me and knows all my weaknesses. If I reject her, she
mhula nowadays caUed paan, is still popular across India will ruin me by publicly exposing my faults; or she will
accuse me of some fault which I do not in fact have, but
1 ough riot used quite in the manner, or for the purpose, which will be easy to believe of me and hard to clear myself
prescnbed by Varsyayana). It is a delicacy made of a betel of, and this will be the ruin of me.'^'
rolled up around a paste made ofareca nuts (sometimes
ed betel nuts), cardamom, hme paste and other flavours, This is a brilliant and timeless portrait of a self-serving rascal
who has no illusions about himself.
som! "imulanrs (including,
like a m a""""'' THE POSITIONS
the m 6tape-leaf, is eaten as a stimulant, to redden Our reaction to the central subject, the act of love, should
l""'" Throughout the surely be one of recognition, of familiarity, but no. Here,
their o„ O"'°f
rather than in the cultural setting, is where we are,
baiiic part of
Tu ''in ancient TnrI"
the erotic scene u This
u unexpectedly, brought up short by the unfamiliar. But the
undersmrvH
ood by non-Indians through an ^ndia
u . ami can best
• u ube passage describing the ways that a man can move inside a
overtones
c!, th/t
mat .R R or the
champagne has, , noct-^^^ogy
• i with
• the woman seem to cut right through culture to human nature
(A clocpr analogy,
o 1 .
perhaps, .is supplied
post-coital
Km cigarette.
until we are once again brought up sharp by the quaint
scene in A'bz/y U no/n • oy the recurrent names that are given to these movements (and that have
two cigarettes inVoyager
R [l9A2],myvh:ichVau\U
l j i ^^ -j lights
Henreid i- r.
been a subject of parody ever since Sir Richard Burton s
The worn n's a"T"'^ t D-"' translation became widely known in the English-speaking
and how, f'u ™='y''hiects as how to keep a
'emarkably trulf f e "ohng^^ ring world, after 1883):
°r her cultme Tolf When he reams her many times just on one side, that is the
speaks to the modern reader is the d boar's thrust'. ^JHien he does this to both sides, alternating,
wants to seduce a married woman InTh rnan who it is the 'bull's thrust'. When he enters her once and,
. rations on reasons to do this *°"'''-he adulterer's without pulling out entirely, thrusts into her two, three,
"guments that still make sense it! "f self-deceprive four times, and does this repeatedly, it is called frolicking
He thinks: 'TR«. like a sparrow'.
woman, and tb '• 'n™lved in mv h ' k- The Kamasutra describes a number of contortions that
useless'1iT
have exhausted all mof wealth A n
"' "hance ®I am
' require practice', as the text puts it mildly, and these are the
'^ueh as I am,I will means of making a living positions that generally make people laugh, uneasily, at the
«-h vew litdc tmu?Jo 'his way mention of the Kamasutra.
' '^'■'""'manismadlyin Ji
 32 THE mare's TRAP THE STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE KAMASUTRA 33

But I think the answer lies elsewhere:

to his riTsuvarn!ni^^^^ Vatsyayana says: Even passion demands variety. And it is
through variety that partners inspire passion in one another.
woman are raised.^hT'J^ed''6
holds her legs up, it is ,he W m"°'h^™
It is their infinite variety that makes courtesans and their
lovers remain desirable to one another. Even in archery
also flexes her lees ar tK R ' d°es that but and in other martial arts, the textbooks insist on variety.
When he does that but sLtcr'' 'high-squeeze', How much more is this true of sex!^"
the 'half-squeeze'. Whp °h her feet, it is
man's shoulder and th'^ placed on the The extreme positions may simply be the artiste's free-
alternate agaL "d ^ they ranging fantasies on a theme of sexual possibilities: they are
bamboo'. Ajcq,^^ called 'splitting the not instructive but inspiring, and inspired. The text is a
and the other lee is strerrR a taised above her head virtual sexual pas de deux as Georges Balanchine might have
stake', and can only be done°"-V^ 'impaling on a choreographed it, an extended meditation on some of the
her legs are flexed at the k Ptactice. When both of ways that a naked man and a naked woman (ot, rarely,
abdomen, it is the crab' Wb^^^ placed on her own several men and/or women) might move their limbs while
crossed, it is the 'squeeze' Wb^" thighs are raised and making love. It represents a literally no-holds-batted
crosses her calves, it is tb ^ ^ cpcns her knees and exploration of the theoretical possibilities of human
around with his back to bl ' he turns heterosexual coupling, much as the profusion of fantastical
that is called'rotating' and embraces his back. compound animals in other texts—heads of horses on the
Evidently V t hhpractice.- bodies of women, ot torsos of women on the bodies of
why he blames^emYn^o^^^ ^ ^°P' which is cobras, and so forth—push back the walls of out imagination
What are we to make of ^^^^^"anabha. of the variety of known and unknown animal species. It is a
atictent India really make In ^id people in fantasy literature, an artistic and imaginative, rather than
Aey didbodies
4«r havedoyogafa^dt
things I":::''''= '°fyos=La,n
<tink nor. Le.
m<^c physical, exploration of coupling. And it boggles the
contemporary imagination.
Alnk possible (or even perha "j
do it is no
P''°P'= ™uld not
because
Though sexual reality may in fact be universal there ate,
after all, just so many things that you can do with your
°f "s passage "■about
(Or,oralas
Vatsyayana remarks, genitals—sexual fantasy seems to be highly cultural. This,
« and sanre-sex sex,^first at th j"" then, is what is new to us in the brave new world of this
P--ge,» -The statemenuLXu " ">■= °f b« Viagra ancient text, in which the constant alternation of the familiar
ot justify a praetice." This is does 3nd the strange teaches us a great deal about human nature
"poats in the whole book *= o"')- verse that he and human culture.
' " 'naportant to him.)
 2

THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA

the triple set of human aims

Yashodhara, the thirteenth century commentator on the

Kamasutra, told the following story at the very start of his
commentary:

The three aims of human life are three divinities...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
Dharma (Religion), Artha (Power) and Kama (Pleasure)
embodied. As he approached them, he ignored the other
two but paid homage to Dharma, walking around him in a
circle to the right. The other two, unable to put up with
this slight, cursed him. Because 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 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 ofsharp sacrificial grass
in their hands and killed him.'
There is a parallel to this story in the Greek myth of Patis,
who, forced to choose between three goddesses, chose
Aphrodite (= Kama) over Hera and Athene (roughly
Dharma and Artha), who cursed him. The Indian
commentator refers elsewhere, briefly, to a different variant
 38 THE mare's TRAP
THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 39

discipline {shastra), embodied in any number of texts, and

these texts, composed in Sanskrit, are also (rather conflisingly)
(iis it did for Pururavas) 3 I„H'J''f"' called shastras. So Ashva-shastra in general means the science
compelling and dangerous artha 'f' of horse-breeding and —training {ashva corresponds to the
how dharma esn^ • ii i hama can be, but also Latin equus), while xhe Ashvashastra attributed to a particular
most powerfiil of hi ^(7 T Brahmins, is the author is a textbook about horse-breeding and-training.
capable of vinlpn^I j '^Bat Brahmins are In the science of dharma, the Dharmashastra attributed to
performing *eir right to be pmd for Manu is the most famous; it is cited in other ancient Indian
Story, or the ascnrr. • ^^^tyone, however, believed this texts far more frequently than any other dharmashastra. The
who included, I wilfargue,th' P^op'^— Arthashastra attributed to Kautilya is similarly outstanding
the sciences of artb hi' ^ ^tithors ofthe oldest texts of for artha; it is a compendium ofadvice for a king, combining
at aU. ^ kama—did not swallow the myth much technical information on the running of a kingdom
Ancient Hindu texts ofi- with a good deal of thought on the subject of human
kama as the three aim f ^P^^ of dharma, artha and psychology. Together with the Kamasutra, these two texts
called the trivarga or th purusharthas, also form a triad that will supply the main substance of this
Was supposed to achi which every person chapter. Manu will serve us primarily as a baseline from
assonance, one might H to have a full life. For which the other two texts diverge.
or society, success, andsev Pleasure,
^ore precisely, dhar ' domination, and desire, the history of the three texts,
"^^rtt, morality, soci^^ J^cludes duty, religion, religious and their intertextuality
^d thelaw—.thegoo . l^^dce, righteousness
Ptofit, and success-—the b " , P°^^dcal power, The history of the three texts is a tangled labyrinth of
^sire, and pleasure (what'^rb represents love, tnutual influences. It begins with the Arthushdstru, which is
»st) not merely sexual b. b ^^^"^ans call Woiiust and generally attributed to Kautilya ("Crookedness ^), also called
f"d food, perfume-!,het TP -nsual-music, Chanakya and Vishnugupta, the brilliant minister who
„ ™iP°°P'c Segan to spea!'c ®"""8 rfb same period, helped the Mauryan emperor Chandragupta to win and
maintain a great empire, beginning in the fourth century
eTem i ""l- ^'""A aim rf 1 Set (L„r- BCE. And indeed, there may have been some sort of
much ■ "births. Bu, "^^o'case from the rudimentary Arthashastra at the time of the Mauryas. But
P^'^sent discussion''/ concern us
the actual text ofom Arthashastra first began to be compiled
E-b 7flT°'"y ofa Trip,!"stv'' in the middle of the first century CE, when someone who
'"^"--^esubleetofascieneeor
 40 the mare's trap
THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 41

CE) Kamasutra. The Arthushustra and Manu quote one

another, and the Kamusutra quotes the Arthashastra.. They
are all in conversation, intertextuality with a vengeance.
CE,someone who c"alU Wdfm"" Though they differ spectacularly on a number of ethical
issues, these texts exist together in one world; the differences
between them are not only the differences caused by shifts
governance, royal duties '^d l! discussions of in context of time and place; more important are the
up more than a third of the texT' T differences between different sorts of people, in different
borrowed heavily from 1<r -i " subjects, Manu parts of the same society at the same time. It is not the case
die second century CE sometime after that only a puritanical Brahmin studied the dharma texts
and only a libertine merchant read the Kamasutra-, no, the
texttsbyISadding material r
the Arthashastra e updated
other Kautilya's
dharmashastras. same man, of either class, might well read dharma with
-"ng from a now lostX;^' ^ learned men (pandits) by day and the Kamasutra with his
Dharmmhastn by Man,, T"'''"'^''' which fed into a mistress by night.

Am incorporated
The Anhashaara is ah d Vanu. the indebtedness of the kamasutra
'^nasum and give, " ^'"'"ry older than the TO THE ARTHASHASTRA

'^"^utra. nor dr,e, ;, ™ knowledge of any We've seen that the author ofthe revised standard edition of
^''^'™-The&„^„J^~ kama as an organizing the Arthashastra borrowed heavily from Manu (and vice
versa). It should therefore not be surprising to learn that the
A +L I " draws primaril uecessarily Kamasutra borrowed heavily from the Arthashastra (t oug ,
that concern meml'' P^hons of the in this case, the Arthashastra did not return the comp iment
While the Arthashastra is deeply suspicious of kama in any
shape or form, the Kamasutra has respect for artha as an aim,
especially as far as courtesans are concerned. The Kamasutra
is closely based upon the Arthashastra, and this connecuon
and tb^ ^°teowed from that ^^e second strongly influences the worldview of the Kamasutra.
Panchatantra, the book of beast fables, is in many ways a
^-AasC"fea"S
of^rrA/jfA ted century cph tecension of the spoof on the Arthashastra-, the Kamasutra is m many ways a
and Mann i„S:2'dtr-rP-^'-
(ate third century
variation on selected themes of the Arthashastra.
 42 the mare's trap THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 43

ways of arguing. Manu never actually argues at all: like a

the Anhashastra onTe influence of theform of parent to a child, he presents primarily because statements
extensively and closely th realized how (explicit dogmas or appeals to authority: do it because I say
Kamasutra are constrained'brth Philosophy of the so) and, only occasionally, 'this is why arguments (implicit
will explore first the evidence for thf fl ^^'hashastra. I rationalizations or appeals to persuasion). He also sometimes
ways in which v influence and then the simply juxtaposes conflicting views, without prioritizing
^rr^^W^.I'lIconclude''wrtrrh away from them or making any attempt to reconcile them.
"V Am the Kama,uM applies Z peculation about the
the In the Arthashastra and Kamasutra, by contrast, there are
politics, more precisely thp k principles of genuine arguments: a point of view is stated and defended,
^he^rti^AfWa, and the imlf unethical politics of an opposing view stated, sometimes a series of views, and
the later history of erotic H connection for the author caps it with what he regards as the best argument.
^ otic and religious hrerature in India. Such argument is generally characteristic of the scientific
BASIC SIMILARITIES OF FORM ax shastras; the medical textbooks, for instance, depict a series
TUhe Arthashastra
A , , and /U, argument of physicians arguing about the etiology of a disease noti
ways, as we will soon see alike in a number of the author states his own view.^ And the Arthashastra and
cluster ofways in which rhe most basic is the Kamasutra put this tradition to work in the tap dance they
^mediately apparent from ''c®'' do around dharma.
Aroughout. the same simnje ul verse
scyc Sanskrit epics, the L ^the two ATTITUDES TO LOW-LIFE AND KINGS
"'"Ic AnhaAasflTT'"""""1 *= Mahahharata, Another sharp difference between Manu, on the one hand,
2^'^ -Amodels
'pmmuu-a a versebothor itsr^o^rr""
fotn, "'^'^'Ptcc- The and the Arthashastra and the Kamasutra, on the other, can
be seen in their attitudes to what ancient India regarded as
f of Ae Ar.,asU,jfZT'^oomaining'osely
o-ycth, often non-dharl
on
down- marginalized people: Manu tells you to avoi t em
"-uctions, ate capped b?! -ti-dharmic costs, while the Anhashastra and Kamasutra tell you to use
them, as spies {Arthashastra) or go-betweens (Kamasutra).
T™ 8"e"lly
h)T°cr.t.cai attitude to reLldha?"''c>chortations often
This To consider just one list among many such. Manu wains
to express the nrn HL "Sion, as well as th r you not to eat the food which someone has sneezed on
iwo texts h ■ ^^armic overlay ; verses (which makes good sense), but then he continues, not the
Mom "oAcr trait that the food ofa slanderer, a liar, or the seller ofrituals, not the food
"^'SnAicant pethap, i, ofa tumblet or a weaver, nor the food ofan mgrate; not that
Panetn ofthe three texts'
 44 the mare's trap THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 45

blacbmith, a strolling actor, a goldsmith, a basket- Religious mendicants and ascetics, both male and female,
are always a part of this marginal society. Manu tells you
docp. a t,"? a washerman,
bootlegger """" or a°f a manManu
dyer." whocites
raisesa how to be an asceticd^ Kautilya tells a spy to pretend to be
rouar list m another context, of thosp ixrRa. -ii j an ascetic; and Vatsyayana tells you to employ an ascetic as a
fUp I ^ r- . . wiIJ end up in
lowest forms of rebirth: strollino- -v go-between. It's a three-way conversation, as the three
"estlers, dancers, arms-dealers, and addlrd m ® texts are manipulating the same cultural conventions in
drunks." He also remarks that 4e ufe a different ways.
™th women do not apply to the wives of,,®r''''' ®
of men wfr. live
oen Who I- off
CC their
U - own wives- fnrstrolling
.u actors or
attitudes to other scholars
women embrace other men co^c
whtle they have them do the act; nor ^ fAemselves
T" r Both Vatsyayana and Kautilya begin with invocations,
punishment
"cut fnr o rr,o
tor a u carries
man who • 'nn n tuere any serious followed by an acknowledgement of their debt to previous
texts on their respective subjects. (We do not have these
b'
V only one man,ororwith
withmenial
wanHservanrT'T
■ ^ u texts, but both the anthological nature of our two texts and
Manu's dislike of actors—indeed Trn asceticsd^ their explicit statement ofindebtedness to other texts strongly
part from their ability to make th ^"stes—stems in suggest that such texts existed.) Thus the Arthashastra states.
-h people-as welll
n essential part(jfy
the ™dtin"""''
, § ^vomen ascetics—are
This [singular Arthashastra] has been composed for the
most part by drawing together the Arthashastras composed
clowns, while a^rfrd m™"" ""ders, libertines, by former teachers for gaining and administering the earth.
CIA material, as wherl" "'' "''e kingKmtilya's
' e prince held hostage: wishes to Vatsyayana, too, begins by invoking his academic ancestors
18

and continues in a long paragraph^^ that mentions the

predecessors by name.^" The Arthashastra does not name
« 'el.and, should wa.tTpon d, °""'d teen inf.ltraL Kautilya's predecessors in its initial invocation, but it does
name them elsewhere, as, for instance, in the long argument
dicl:T 'de Pdnce oneXttr""^' Cbey should about whether or not the king should kill his sons as soon ^
'«nicti„„rThT„ rk"'"'"'I'-away•ndrtt" w- h° "''"'''d they are born,^! and in another argument about the people
Of them, ru ? at n u who are eligible to be ministers ofstate.^^ Corresponding y,
tlisguised a • explains m disguised as the Kamasutra invokes its authorities, one by one, m an
usical instruments,i-i carrying the argument about what sorts ofwomen are and are not e igi
as sexual partners.
 THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 47
46 the mare's trap

striking points of agreement flowers. On the floor, not too far away, a round bed with a
pillow for the head. A board for dice and a board for
r'y",'!''' ftwiwork there are also a number of gambling. Outside, cages of pet birds. And, set aside, a
place for carpentry or woodworking and for other games.
orovTH
providedA the paradigm for the Anhashastra
r has clearly
r r In the orchard, a well-padded swing in the shade, jd a
Anhashasm gives elabonue For example, the bench made of baked clay and covered with flowers.
royal residence; "istructions on setting up the The Karnasutra goes into much more detail about the layout
ofthe bedroom,ofcourse,'and lacks the detailed description
royal'redr""'"''"'''^^ ^ he should get a of fortifications that the Arthashastra supplies, but the
blueprints take the same form in both cases.
"uptyard a. the back sLdTrth'"'"" The Arthashastra advises the king to make use of actors
--stnlty "J- Ae women s quartets dressed as gods of fire and water, to demoralize the enemy
water. Outside is the resid7' c during a siege.^^ The Karnasutra prescribes
In the front are the dre " princes, acting to a man laying siege, as it were, to a virgin, e s
the assembly ball a toom, the counsel chamber,
princes. In the ^ ^ the supervisors of the have a friend dress up not as a god but as a fortune-teller an
stationed the paircrguard?'' courtyards should be describe the 'man's future good luck and prosperity t
girl's mother to earn her favour.^^ The use of black magm is
strikingly similar in the two texts, both of which discuss it at
the Karnasutra in ^cale, this is how, mutatis mutandis^ length at the end ofthe text, as a kind of afterthought or last
pad: ^ tnan-about-town to set up his resort. (And both touch on magic in passing in o p
He makes his home in ah of the text, the Karnasutra only a few times, the Arthash^tra
separate servant quart Water, with an orchard, a great deal). The Arthashastra permits a man to use ove-
the house is furnished-1' bedrooms. This is how magic on a disaffected wife or a wife to use it on er
low in the middle and v ^ °uter bedroom there is a bed, husband,28 while the Karnasutra cautions wives not to use i
and a white top sheet (tT Pihows on both sides on adulterous husbands;^^ but,on the other hand,Vatsyay^a
of the bed there is a or ^ couch.) At the head devotes an entire book (Book Seven) to the magic that a
4e oik and aalTuT,""'">ltar, on which are man can use on women, while the corresponding book
°nec,- left over ft„„ ,be nlght, a pot the Arthashastra (Book Fourteen) is devoted to magic us
tree, and betel. On the fl bark from a lemon for various purposes, mostly murder, but never love.
~ni an ivory tusk; a bo. T'' ^ A lute, hanging
ofpcocik.Soma booker--
^t. andorgarlands
paint on,ofand a box
amaranth
i See chapter six,'The Mare's Trap .
 THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 49
48 THE mare's TRAP

The set of angry people is as follows: someone who is

""y®- ""'I' cheated out of things he had been promised; between two
mAe - ■ -I I usingKamasutra
maWp 17you .nvtstble, an offer you purspells
magic on,e«rto people who cany out a craft or a service equally we ,
one who is slighted; someone disgraced on account o a
m B rr® p"-" « king's favourite; someone who is defeated after being
invisible r" Aat, when you make yourself challenged; someone who is incensed at eing
someone who did not get the job after incurring expenses;
^>vA<B/«,»M™but'not°ihe
burn the ingredients f b'&' y°" '^bould someone who is prevented from carrying out the law
And both,L Jr^ ^ ' specific to him or from receiving his inheritance; someone
•be purpose of whichhunckantr®'! K stripped of honours or office; someone held back by
(to me) in both cases. members ofthe royal family; someone whose wife has bee
forcibly molested; someone put in prison; someone w
SPYING
has been fined after losing a lawsuit; someone who hiu
The paranoid psychology ofthe , been restrained from engaging in wrongful conduct,
over the erotic text Tho h V. oasts its shadow someone whose entire property has been confiscated
be Machiavellian frhp ^ ^ is often said to someone who has been harassed in prison; and someo
Monier Monier-William Sanskrit dictionary of Sir whose relative has been executed.
The set offrightened people is as
die Machiavelli ofIndia") F Kautilya/Chanakya as has hmt another; someone who has committed a wrong
like Mother Teresa. Susn"' Machiavelli look u sinful acts
someone whose acts hhave been disclosed; someone
^
^rthashastra, and much who is alarmed at a punishmen
Kamasutra. ^bis carries over into the crime- someone who has seized land; someone who ha
The Arthashastra list of :r.;deted with his tmops; a head of -7
whothearemodel
dissatisfied andKam
for the can^tK^ V" thereduced
enemy'spolitically
territory who has suddenly become wealthy; »-con. whoJ
a pretender from the royal ftmily to
•--b^d's tetritoty astT"" "f women in their detested by the king; * °,o„eone who has
unsatisfied, and so can be sedr^ H^^^ dissatisfied, or The set of greedy people ts as ,,pen
the Anhashastr^ become destitute; someone w ose pr
by anothei; a misei; —J^td ktotconsideied
factions mav reducible and times; and someone who a
bave yet to d T'' ^'diin one's business transactions. cnmeone who
terrik
territory. oscribe how it ic carried
« is • out Inrerritory; we
out in an enemy.s
The set of proud people Is as ^ ouours;
thinks highly of himself; someone desirous
50 THE mare's TRAP THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 51

woos her again; a woman whose intelligence, nature,

whoT^ wisdom, perception, and personality are similar to those of
someone who is vioW a the would-be lover; a woman who is by nature given to
compensation ' ^^oieone dissatisfied with his taking sides; a woman who has been dishonoured by her
husband when she has done nothing wrong; a woman who
belonging to a K^udble ^ h"" is put down by women whose beauty and so forth are the
working undercover as sh u same as hers; a woman whose husband travels a lot, the
wife of a man who is jealous, putrid, too pure, impotent, a
-eecics.owWn.hemayber'oted^'^ matted-hait procrastinator, unmanly, a hunchback, a dwarfi^deforme
this technique: a jeweller, a villager, bad-smelling, sick, or old.
Just as a man judees his t-R In a similar parallelism, the internal debate of potential
his own qualities,so he should?°f considering adulterers, in the Kamasutra, persuading themselves of the
t e woman's qualities, too from considering
be had without any efforr^ u women who moral justice oftheir actions, mirrors the similarly imagine
making advances: a wnm 'T ° merely by meditations ofspies in the. Arthashastrar'^ and the king s sel
woman who looks out fr '''' u ^ persuasions and justifications for seizing power.
street; a woman who"b '°°^°P-P°mh onto the Another trait that the Kamasutra clearly picks up from the
yoimg man who is her n,=- m '^°'^5e of the Arthashastra is the constant use ofmale and female messengers
constantly; a woman who ^ ^ who stares {dutas), which makes little sense in the Kamasutra except as
l°oks sidetvays; a woman wr r"" ^er, a replication of the far more meaningful constant
"-"fe ' fc no cause been supplanted by a employment of male and female spies {dutas again in t
who is hated- TT" "*""« be, husband- a Arthashastra?^ Both texts recommend the use of monks,
who has no child!?"" '"^^s restraint; a nuns, and religious mendicants as spies {Arthashastra) or go-
ha!!ed """"fberrelat,?.?™" betweens {Kamasutra), in neither case deinonstrating the
shows ht'l"""T"""bo is fond'of! "b""'^biM'en least bit of respect for the possible actu^ religiosity, or
hush at L ofan a ^ who reputation, ofsuch people. Both texts pay cose attention
peoples' involuntary gestures and revealing aci expressio
whot°^'''f-erdhusband-
bathes"f'""'5 as betrayals of hidden political or, as the case may be sexu
of her ' ^ emotions. (This art was also developed in Ae "xtbook of
foolishrip I
oushness, lack of rl" • distr j by
'^her
^°man
R uwhoj'is acting and dancing, the Natyashastra, compose
who, when cR ^^^"^mction nr ^ husbands same general period.) VI of this spying casts a
made aa great
ere effnrr R^ ^hgin was courterl R a woman of dishonesty and berrayal over erotic relationships, a mood
somehow did m
get her and now
that remains a part of Hindu erotic discours
52 THE mare's TRAP THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 53

Those who have left and returned are of four types, one
eaA offiaal that causes each particular problem: flaw of who left and returned for a proper reason, and the opposite
of this; one who left for a proper reason but returned
^official may cause a loss
he is unacquainted withofrevenue rhm R'ignorance without a proper reason, and the opposite of that.
canons; through laziness ifh " ^ customs, and It is but the work of a moment for the Kamasutra to convert
travails of entrp •'i ^ tucapable of enduring the this into a six-fold typology oflovers who leave the courtesan
he is addicted trsr""t carelessness, if and then may or may not be taken back.
fear, if he is scarerof ° through
If he has gone elsewhere, she must find out about him, he
dharmaorartha;throughCTh"
those who come to plead rf " ' inclined to favour may belong in any of the six possible categories, accor ing
he is inclined to hurt them-^h ^^''ongh anger, if to the circumstances: He left her of his own accord an e
on his learning, wealth ' arrogance, if he relies left the other woman, too, of his own accord. He left hot
and through greed, if hrimem^ ^ favourite; her and the other woman because they got rid of him. He
measures, estimates anr^ i^crepancies in weights, left her of his own accord and he left the other woman
' accounting.4o because she got rid of him. He left her of his own accor
hhe Kamasutra cleverly ad and stayed with the other woman. He left her because s
and rather cunning psycho'ir' into a precise got rid of him and he left the other woman of his own
women who are different! ^ tleyising approaches to accord. He left her because she got rid of him and he
44
stayed with the other woman.

testing
-- be,in„in„
°»n situation. If
'«'«s
'=)«"<"• he detects in his
7""«ed with he, nobility, he The influence of the Arthashastra on the Kam^utra ys
particularly visible in tbe techniques of testing. With the
13™'''?" 'hows het"ways'
P blent ,S he, tespe^pj t""""
J','o "Oiuiage "PP"""'
It. If the concern for particular individuals that we have note a
' 'fit stems f,„„,g ' " becomes vety intimate property ofeffective spying,the Arthashastra suggests v^
^ "ttaotdinaty pty, h s a tfcfo-trates Ways to deal with young princes variously suscepti
bunting, gambling, liquor, and women (which t e
Xd he teassutesPtbtttatis
"f'-d. he,.«'" hV^t'™- 'Cthe,.
before cotnes fromis
If she Kamasutra^ too, echoing Manu, defines elsewhere as the
yet another pair of ,
four royal vices or the vices that spring from us
a four-fold typo°:^ P-aHel ,ho arr.urW. Kautilya objects to the suggestion that the crown prince
tempted:
i^epentant traitors:
54 THE mare's TRAP
THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 55

with h ■ moreover, should entice him

A female wandering ascetic who has won the confidence of
and is received with honour in the royal residence should
your flrh '^quor,and women,saying,'Attack instigate each high official individually: The chief queen
is nnr a,, 1 • St-'
Kautilya, To awaken one-'t
who is in love with you and has made arrangements to meet
with you. You will also receive a lot of money. If he
absorbs anvrT
anything smeareddetrimental,
on it Tn liU for a fresh object rebuffs it, he is a man of integrity. That is the secret test
whose mind is fresh will .n relating to kama.'^^
were
were the rp^i R- ofc a r/;/7fAr/j TR^y^hing
tne teaching r he is.told as if it
him wliar j ■1 " "^"^^ftire, one should teach And any man who has thus been proven impervious to
kama is to be made a guard of the harem. Those w o
successfully resist dharma are to be put in charge of the
courts, or, for resisting the temptation of artha, the tteastity.
^rjrfa^tercSpy:' " Those who have proved that they have no feat may quality
as royal bodyguards.
are yours.' ifhTsetstrminr'^ ^'^R This programme then appears in the Kamasutra as just a
of youthfol insolence th R ° People's wives out single test for the guards of the harem, but this one test
introducing him at r," u ^ ^ make him recoil by
women posing as noble kdies'TfT combines the four elements, including feat, that ffie
liquor, they should make R" ^ ^ ^ythashastra used to test four different sorts of ministe
doctored drink. If he t k ^^ooil by administering a Scholars say: 'Guards stationed in the harem should be
should make him recoil wtt th"7 i'"' ''"'1' proved pure by the trial of kama.' Gonikaputra says: ut
ayms.If he takes a fency for t, ' orafty-student fear or artha may make them let the women use another
m through agents posing as 'T ®8'"" man; therefore guards should be proved pure by the tri s
ofkama,fear and artha.' Vatsyayana says:'Dharma prevents
hdore
^o testspecifically, however
his potential min:\then , advises the king treachery. But a man will abandon even dharma becausej
fear. Therefore guards should be proved pure by t e ri
makethree
the sureaims
theyofarelife,
impetvlo™
able '"ious departments
"™Ptations to
ofeach of of dharma and fear.'^^
ama. He also tells him to re T dharma, artha or In the ecd, therefore, and in contradiction of Kautilya
T'"y bur fear (oft v ""tlUMe against a fourth (whose opinion Vatsyayana Cites un er t e ru
""rd the
test,primary
the test triad of fi!" ^ fourth emotion,
of kar^a "T ""S"''"d greed).« The ■scholars'). Vatsyayana decides that impemousness to ka^a
is not the .ost Itnpottant
■ ""-futWurte is this: ^1; fear and dharma trump kama.
56 the mare's trap THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 57

characters who were destroyed by kama—does indeed appear

""lien the T" in both texts to make the same related point; the danger to
for testing ministers to R ^ Arthashastra scheme tnen posed by their own kama, usually in the form of attacks
harem, it has to condeL'e it by the men whom they have cuckolded.
And there is another close parallel that appears in the
four ways,some
of a guard in theofharem
which are tm irrelevant to the qualities context of this testing. The Arthashastra, speaking of testing
the ministers, warns against the danger that one might
harem need not be corrupt the uncorrupted, 'like water with poison; for it may
least eighty years old' f u T ^ioce they should be 'at Well be that a remedy may not be found for a person who
O" A= oAeXa' "aderlycelibate stewards." has been corrupted'. So, too, when other scholars suggest
rhat the women of the ha^'^ Vatsyayana, he suggests that the young prince be tested by tempting him to attack
honesty and dishonesty' 1^ themselves be tested for bis father and seize the kingdom, Kautilya objects, as we
hlng. For Kautilya ic ^.r"' ^ ^ danger to the have noted earlier in the chapter: To awaken one who is
"^^^os (Vatell not so much to uot awake is greatly detrimental, for a fresh object absorbs
e kingy?-o^ his wives-53 ^ concern) as to protect ^ything smeared on it. ..'
Going to the inner chatnh u This same concern appears when the Kamasutra speaks of
queen after she has bee^? meet with the testing the chastity of wives:
»omen. For Bhadrascn, was''kiJl''j t"* eUerly The followers of Babhravya say: 'To find out about his
e queen's chamber anrl v ^ brother hiding own wives' purity or impurity, a man should test them
""-i® his mother's bed. The h ''''>>'^s son hiding through charming women who have deeply hidden their
s queen with puffoj . Kashi was killed by own involuntary signals and who will report what other
« honeys Vairantya wifhTn ""f?** P-'hon disguised people say.' But Vatsyayana says: Because corrupt people
S-^awithagbdleqewelsme with pLon; can succeed among young women, a man should not set in
Vidur rT'T' With do" ™''' >"d Jalutha motion, without a reason, the corruption of a person who
Aol •Weatr'T- "■'=Therefore,■hlheW
hould avoi'Td these siiuarit;,, is not corrupt.

^here ts no And so the Kamasutra suggests better ways to control wo

primarily through knowledge of the Kamasutra.
hmtfter'^'^^'' ' nenabom^^^^ in the Kamasutra, the need to control the senses
T C„t7 '-rr
' •- --liz r, r, uiythical and historical
t Adanu, as you might expect, has a very long section war g
the king about self-control. Turning to the other two
 58 the Mare's trap
THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 59

controrofre''ltn^^''^ 'concern for the The Arthashastrds, list of kings (Bhadrasena et at) who
Arthashastra context thr""^ ^ "^ake far more sense in the were destroyed by treacherous women (with mirrors or lips
emphasis on the need f Kamasutra, but not so. An smeared with poison and so forth) is matched by another
his women but his ^ control not (or not just) Arthashastra list of kings who were destroyed by the far
more dangerous enemies within:
Lorraine Daston sbar I ^ Pcrvades both texts. As
artha and (surprisingly The Bhoja king named Dandakya, for example, who
on control, on the r. readers) kama depend violated the young daughter of a Brahmin through desire,
demands, there is after^"^ gratification that scheming was destroyed along with his kinsmen and kingdom; so
person capable of far-sipH |^rik with dharma: the also Karala of Videha; Janamejaya assailing Brahmins out
term indulgence of the nL;^ ^^^ation, sacrifice of short- of anger, as also Talajangha assailing the Bhrigus; Ala
jrnderstanding of how indTv^.Ti gain, and extorting money from the four social classes out of greed,
ow they can be manipulated)' therefore as also Ajabindu of the Sauviras; Ravana not returning the
su rcient self-discipline anri • person with wife of another out of pride, as also Duryodhana not
The Anhasiaso-a sees a< dharma.■» returning a portion of the kingdom; Dambhodbhava
^ reat the enemy within m ^ a^grrous than any other treating people with contempt out of conceit, as also
^hhin: desire, anger, aJ"' 'six enemies' Ajuna of the Haihayas; Vatapi assailing Agastya through
emotions-.p,nsp4; ;;/ 8-ed th, original tr.ad of excitement, as also the Vrishni confederacy assailing
Dvaipayana. These and many other kings, addicted to the
Mastery „,er ,n ' set of six enemies and not having mastered their senses,
^""Wgesys,em: from training in the came to ruin along with their kinsmen and kingdoms.
d«"e, anger, greed, pdde e„ ° '"""P'rihod by giving up Having abandoned the set of six enemies, Jamadagnya,
-Om treatise boils dk„ ^T™" «oite„,eL. .Tils who had mastered his senses, as well as
,
Ambarisha,
' 64
the son
Wwho behaves conu °^ "T''' 'h' A of Nabhaga, enjoyed the earth for a long time.
S?foot"""endsP™h
of theImmedTatel
earth v *°ogh"-""o' h^
he may rule The Kamasutra uses an abbreviated version of the very same
list, beginning with a word-for-word quotation of the tale
of the first unfortunate sinner on the Arthashastra ist,
COmLryiff*0 -dtal-aW,, Dandakya:"
abandoning th, h 8^'" master^
advised to avn 'd'"° '*ooomies.'«"^ ''T For instance, when the Bhoja king named Dandal^a was
alone,62 r ^omen and liaunr Particular, are aroused by a Brahmin's daughter, desire destroye im,
of'ove affai,:SP = «ved secrets
ii For more about Dandakya, see chapter three. The Mythology of the
Kamasutra .
 60 THE mare's trap
THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 61

lodges pious sayings that he has contradicted at numerous

kingir^e godstiTAhd'^
with Diaupadi, Ravana
kingdom. And India the points of the preceding chapter.
afterwards were seen to ftll " r . ' Elsewhere, Vatsyayana cites, with agreement, some
were destroyed.^S ^ desire and anonymous sage (Kautilya?) voicing other, similar warnings,
not about kama in general but about certain forms of it that
(Ravana, the villain of the u. . . ^re politically dangerous:
The man in power should not enter another man s home
[to take his wife]. 'For when Abhira, the Kotta king, went
aX'ttrzirpTott
but in any case people oPoL "T X Pragmatists, to another man's home, a washerman employed by the
king's brother killed him. And the superintendant of horses
imagines as objecting to his bo(l< b 1'"''°'" Wtsyayana • ■
killed Jayasena the king of Varanasi. So it is sai .
•j 70

these obicctions
objections bv
by „ ■
po,„„ng """"^ama.(He answers
kama is as necessary to humor, u • its clangers, Since neither Abhira nor Jayasena appears in the extant
Vatsyayana just imagining such ^Tthashastra, literal citation of Kautilya is unlikely, but the
that here he is actually quoting "'''''' foTm is Kautilyan, and Kautilya may in fact be the person
criticizing Kautilya obliquely Vatsyayana has in mind when he remarks. So it is "
Certatniy' Kautifya's deS?oZ""X "Z The Kamasutra also uses the formulaic citation of mythical
tales of people who died in sexual situations to war
kama-'Kama involves disgrace rb Zi
and association with undesiraKI' yP'™"" °f resources about the harm that they may do to women:
hunters, singers, and XsicTa.Is'®!?'''' 8™''''"- One should
anything thatalsois dangerous.
avoid, evenThe
in theKing
region where
of the C oitasis used,,
what Vatsyayana quotes the 'op i be precisely
as saying (an opinion to which "worry about artha Chitrasena, a courtesan de luxe, by using the wedge
'Kama makes a man associate w' h^ ^'■^^'^uously objects): during sex. And the Kuntala king Shatakarni S atav ^
undertake bad projects, [and mak people and killed his queen, Malayavati, by using th
with no future, as well as careless I' impure, a man Naradeva, whose hand was deformed, blinded a dancing
and unacceptable.'^^ And thou h^ '^^^Sbt, untrustworthy girl in one eye by using the 'drill clumsily.
that a king 'who suppresses the h ^^asutra remarks The Arthashastra, by contrast, cannot apparently even
him conquers the earth too' criemies within
verse at the end of a chanrL f ^^^timent occurs in a imagine this sort of injury.
Vatsyayana usually
iii See chapter three, The Mythology of rK ^
62 THE mare's TRAP THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 63

the ARTHASHASTRA and kamasutra on sex will get for myself the power of his great wealth, which
ought to be mine.' Or...'This woman...will cause a break
^ concern, the area in which the between me and her husband, who is a man with a future
and under her control, and she will get him to join my
sexiiaEr. converge, which is in the treatment of enemies; or she herself will become intimate with them.
absorbed Kamasutra has, as we have seen, Ot,'This woman's husband is the seducer of the women
ArfR L ^ §^^at many political attitudes from the of my harem; I will pay him back for that by seducing his
Arth^ f seldom discusses politics explicitly, while the wives, too.' Or, 'By the king's command, I will kill his
points address sexual issues at various enemy, who is hiding inside.' Or,'My enemy is united
here s' provide a very useful benchmark with this woman's husband. Through her, I will get him to
1 . say about sex is to forbid sodomy drink a potion. For these and similar reasons one may
'a man ^^Ivise the reader not to eat the food of seduce even the wife of another man. But nothing rash
those whl put should be done merely because of passion.
bv their ■ lovers, or who are dominated Thus the Kamasutra accepts as a sufficient reason for adultery
But the Arthashastra and
losing a woman to protect a king or to kill an enemy ut
on other T ^ Some points about sexuality and disagree passion is not an acceptable reason. As we have seen,
In th A with the agreements. basic distrust of passion is a quality that the KarriasuM
Political^wer'^^t^'''
is merel h k'^
background for
i'^ the Kamasutra, political power
shares with the Arthashastra, and the other, rather far-fetched
political motives are surely the direct legacy of Kaut y
reasons Ithat^' ^6)r sex. But the Kamasutra s list of Both texts accept the concept of eight forms of leg
political h adultery include many that are far more marriage, as set forth by Mann:four more or less conventional
aduher erotic. This is some of what the woirld-be
Adulterer says to himself: rituals, followed by the demonic marriage (when the groom
^V'oxxisjj h. h 1-1
bribes the bride's relatives and carries her off), the centaur
and he is husband entirely under her control, rnarriage (mutual consent and sexual union , g
mv enemy. If i powerful man who is intimate with marriage (in which he carries the girl ^
affection for ^*-omes intimate with me, out of het screams, after he has maimed and m predv
'That
to harm me-
make him reverse his allegiance.'
itas turned against me and wishes
relatives), and the ghoul's marriage (when a man seer y
bas sex with a girl who is asleep, drunk, or out o
^t,'If I luak k-^' bring him back to his former nature.' mind).74 The Arthashastra ranks these eight J
do favoiirc f friend through her, I will be able to
accomplish or ward
or off my enemies, or
ward off slightly differently from Mann, raising the centaur
become intim ^ tvith
^'•berthisdifficult undertaking.' Or, 'If I from sixth to fifth.^^
woman, and kill her husband, I
64 the mare's trap THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 65

Both the Arthashastra and the Kamasutra offer detailed,

the cnnvp f- bother to cite the first four, but not identical, lists of the skills of a courtesan.®'^ Both
half of ^ ortns, at all, substituting for them the first ^exts speak about the use of male statues as dildos; the
Id I" for weddings' -^nhashastra, specifying that the statues are of divine beings,
call 'rape'. ThrocteTb"'-'^"' " disapproves of the practice,^^ while the Kdmusutru thinks
centaur m " • with four variations on the that such statues might come in useful in the harem. The
rrn?nar„ '■'la."''"'' "'=1- > virgin into ■^'t'thashastra regards as sexually available a woman whom a
ritual of some™' k"! performs a wedding man has saved when she has been carried away by a flood or
adds three more devS' gf *>"■ The text then left in the wilderness during a time of famine, or whom he
the ehouls' mtjr ' r ' with two variants of bas rescued from robbers or when she had been lost,
which he deflowerfher wh'""^ the category into one in abandoned, or left for dea.d.^^ Similarly, the Kamasutra
when she is asleep) and f ii ^Irunk, and another suggests that a man might pick up a woman during the
marriage entirely) the nrrr' ' ^ (omitting the demonic spectacle of a house on fire, the commotion after a robbery,
view, apparently, 'drnsJn ^ In the Kamosutra's ot the invasion of the countryside by an army.®^
telatives, and, predictably^it^ i ^ Sometimes, rarely, the Arthashastra is more sexually
marriage the centaur marr" ''''' permissive than the Kamasutra. The Arthashastra takes for
Arthashastra ranks fifth mutual desire, which the granted the woman with many husbands,®^ who poses a
even exphcitKr ,^=^tiu ranks sixth). The problem even for the Kamasutra.^^ But almost always, the
-^i^hashastra toes the Dharmashastra line on sexuality, often
ua though
^^hding, of wedding rites
of midd^' mutual love
love-match closely following Manu, where the Kamasutra diverges wildly
to a good end.'77 tank, is respected as a means from it.
cf the centaur marriage star" ^"'^Singly admits the appeal The Arthashastra definition of the mastery of the senses
Brahrnins is either of the o '°® best marriage for speaks of the need for control, a concern that we have seen
b« the best Tor the „,her ? marriage but shared by the Kamasutra".
another 7=) The ^ when they desire one Mastery over the senses consists of the senses ear, skin,
g °tl word for dharma in ^"^i, however, puts eye, tongue, and nose—not wandering inappropriately
(ach"ff Thf :err rnle among sounds, touches, visible forms, tastes, an sme s.
but each rimeTh''''"'® '' '""tet than thT""'""'"® cfoarma, Almost the exact same wording is turned on its head in the
Kamasutra definition of kama:
one shoiiU k ^'^'^^uedingone j. tie that follows ir;
' •'barmic bairn::*,r 'r' Kama, in general, consists in engaging the ear, skin, y ,
tongue, and nose each in its own appropriate sensatio ,
"^"•^'^sptisfhrhrr
66 the mare's trap THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 67

under the control of the mind and heart driven by the places, political texts, and in particular military texts (and
conscious self.®®
much of the Arthashastra is about war), have drawn on
Where the Arthashastra does not want the senses to wander sexual texts for their metaphors; Clive s invasion of India is
mappropnately among the objects of the senses, which it often called 'the rape of India. ^'5(Tiat is striking in the
passage in the context ofan argument sncient Indian example is that this does not happen, politics
gets into the Kamasutra, but sex does not get into the
enurn ^ Kamasutra uses this same Arthashastra.
areum^m ^ "®es of the senses in its Much of the Kamasutra is devoted to trickery and
thfcor
ne conscious mind. ^^aer the control of deception of one sort or another: the man tricking die
parents of a young girl, and tricking the girl; the married
SEX AND POLITICS woman telling lies as she jockeys for power against her co-
wives; the adulterer deceiving the woman s husband, the
courtesan lying in order to get her customers to give her
-trioX
statement,'They say that se"i astounding more money; various people using drugs to cloud the minds
the very essence of desire is ^ ^ quarrelling, because oftheir sexual objects. The resulting agonistic and duplicitous
competitive.'®^ (The ^ contest, and its character is view of sex set the stage for much of the mythological
the competition:'Because Y^®ltodhara, explains substructure of later Indian erotic drama, poetry, and
to achieve their own desire h woman each try narrative.
agonistic view of sex is ^"^^tcoming the other.') This The Kamasutra also establishes a code ofacceptable sexual
who is the 'they' in hhev ^ Kamasutra. But violence. The inflicting ofphysical pain by scratching, biting,
And does Vatsyayana eo af'''' colleagues? 3Jid slapping is an important part ofthe sexual act, an so is
does. 8° with this j^hifk he its aftermath:
What happens to gender : When a woman sees the scars
Anhashastra ate applied to sTtiT''™ '*"= P°""° that nails have made on her hidden places,
influence of the Anha,hastra\ '<f"nKutra. under the her love even for someone given up long ago
Freud, in The Interpretdtion sex. Recall how becomes as tender as if it were brand new.
' "nsorship
nipetego, as the basis
which repressed sei fT""' *="-iorinS
pol'ticd
And a man who is marked
with the signs of nails in various places
h ™ght
" mfr/'"
have worked thetrpnT"
olert »Vhing
P««en else; for
for sex. generally disturbs a woman s mind
other times and no matter how firm it may be.
68 THE mare's TRAP THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA 69

There are no keener means dharmashastras, insisting on the control and denigration of
of increasing passion Women, dominated conventional and legal attitudes to
than acts inflicted women particularly among the middle classes, while the
with tooth and nail.^*^
Kamasutra tradition, with its far more liberal and complex
The lover displays his or her scars as a warrior displays his admiration of women, never ceased to be appreciated by
hanle scars. (The arttefcm, by contrast, is concerned royal and upper-class merchant society. As it combined with
only about damage to women as property, primarily virgins other factors in the Hindu social system that led to a more
nut also, m passing, wivesi it has no interest in protecting general devaluing of women, the Kautilyan Kamasutra
em rrom physical abuse of other kinds) tradition contributed greatly to the culture of vmlence against
More disttrrbing are the passages in the Kam^utra where women. The Indian version ofthe widespread idea that sex
and women are dangerous does not of course originate in
wish "'°r indications of their our two texts. It is well documented in ancient India m the
Ppartt of
ot a ploy designed7®
n?''?"" to excre their male partners: Mahabharata and Ramayana, centuries before the period in
•i^ways, if a man tries to force hie I • i question, and it dominates the misogynist traditions of
her she m AA L kisses and so forth on Hindu dharma forever after. Both the Kamasutra and the
ler, she moans and does the very same. eR- l i , •
When
wnen am ■ the
a man in eR throes
u of oassirmthing
i back to him. Arthashastra may be responding to a society m which the
"peatedly. she uses words like'sL 7'
' political culture of spying and violence is already closely
■Enough!- or -Mother!- and urrt 'lr" f c linked with sex, or the Kamasutra may have adopted these
laboured hr eR- • screams mixed -with elements from the Arthashastra. But in ay case from then
are rWa^
tie ways of7®' '""7
groaning and T"®'
slapping.91 6"aning. Those on sex and violence are joined at the hip. And ^e particular
These passages inculcate what we now r ■ i concept . of a sexual n-relationship as a war with no Geneva
• vixViirh the two parties try to
mentality-^'her mouth says no bm 'T conventions; a conflict in w
, . . ^ another; an encounter that
disregarding a woman's protests a ' T deceive and outmanoeuvre on
r A rnices- a battle
.
in
u- i ,
which the
requires ambassadors and tru > Jc pR.^.
Indeed, as we have seen, all three of .
combatants conceal, or display
j- wlo-iy the wounds they receive
,-r r
ofthe worst,be but
It should notedstillhe^that
acceptable f ^st rape as one (from bites, slaps, and scratche these major themes of
T .. A . . mnrh to the Arthashastra as to
remarkably favourable to women g ^ Indian erotic fiction owe as m
It reflects the darker side ofthe cnlr''' instance, theThe
Kamasutra.
Kautilyan was a majo
influence^
upon the
or two sharply contrasting attitud
ed m texts from the ancient no " ^ eroric literaiyhrxdirions of India, ^
P nod to the modern. The court poetry which revelled in dre suffering of die abandoned
70 the Mare's trap

the deceptions and betrav.lc 93 tu "V

but more im text played a less obvious
tradirn th7d""- ^^e bhakti
emphasis on divbe aband^'^^'^'^'^'^H''^ Hinduism, with its
even physical violence The"'^''f
desire, with its dich' f ®^tface metaphor of human 3
leads to the dark imnr betraying infidelity,
not merely^^ desire, the god who THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE
not there for you as a eod kamasutra^
corresponding to the h ^ n'^mse god or dem absconditus,
the absent lover), the Painfhl longing for
on fire, swinging from hooks^, pain—walking
bis power of illusion (mava^ Tu ^^'^oives you with
Indian eroticism 'He is apache syndrome of
so—inspired Nina nt^ and I love him
b^e for i^g modern J torch song, 'Mean to
this may
^masutra, which strnn 1 tn the Kautilyan
Indian culture develoned'^ fenced the way in which
politics of sex. nnique understanding of the
mythological background

Vatsyayana tells some stories in the KcrniAsutrd as part of a

general mythological background. The very first chapter
begins, after a few lines of introduction, with a classically
mythological passage:
When the Creator emitted his creatures, he first composed,
in a hundred thousand chapters, the means of achieving
the three aims of human life [dharma, artha, and kama ].
Manu the son of the Self-born One made one part of this
into a separate work about dharma, Brihaspati made one
about artha, and Nandin, the servant of the Great God
Shiva, made a separate work of a thousand chapters, the
Kamasutra, which Shvetaketu Auddalaki cut down to five
hundred chapters. And then Babhravya of Panchala cut
this down further to a hundred and fifty chapters.
Manu the son of the Self-born One, the Creator, is the
Indian Adam, a mythical creature but not a god, indee
defines the beginning of the human species, and is t
mythical author of The Laws ofManu.T\\& other two au
are gods: Brihaspati and Nandin. Brihaspati is the gtittt^
the gods, the secretary or minister of defence, as it were,
Indra, the king of the gods, and, in his spare time, ^
planet Jupiter. Brihaspati is also the putative divine aut
of the Arthashastra, the textbook of political scien
See chapter two,'The Kautilyan Kamasutra .
 74 THE mare's trap 75
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE KAMASUTRA

To makfthc diTn?Brih™7t°A ^ alike, just like cooked rice, your majesty. Therefore a man
should not get angry with them nor fall in love with them,
is to bring heaven down t! but just make love with them.'
heaven) prefer, earth to But [Shvetaketu] forbade this state of affairs, and so
The third author, NanHin : l , . r people said: '[Shvetaketu] forbade common people to take
Vatsvavanei' • ■ i source (
Vatsyayanas Kamasutra, even as Rn'K ultimate of other people's wives.'
•i^tAnhashastra. Yashodhara exnl! T'T """" Then, with his father's permission, Shvetaketu, who
had amassed great ascetic power, happily compose
for this role; '' appropriate
text, which distinguishes those who are eligible or ine igi
Nandin is not some othpr for sex.'^
scripture says:of
the pleasutes "While
unionthe„„h
GrMGod"^"^
his wife ulT^T"'l This story is told at greater length in the Mahabhumta? and
years as the gods count them N j ° Shvetaketu is well-known as a hero of the Upanis ^
door oftheir sleeping chamher 'a composed the
amber and 3Ticient Sanskrit philosophical texts that make ^
renunciation; in those texts, his father teac
Yashodhara is here makine evnl; v i r- central doctrines of Indian philosophy. It is surprising o
in question is actually a nod ^ ^^at the Nandin
after a god (as people often' ^ human named find Shvetaketu here in the Kamasutra, cite as an
expert sexologist, and this seeming incongruity may ave
Nandin, a bull or a bull-headend
God Shiva, and is often statin
elsewhere).
ofthe Great inspired Vatsyayana to allude to. and Yashodhara to .
parents" room. In the eatthly"LIilf this story here; it explains how a sage became
Statue of Nandin often euardc pR n situation, a
chaste, an enemy of male adultery, and an aut ty
sex. , .
(and Uma). » temple ofShiva
The text then turns ftom gods r Finally, the text mentions another mere human bem^
from ancient times, beeinnir. • ^ ^^"^I'mythical sages •Dattaka made a separate book out of the sncth p« rfthis
cited often in the Kamasutra Shvetaketu, who is work, about courtesans, which the "urtesans de toe
also has a mythology of his ®^^^al authority and who Pataliputra commissioned.'^ But the "ntm^tary tec^^^
Yashodhara, reminds us: ^ commentator, (or invents? I have not been able to fm t e
sources) two stories about Dattaka, the secon
Once upon a time, there was so ruakes him supernatural, if not divine.
men's wives in the world tii • seduction of other
'Women are all One day Dattaka had die idea of
ii See chapter two,'The Kautilyan Ka of the world, best known by courtes
^^asutrd. the courtesans every day, and learned so well that y
76 the mare's trap
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE KAMASUTRA 77

? to instruct them. A woman speaking on behalf sense—of an androgyne or hermaphrodite). Yet this is also
a move that greatly mitigates the strong female agency in
lite?"""> 'Teach us how to gtve the text: where Vatsyayana tells us that women had this text
madeaseptltrbol''^ commission he made, Yashodhara tells us that an extraordinary man Imew
more about the courtesans' art than they knew themse ves.
widely belit?^ another quite plausible story is also All in all, there is a supernatural pedigree for the authors
of this earthiest of all books. And there is also a supernatur
pedigree for the very process of its recension, the bo ing
to become a woman^l?^ wom^,and Shiva cursed him of an enormous divine text into a manageable huma
rescind the curse and beet? Persuaded Shiva to Shvetaketu cut [the text] down to five hundred ch^
that double knowledge he m?T And then Babhravya of Panchala cut this down hirther to
had simply made a c ^ separate book. If he a hundred and fifty chapters...Charayana made a separate
had said, how would?^*^^ Babhravya book about general observations, Suvarnanabha a
such originality that n I '^^ok have demonstrated Ghotakamukha about virgins, Gonardiya
flavours? But if the author ""^^t he knew both Gonikaputra about other men's wives and Ku':hu'na
that he had such double k ^ ^^asutra had known about erotic esoterica. When many scholars a
said, 'Dattaka, who kn °^^edge, then he would have into fragments in this way, the text was almost ^
book.. 7 to™, both (Iovou„, ™do a separate Because the amputated limbs of the text that they dwid^
To touch anyone,let alon are just parts of the whole, and because Babhratja s texms
great disrespect and a c your foot, is an act of so long
.
that
..
it is hard to. study, Vatsyayana -ndeased^
_ small volume to make this
■'^d men are often, for ^otirce of curses in India. entire subject matter into a sm
Kamasutra?
women,
N«ya, and back again in
Bha„gashva„a;"d of ""ddSist
reasons, turned into
mythology; The word for 'scholars'
respect, almost always has a pejorative
tt Ae""'trogynes.SThe'do
comparative knowledk f'"
e ""'"''8^'°ffanao"s of the perhaps best translated as 'pedants ' . , of
longer exist, but almost certainly existe
?T
y o1hara toted.
tpake,rT 8' °.f move onseenthefrompartbothof
the at P't'eed Vatsyayana, since he often ^g^ts are also
does Yashodhara, much later). Ot source in this
ZT^ at"■
PJ sense of a pet,(ITr h"sexual
"^'tis' here
text both
a bisexua
In its who
now said to have been reduced from a supern £g,j^
™ale sexual pat,ut.„ , "to has both male way,^° perhaps on analogy with t e
in its older, mythological iii See chapter five, 'The Third Nature .
78 THE mare's trap the mythology of the kamasutra 79
according to classical Hindu physiology, it takes ten drops And the commentary tells the story:
of food to make a drop of digestive fluid, ten drops of that unworthy, because he was a demon, aii s
fluid to make a drop of blood, and ten drops of blood to spurned, he ascended to the throne o ' rc^Hnne
make a drop of semen. The Kamasutra was reduced in this gods,and established himselfthere until the of^^^
^nie way. A close parallel to this reasoning occurs in ^ turned around, and he was thrown ° fortune
Buddhist text about the woman who prepared milk-rice for hurled back down into Hell. But w en q him out of
the Buddha when he ended his long meditation after turns back around again, it will people say:
achieving enlightenment. She milked a thousand cows, and Hell and back onto the throne of Indra. An
ed the milk to five hundred cows; then she milked those
Time ripens and cooks all beings,
hundred cows and fed the milk to two hundred and time absorbs all creatures,

ei^r of sixteen coWS to time is awake when all are asleep,

for no one can fight against tim ■
milk-ricefo'the^'uin'^''' The commentary on the first book of the
he seeL^to L^um'e^Iheif mentions Indra, in passing, in the contex ^
to Shiva and to Indra the^r^''''T 'I the divine embodiments of the ^ mythology
like Shiva has a c" 'T ^ ^ These divine figures Kamasutra, but they
of the first of the seven books however, are
position,^2 which c , ^ name ofa particular sexual generally do not appear after tha Vatsyayana never
literally'of Indrani'^ T
Jupiter, king of the R "
'Junoesque' but is
resembles Juno, the wife of
occasionally mentioned m the ater suggest a
explicitly refers to Krishna, but one
Zeus), in many ways^'b °f Greek famous myth of Krishna:
appetite and her jeal ^ ^ enormous sexual
adulteries. ^ about her husband's notorious They play the 'plough-handle gam
Vatsyayana first refers m T ^ ■ and dance in the Lata way;
they look at the circle of the moon i5
erotic verse: ndra in this not particularly
with eyes moist and flickering wit p
Fate made Bali into r ;<• the connection:
And Yashodhara makes exphc
^^jndra, king of the gods , L A\p (Hallishaka);
^^fate hurled Bali back d It is said of the 'plough-ban
-df-iswhatwillmttr' t The 'plough-handle' is a dance

The Mare's Trap'. V See chapter two,'The Kautiylan Kamasutra ■

80 the mare's trap
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE KAMASUTJiA 81
with the women in a circle simply as 'the king's wife', and he says nothing at all about
and one man the leader, her when Vatsyayana mentions her a second time, as on
like Krishna with the cowherd women.i^ the women whose stories are to be told by the messenge
trying to persuade a married woman (rather than, as i
Ither"" i" - circle with the first case, a virgin) to take a lover. On that occasion,
of himself'°'^^k' powers created doubles Vatsyayana says; 'As the woman listens, the messenger t
with him and
a'd making We with him.
thought she was dancing her well-known, relevant stories, about Ahalya, Avimaraka,
Shakuntala and others.'" These positive lists of wome
tales told to encourage women who did well by breaking the sexual rules^'seem
The Kamasutra referc t-r, sharp contrast with the negative lists o viimen wo
Uiif in i3.ct,
so well known that it d ^ ^^"^ker ofstories that it regards as destroyed by succumbing to passion. >
inany cases, Vatsvavan bother to tell them. In Shakuntala's story did not work out so well as Va sj y^
different from its meaninTir.iT^^ ^ implies; Shakuntala suffers greatly in the version o
It. Often, he makes diff ^ from which he takes told in the Mahabharata—the king impreg ^
when he cites it in differ from the same mytb then publicly denies and insults her; ificantl^
standard operating Drnrr^H '^'^otexts; this is, of course, acknowledge her.^o (She suffers ^^ centuries
^d the commentator Y h'^^uu mythmakers.^^ in the version told by the poet K i
be knows ofsome, thom^t ° ^ke versions that
t e text and the comment ^^'^kese stories. Between The commentator does tell us "I'"" ™f Chom
mythology. we can excavate a rich rexu^ in this particular list, Ah^ya i„aian mythology
The Kamasutra telft u, l Ahalya is by fat the more famous; s the
what Helen of Troy was to ^ ^ice, at the beginning
TK^^ asic plot them
of theasKama
relev^ the myths,
didactically hoW
powerful- Ramayana tells her story not once u ntator says here,
ot to get girl ^ ^^tra is boy m • p p „ jets and the end of the text. All that the adulteress,
where he is using her as the model o e |^j^g of
gThr*^ '■-■p of a is: 'Ahalya was the wife of [the sage ftesired him.'^^
™me, hervj' " ''"""e 8''l tfdeeT®? the gods [Indra] fell in love with her an ^ prst
about othe' • says ■ a . a man before he But Vatsyayana has already mention
found L of eqn^ ' ^ke tells the girl stories
great j„y nt I"'' ^ their ow„ r^T'' Shakuntaia, who vi See chapter four, "Women in the Kamas ^
bere "fdcShakuntala
describes love with vii See chapter two, 'The Kautilyan Kamasutra.
82 THE Mare's trap THE mythology OF THE KAMASUTRA 83

chapter, in a very different context indeed, when he remarks attribute the form of Indra's curse (to have the mark of
that Indra, the king of the gods, with Ahalya...and many vaginas all over his body) to the fact that Indra was caug
others afterwards were seen to fall into the thrall of desire the 'womb' of Ahalya, not of the house; Gautama catc es
and were destroyed.'^^ And there the commentator tells a them in flagrante, the telltale piece of furniture being
longer story, not a story of encouragement at all, but a 'third seat drawn up' but the bed. Here, however, n appears
that Gautama returns Ahalya goes to be _
cautionary story:
and so, of course, she is not punished, as s e usu y is,
The king of the gods, Indra, was aroused by Ahalya; for being cursed to turn into a stone.
when he saw her in the hermitage ofher husband Gautama, Unlike most other variants of the
he desired her. When Gautama returned with the fuel and
Yashodhara's version does not mention that the i
sacred grass, his wife Ahalya hid Indra in the womb of the
house, but just at that moment Gautama took his wife into
making her, to some extent, less \ ■ f^f-tor
die inside of the house, with an invitation to make love.
Then he realized, with the magic gaze that he had achieved
intend to commit adultery, but was trie e into ,
through yoga, that Indra had come there, and seeing that a Aat makes her story less useful for the P-P-"
third seat had been drawn up for him he said,'What is this Kamasutras messenger. Yashodhara s ^ as a
for, since only the two of us, my wife and I, are here?' Then bowdlerized, cleaned up. Vatsyayana usu
be became suspicious, and by meditation he saw what had sign for the excesses and dangers of unco
, 1• • T Aro in the midst of
happened; in fury he cursed Indra:'You yourself will have have seen him mention inara suffered from
a thousand vaginas!' And so, even though Indra was the males—human, divine and demonic story of
king of the gods, desire brought him to this sorry state, uncontrolled passion.^"' caution to men,
which was regarded as his destruction. Even to this day Indra and Ahalya here, svhen he te s messenger is
that mark that makes people call him 'Ahalya's Lover' has in a much more negative mode t an 25^d Yashodhara's
not vanished.^^
later told to use it to persuade the much more
Unique to this version is the suggestion that Ahalya's longer gloss in the cautionary passage that desire
husband, Gautama,had intended to make love to her himself. detail, as a warning to a man about t Ahalya
Other versions of the story generally make it quite clear that can cause him. Clearly, Vatsyayana us
, Tx/'av to

Gautama is far too ascetic to do justice to his young wife in (and Yashodhara tells it) m on / g^jgourage women
c ,and that is what makes her vulnerable to the king ofthe commit adultery, and in another way
gods; Ahalya knows quite well that, even when Indra is to do it.
guised as Gautama, he is not Gautama, precisely because
^ wants to make love with her. Other Variants, moreover. viii See chapter two,'The Kautilyan Kamdsutra .
84 the mare's trap
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE KAMASUTRA 85

messencr die list of people to be cited by the however, Avimaraka is neither a woman nor an adulterer, it
is a man" '"rauraging
man named married
Avimataka; women totells
Yashodhara commit adulteiy
his story: is not immediately clear how his tale is, as Yashodhara
claims, relevant to a discussion of the seduction of other
men's wives. Avimaraka does, according to Yashodhara,
benefit from two seduced women, one married and seduced
Is ou, ? r' e'r' >■' '-k on a form and by someone else (this woman is his mother) and one
father?', ; became pregnant, her unmarried and seduced by him. Is he dragged in through
bis association with these women who transgress sexual
Shabara; [a wT:. »:^e':rr:f T""
as his own child Th
1
mountaineers] raised boundaries, because Vatsyayana could not think o any
more women who benefited from adultery. Indeed, o y
among the herds of sheep J^d'
with them Bv drinR- i milk he.and
childhood, played such women at all, since it is not at all clear how Shakuntala
onnking their k wandered around nr Ahalya benefited from it, either?
so strong that even thouvh h
Idlled goats and sheep with hh ^ I think, rather, the point is that Avimataka was so
reason, the general gave hi k^'^^ handsome that the power of kama overcame all the objections
Avimaraka ['Sheep-killer'l m ^PP''°Pdate name of tbat a princess might have had to marrying a man w o
prime of his youth, one d ^^'"^^^aka reached the appeared to be very low-caste (a tribal Shabara), a man w
daughter of a king who elephant attacked the killed animals with his bare hands. In fact, the story may
Avimaraka killed the eU k ^°i°^'^img in the forest, and based on a folk tale in which Avimaraka really was a tnbd a
fell m love with him aL^f point that Bhasa, and the commentator u" ^ ^ ^
^d in marriage. Thpc^ • him her
of the seduction of other^^^"^'^ ""olevant to a discussion would then have erased in order to make the play ^
. acceptable to a court audience.^' In place "f'hat stoV, th«e
Avnnaraka is rhc herootnerofmen
a Ss wives
I, • 26 authors may simply have raised by
Mows this general plot-line. Rh P'"'' ''r Widespread myth of a boy of n „ntil he grows up and
er [maraka] of a demon l glosses 'Avimaraka' as animals, or the herders ,he story of Kama
and leaves out the wh 1^ ° ^ sheep returns to claim his royal heritage. Mowgli, and of
e Kathmaritsagara, too 27^ genuine sheep. and of Krishna in India, as well as Kipl g
«"'og of the Avimar?r? ™' '^e sheep from its Oedipus, Moses, Tarzan and pretends to
ktakas, the Kunala UuT'' of the Buddhist Thus, even while the author o t e actual
oonnection with the sW gives yet another give advice to persuade a^^ them, as they are
milk in ?=P Ae abandoned child drank eontent of the stories is designe ^ before they leap-
killed the sheep. Since, explicitly said to warn men, to oo
86 the mare's trap
THE mythology of the KAMASUTRA 87
Vatsyayana manifests his ambivalence about sexual freedom but never sufficiendy to protect her from frequent slurs
TT P™aulatly in the verses at the against her chastity. Yashodhara tells only part of the
that h b naatters 'As for Kichaka, he is said to have been super powerfu
stories tb"rT""'"'' P™- So. too, the because he had the strength of a thousand elephants,
the m T fI "'P doobttt even he was destroyed by desire, for Bhima killed him w
ev n It b ^"'"8 '^"■P'^''" oommit adultery, be lusted after Draupadi.'^i 'Killed him' is putting it mildly:
sih tbtsl^ intended to quell Bhima, dressed as a woman, beat Kichaka to sue a pu p
that when people found his mangled corpse the next morning
tales told to warn men they said, 'Where is his head?', 'Which are his hands.
The commentator mentions Draupadi again, ^ ,
when Vatsyayana quotes another scholar (or P^ ^ ^
WfovIrihtit^Thu
of destructive lust, from the & "T
said that any married woman
.
who is1 known
tnen can be seduced without moral qual
to have
.^irvAc 33 for five men
>
CE], which is perhaps why ZtZT" Z or more' ipancha-jand) is an expression for a crow , g P
tell the Story of the a M of people (as in the panchayat, the quorum of a vi ag
demon lUvIa. rAtl'r ™fedoesof not
Rama,bother
by theto Yashodhara adds: 'If, besides her own husband,
Yet Yashodhara mentions destruction of Ravana. has five men as husbands, she is a loose woman an g
on the reasons for nascirx ■ when he expands
fear that afflicted (the 1^' 'f^ar of death, like the for everyone wbo has a good reason. Draupadi, '
Ravana, who said to her "Tf Rambha because of who had Yndhishthira and the others as her own husbantb.
will kill you.'"30 -pi D satisfy my desire, I was not eligible for other So.
I^bha by threatening t^k^uT Ravana raped several husbands? Ask the author different
that he could never rape a R cursed him so once again, the same character appe different
IS told to explain why he ^^iman again—a story that passages that make two different po
this same list, V«sl^ ^ita. genders: Draupadi with Kchaka ^ challenge
raupadi, referring to a «<- ^ tnentions 'Kichaka with males, but Draupadi with her five
o the Mahabharata who ha^P^ R'taupadi, the heroine for chaste females. . we are
Pandu, under circumstanr ^^^^ands, the five sons of To return to the list Dandahya.^ and
varmus texts (both in the^^ ^^.^^"^ated in various ways by left with one more mortal, a King

^^-^^ous retelling, SanslJ''^''!^ Yashodhara tells his story:

^ in vernacular languages)
ix See chapter two, 'The Kautilyan Kamosutr
 88 THE mare's TRAP THE mythology of THE KAMASUTRA 89

D^dakya waa ou, hunting when he saw the daughter of Shatakarni Shatavahana killed his queen, Malayavati, by
using the 'scissor'. Naradeva, whose hand was deformed,
passfon r Overwheltned by blinded a dancing-girl in one eye by using the drill
clumsily.3^
that he hT" ffo ffol -d -oted S".-
mefctedf "f" -"t see her he -'^d Yashodhara explains:
the ul A r ''"PP"''* ffo" he curbed He embraced Chitrasena so tightly, at the start of thei
kingdom "" ■ and his entire family and love-making, that she suffered greatly, because she was so
y r^u -h hied/Even
place, the DandakaWildemess.34 delicate. And even when he realized her condition,
knew that she had to be handled delicately, he
an"eXt Ja"mX"h
two [goals] when it Col,!"'
with passion that he did not take account o
strength and destroyed her by using a wedge on
Other excesses'.35 ' of a higher class, or Shatakarna's son Shatavahana, born in
Kuntala, saw his queen, Malayavati, one day w en
does not mention- Ind ^ ^'^^"Ived tricks, which the Kamasutra not long recovered from an illness and did not have
Kichaka was foiled (and kdrm Ahalya's husband; full strength, but was dressing for the festival of Kama^
the woman he in^"^^^ ^ ^ook the place Passion arose in him and he made love to her, but his mm
was carried away by passion and by using an excessiv
masqueraded as an asc '^ ^ seduce; and Ravana powerful 'scissor' on her chest, he killed her. u„r\A
tellings after the first S V° ^^a, while (in many
the place ofthe Sita thoE^o^ t^ersion) a shadow Sita took Naradeva was the general of the Pattdya HitK His h^d
^ illusory seductions ^Itought he had abducted. had been deformed by a blow from residence,
that. they were aU the more deadly for Chitralekha, a dancing girl, ^ith her,
The rest of rfte his passion was aroused, and w en
blind with passion, he used the r
punctuates the entire ^e Kamasutra, which his lame hand; he missed het cheek an
against
teady the
seenabuse oftheto nr!^'
applied primarily of warnings
t^arnings that we have blinding her in that eye.3® ^ ^
teappear in the human 1 ^ figures and that now The kings who commit these ^^'^esses locates
against the use of certain T' example, in warning India, where Vatsyayana (a Nor Ravana and
-or'anTtt sexual excess. In contrast with such '8"" Sanskrit
The King of the rk 1 Vatsyayana says: Ahalya, these kings are not well-known
mythology.
--g the wedge. tiXftT"^ -Ynother excessive king is an adult
d the Kuntala king
90 the mare's trap 91
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE KAMASUTRA
For when Abhira, the Kotta king, went to another man's So much for the mythology of warning kings.
home, a washerman employed by the king's brother killed But the Kamasutra persists in expressing both cautionary
him. And the superintendant of horses killed Jayasena the tales for men and exhortations to women through the cita'
king of Varanasi.' So it is said.^^
of Well-known and, occasionally, lesser-known myths.
" said niay cast some doubt on this pair ofadulterer®'
ut not necessarily so. Yashodhara tells just a bit more
(which I have indicated in added italics):
Pl»« named Kotta, whose king,
aYwith
sleep , e the wife ofVasumitrn ""nn's
U jSouse• in order to
1 / \ ^he head warrior. There, a
killed W°jayaseL T" kingdom,
another man,
into anoth • house
/ ,o make tone unth that[too]
Varanasi manhad
i uAfe.-'
gone

Evidently these kings do r'" t 1" housebreaking.

European kings for in r hcence that many
licentiously. Elsewhere
' ^"^syayana insists, in a verse:
Kings and ministers of state Hrv
homes, enter into other men's

For the
The whole
three populace
worlds watrb sees
tU what the^ nl el imitates
• • it.
-d so they too riser
thenthey
theytoo
watch
startthetosun
act.^imn •
But then Vatsyayana H
Eom the ideal to th ^ prose, and
impossible and because ek 'EEerefore, because it is
^°^Bing frivolous. But Jk such men do
employ
e"iploy stratagems..a, en they cannot help doing it, they
i:

'42

i
 4

WOMEN IN THE KAMASUTRA

the kamasutra for women

The assumption that the intended reader of the

is male persists in popular culture today, w ere i
Verma, apparently hoping to rectify th.s
published The Kamasutrafor Women: The Modem «
to Sensual Fulfilment and Health, applying yn
techniques to female heterosexual relationships; and in 2UU
there was The Woman's Kamasutra, by Nitya acroix,
then the Kama Sutra para la Mujer. But there is
^uch books.2 The Kamasutra is for women-n was inten
to be used by women,and has much to offer to wom
today
Vatsyayana argues at some JC'its
least, should read this text, and that othe
contents in other ways:
A woman should study the and she
arts before she reaches the prime o ^wav if her
should continue when she has been cannot
husband wishes it. Scholars say. i ,Vatsyayana
grasp texts, it is useless to teach women practice
says: But women understand the prac specific
is based on the text. This :::rld^m
subject of the Kamasutra, for throug the text,
subjects, there are only a few peop c ^ And a text,
but the practice is within the range o ^if the practice,
however far removed, is the ultimate sour
96 THE mare's trap WOMEN IN THE KAMASUTRA 97

Grammar is a science,' people say. Yet the sacrificial
priests, who are no grammarians, know how to gloss the
words in the sacrificial prayers. 'Astronomy is a science,
they say. But ordinary people perform the rituals on the
days when the skies are auspicious. And people know how
to ride horses and elephants without studying the texts
about horses and elephants. In the same way, even citizens
far away from the king do not step across the moral line
that he sets. The case of women learning the Kamasutra is
like those examples. And there are also women whose
understanding has been sharpened by the text* courtesans
and the daughters of kings and state ministers.^
This is an important text, for it argues for the method by
which the Kkmasutra (and indeed, other Sanskrit texts)
would have been known only by women, but by the
Wtdet popular,on .n general; such knowledge was by no
tneans hnuted to nten. or women, who knew Sanskrit.
m1',-"l*""T"''''' P'"^"Sht Bhavabhuti, in his
thar her frU A when a woman complain
*rht hfchanges
mght,she h from the dialeaf'-band
in whichonshetheis speaking
wedding
(as most women m Sanskrir ,.1 jx ^ these options for a woman whose nus
(as the stage directions indi Sans^'
Kamasutra was regarded as a counterforce to the prevalen
culture of sexual violence.'
In addition to this general expectation that all
should know all of the Kamasutra, particular parts o t e
book were evidently designed to be used by women.
Three devotes one episode to advice to virgins trying g
husbands,'^ and Book Four consists ofinstructions
Book Six is said to have been commissioned by Ae courtesan
of Pataliputra, presumably for their own use.
women's rights
The Kamasutra reveals relatively liberal attitudes to
education and sexual freedom. To appreciat
useful briefly to recall the attitudes to ofManu and, me
, . ,„ T
,
important texts that precede it, tne u j r far
Kaudlya, the author of the
more liberal than Manu. He takes
with several husbands,"^ who is unimagina
poses a problem even for the permissive
^ Kautilya
divorce
is also more lenient than Manu w en
and widow remarriage; where Manu oe^ Kautilya
^vhich consists
gives a woman some control over her
j,
cii.;'
niaintenance; sne
g

Kamasutra warn,"Women u of jewellery without limit and ^a sm death—unless

enticed very tenderly. Jf '''''' dowers, and need to be continues L
to own these after her
her husbands
us de!
.^rith interest,
have not yet won their trnslT T she remarries, in which case she
sex.'" This is important e A women who hate
knowledge ofthe KamasuZ common > The Malatimadbava also
i See chapter two, The Kautilyan in d'»e description
of It by women who knew Q circles, but ofthe use shows the strong influence of Kautilya s
which they convention li as well as the dialects in of court politics. ,
nvennonally spoke. 1,,also evidence that the
ii See chapter two,'The Kautilyan Kamos
98 the mare's trap WOMEN IN THE KAMASUTRA 99

settles it all on her sons.^ In these ways and others,
ti ya allows women more independence than Mariu
But both of them greatly limit women's sexual and
economic freedom.
Kamasutra, predictably, is far more open-minded
t an Manu about women's access to household funds, and
a out ivorce and widow remarriage. The absolute power
at t e wife m the Kamasutra has in running the household's
m^ces stands m sharp contrast with Manu's statement
Women's sexuality
Vatsyayana presents an argument in favour offentale orgasm
far more subtle than views that prevailed in Europ
very recently indeed,and certainly worlds above the arr.rudes
of his predecessors, whose cockamamie ideas e q . 1
Klls the man how to recognize when a wonran has reache
dimax-or, perhaps, if we assume (as 1 rhmk we should
that the text is intended for women, too, he rs relhng
Woman how to fake it;

and i, "hand in spending"

'ha,. 'No man is able to guard
rr bur '' ^ safely guarded if
purification''Tttendfn ^Pending money, engaging
'ooHngafteithrbatrre
promisciiirv Tr. ' when it comes to female
Vatsyayana dtesMTriier"authority
pick up matrierl ''fWears aheadbestofplaces
on the Manu.to
ofvisiting the eod°"'^H' ^^^st is on the occasion
or a religious festivalB 7^ ^"^lode a sacrifice, a wedding,
io a park, bathin ^ opportunities involve playing
More extreme orr • or theatrical spectacles,
house on fire, the co ^ offered by the spectacle of a
of the countryside h ^^r a robbery, or the invasion
Manu would approve Somehow I don't think
married women at all I question meeting
as an occasion for ir' using devotion to the gods
spectator sports like h ' such an occasion with
^°wn. around watching houses burn
The signs that a woman is reaching her climax are that her
limbs become limp, her eyes close, she loses all sensej
shame, and she takes him deeper an eeper i
She flails her hands about, sweats, bites, wi no
get up, kicks him, and continues to rnove ove
even after he has finished making love.
Vatsyayana argues that women have orgasms
Vashodhara supports Vatsyayana s position
unknown provenance:
A woman's sensual pleasure is two fo c
the scratching of an itch and the pleasure of melti g
The melting, too, is two-fold,
the flowing and the ejaculation o
She
and gets wet justpleasure
her sensual from theofflowing
ejaculation comes from being
churned. w her sexual energy,
But when a woman is carrie ^ man.'*^
she ejaculates at the end, it is sai ,
A 'Therefore the woman
From this, Vatsyayana concludes. her sexual
should be treated in such a way that s
100 the mare's trap WOMEN IN THE KAMASUTRA 101

'max first. And he quotes authorities that insist that a SEXUAL FREEDOM
woman emits semen in order to conceive a child. This belief
gives women an equal share in the making of a child, a The Kamasutra assumes a kind ofsexual freedom for women
wpoint t at contradicts the assumption, widespread in that would have appalled Manu but simply does not intere
ancient ndia, that a woman contributes to the embryo not Kautilya. Vatsyayana is a strong advocate for women s sex
pleasure. He tells us that a woman who does not experienc
drnn menstrual blood, which, since it takes ten the pleasures of love may hate her man and leave im
thJlh "^""P of semen, would mean another.^° If, as the context suggests, this woman is '
">uch only one-centh as the casual manner in which Vatsyayana suggests t a
leave her husband is in sharp contrast to the position assu
GCTTOn by the Laws ofManu\ 'A virtuous wife should constM y
serve her husband like a god, even if he behaves
roll when sheTrSmfnT
those spots.'IS V t
^er =/«
spots, he presses her in just indulges his lust and is devoid of any good qualities.
'This is the secrpr^^"^^ finotes a predecessor who said, Kamasutra also acknowledges that women could use m g
remained a secret in F° Women'—and, indeed, it to control their husbands, though Vatsyayana regards t
because Sir Rirha fi^de a few centuries, in part a last resort.^^ He casually mentions, among ^e w
that one might not only sleep with but marry, ^ not y
saysdiirin
what he likes best that whir°''
^^ woman 'second-hand' women (whom Manu despises as previ y
point ofpressing those n ^^°old always make a had by another man')but widows:'a widow who is torm
her eyes.''5 Here P^'-'-S of her body on which she turns by the weakness of the senses..-finds, again, ^
the commentary, wrongly followed enjoys life and is well-endowed with good qualities
eyes', in the sense Vatsyayana dismisses with one or two short ve
the eyes rolling. Burton "something, instead of possibility that the purpose of the sexual act is to p
thing to Suvarnanahh ( attributes the whole u-ij
children; r the
one of u things
u- that
u make
oLp sex
sex for human beings
only the afterthought 1 Vatsyayana attributes ,.rr
different r
from r animals,
sex for • , he
1 points
inirc o
niit, is the fact that
young women', which about 'the secret of human women, unlike animals, have sex even w e
one part of thj comn. entirely). By following not in their fertile period.^^ Given the enormou
of the passage, how tn^r'^^'^' bas missed one point that Manu and all the other dharma texts place
gratuitously, the phra^f^^^^u^ G-spot, and by inserting, sex only to produce children, the KAW-Osutra s a
missed the larger point I best', he has totally is extraordinary.'"
gwe a woman an orgasm. of learning how to
iii See 'Introduction: Redeeming the Kamasutra ■
102 THE mare's trap WOMEN IN THE KAMASUTRA 103

Vatsyayana s discussion ofthe reasons why women become conceal his signals'; or she fears, 'His advances are just a
unfaithful rejects the traditional patriarchal party line that tease'; or she is diffident, thinking. How glamorous
one finds in most Sanskrit texts, a line that punishes very or she becomes shy when she thinks. He is a man a
ue ly indeed any woman who sleeps with a man other town, accomplished in all the arts ; or she feels,
an her husband (cutting off her nose, for instance). Manu always treated me just as a friend ; or she cannot e ^
^sumes that every woman desires every man she sees:'Good thinking,'He does not know the right time and place, or
o do not matter to them, nor do they care about youth, she does not respect him, thinking. He is an o
^an. they say, and enjoy sex with him, whether he is contempt'; or she despises him when she t m s,
good-looking or ugly'.26 -p^e Kamasutra takes offfrom this though I have given hirn signals, not
or she feels sympathy for him an l nf
atne^sumption, but then limits it to good-looking vatn atui want anything unpleasant to happen to im^
1 les it with an egalitarian, if cynical, formulation: A me'; or she becomes depressed w en uf t ^m
tnan esires any attractive man she sees, and, in the same own shortcomings, or afraid when she thinks,
7) an desires a woman. But, after some consideration, discovered, my own people will throw husband
e matter goes no fiirther.'27 The text does go on to state thinking,'He has grey hair'; or s ^ ^ j for
has employed him to test me , or s
it d concern for morality than men have; dharma.2^ ^
men- '^omen don't think about anything but
be I ^""itten in the service of the hero, the would- Just as he had imagined the reasons y^na here
away, wCiCLjd '«=<=''" " positively inclined to betray her m an^^
But the autho " brilliantly imagines the resistanc both more subtle
reasons ^"^Pathetically imagines various women s to commit adultery, and his thin . £ novelists like
dharma co adultery (of which consideration for and more thorough than the psyc o o& discussion is
seducer Gustave Flaubert and John Up i ^ ^^^gr ofthe text how
to disarmXsAe'tom
her- ^ ®'"'.'""'"''Sht), and theevenwould-be
misgivings seriously, if only ostensibly intended to teach the m c
- 1
should
to manipulate and1 exploit
1 curb women:
sue ^
hichever ,
of these
eliminate, from the very ,^ri situation. Btit,
husband, ^ Woman's resistance: love for her causes for rejection he detects
her prime or
getaway;
children, the fact that she is past
unhappiness, or unable to
perhaps inadvertently, h ptovides°1hesitate
most toperceptive
begin an
"ae in an ^^"7and thinks,'He is propositioning exposition of the reasons why wom
away. There is c affair.

someone else'- ''a it; his thoughts are attached to garruKUtni ■

' nervous, thinking, 'He does not IV See chapter two,'The Kautilyan
104 the mare's trap
t e Kamasutra is equally informative about women s
precisely, courtesans)thinking about ways of ending
air. It describes the devious devices that the courtesan
uses to make her lover leave her, rather than simply kicking
nim out:
WOMEN IN THE KAMASUTRA 105
of what James Scott has taught us to recognize as the
'weapons of the weak', the 'arts of resistance .
"Women's voices

he does for him what he does not want, and she does Passages such as the woman's thoughts ^bout beginning ^
affair, or a courtesan's thoughts about ending
epeate y what he has criticized. She talks about things he express a woman's voice, or at least a woman s p
does not know about. She shows no amazement, but only The Kamasutra often slriW^
out f ,Ke things he does know about. She
expressing views that men are ^hat they
laur wf t""r df he says. She It IS clearly sympathetic to women, par
ma£ aTok f T' "i°he, and when he has suffer from inadequate husbands.^ rhey
talking, sheiLLTtter"''""' " are directed toward women, is it while the
and slaps them. And when sheT reflect women's voices? Certainly not always ricounter
she tells other stories Sh ii ^"^^rrupted his story, r- • j- c.-cnf-pch we also encoumei
Kamasutra quotes women in direct spee ,
habitsshould
and vices the paradox of women's voices telling us,
that not that he ca^
be asked f "
that women had no voices. ventriloquism that
ignores him. She criti ' punctures his pride. She Male texts may merely engage m ^
And she stalls when tT^^ attributes to women --rTT *l'e" an offidJ -ale
end, the release bam together. And at the
happens of itself.30 goals. The Kamasutra not on y that women s
A little inside joke that voice (the voice of Vatsyayana) but takes
translation is the word the cross-cultural words truly represent their feelings. associate with
generally refers to a pers ^ 'release'—moksha—^which for granted the type of rape that we .^g^ v^yho can
of
heretransmigration;
to designate thethere
telea^^^^ spiritual release from
^^ intended ironythe
in itsworld
use sexual harassment, as he describes m
take whatever women they want.
The rest comes through 1 ^ from a woman's thrall,
employs what some would^ *^ioar, however: the woman A young village headman, or a king's
& officer,
yjjjageorwomen
the sonjust
o
to indicate that it is !P^^^i'^^-aggressive behaviour the superintendent offarming, es call these women
"lale equivalent for this ^ There is no with a word, and then li ertin charge
would not have to resorted- ^''^^trmably because a man adulteresses. And in the same man gowherds; the
t row the woman out. Tb^ ^tibterfuges: he would just of the cowherds may take the wom
Woman s method is an example 'See chapter two, The Kautilyan Kamasutra •
106 the mare's trap

charge of threads [presumably the supervisor of

ot
in sewing and weaving] may take widows,
en w o have no man to protect them, and wandering
en ascetics, the city police-chief may take the women
I "bout begging, for he knows where they are
^ nera e, ecause of his own night-roamings; and the
5
market may take the women who buy
the third nature: gender ^
alone agei^"'" absolutely no voice at all, l« inversions in the kamasutra
Kamasutra ^ ''^ar we find women's voices in the
transcendingXottotTT
Werewe
Situation,toL™n
we could bounds ofthe historicalJ
against their moment^i^ women's voices speaking
author. Onlv hv I ■ ^^tory, perhaps even against their
■oay no, have comWemr T
contain many ans ^
other questions anT'^^ ^"^'^tiitously embedded in
him. swers that were more meaningful to
Traditional and inverted indian
CONCEPTS OF GENDER

If we read careftilly. the IO.n,asum Kveds

ntiodern ideas about gender, unexpectedly su t e s e
of feminine and masculine natures, and
^iews of homosexual acts than are suggested by otn
We an leam a lot about conventional and
Hindu Ideas of gender f"™ Jj'nitute,
expected: Vatsyayana tells us that, y is the
the man is the active agent and the ^
passive locus. The ntan is aroused by the
taking her," the young woman by the passive
taken by hinr."'^ ^hese gender^-^^^^^^^^^^
woman, active man—underlie ^
the text, too. Vatsyayana tell emotions,
typically female behaviour: bashfhlness'. The
hehcacy, timidity, innocence, tra ^
closest he has to a word for our g
term designating light and heat, ra ^ 'glory':
^hat someone shines at, or, per aps,
A man's natural talent is
his toughness and ferocity,
a woman's is her lack of power r^npoo 3
and her suffering, self-denial and we
 111
110 the mare's trap THE THIRD NATURE

The commentator, Yashodhara, expands this verse by position with the woman on top as the perverse or r
xp aining that people can, however, deviate from these or topsy turvy' position {viparitaiK), the wrong way^
norms: Tatsyayana, however, never uses this pejorative term, n
he refers to the woman-on-top position only wit
crimes, but not always, there is an exchange when they ho play the man's role' {purushayiwa). He acknow e g
make love out of the pull of passion or according to the
that people do, sometimes, reverse gender ro es, ,
^ y n c anges to what
Thenthe
theman
woman
has aabandons her own
natural talent for, switch of 'natural talents' is precisely what happens when
oing the slapping, while the man abandons his own way, the woman is on top: 'She does to him m
and ^ woman, and takes up her ways, moaning
whatever acts he demonstrated before^^^^^ ^a
time, she indicates that she is em gender
Id mr?- ^ ^hey change back, and wishes to stop." Yashodhara spells out th g
they do itI
ust as efore,Passion or this
and there is noparticular
occasiontechnique,
to switch. eomplications:

norm in mHind^ "^^^^'onary position'is the assumed VI of this activity is said to be done
natural tdent. The acts ,„a„'s
which, in describ" " "begins in the Rig that he executed with roughness current
i-agmes the" ~on of the universe, natural talent; she now does th^^^ back
forth, above, and felT seed-placers, giving^ of her own natural talent. She Hm ^ar , ferocity. And
The Kamasutra menti ^ beneath, of her hand and so forth, demons r ^ talent, even
enthusiasm, listin ' so, in order to express the ^^austed, and does
positions that't if all the other, more exotic though she is not emhatrasse , embarrassed and
»"ch cut bothtfr'"' "="p"' p"'""' not wish to stop, she indicates a
variants: the "nm I ■ straight. There are two exhausted and wishes to stop. .1 1 ,.
^d the commp ^up supine"- ■ that
How, since Vatsyayana •insists t the woman'unveils
drives her to her
get
penetrate her in^rb"^^'^ scornfully remarks, 'How does he own feelings completely when her pas plays the
nothing to worry on top',^ the feelings of the ^""^Tfgrrrale. Or, rather, as
Europeans eenerall ° rnuch for the position that man's role seem to be both m e ^ man, she
were. ^ as the default position, as it the commentator explains, when s a woman,
Eut the Kamasutra tellc u
pretends to be a man and then s ^ , active agency
sometimes—when
rhe Woman on tonthe sexual position with Thus Vatsyayana acknowledges
implicatio05 for wome heavily laden with gender 3-nd challenges her stereotyped ge
ost Sanskrit texts refer to the
112 THE mare's trap
the third nature 113

The poet Amaru, in the seventh or eighth century CE, of an unwanted lover and, on the other hand, in a religious
wrote a verse about a girl who forgets herself, and forgets het context, signifies ultimate liberation from t
womanly modesty, as she makes love on top of her msis rebirth.)
partner, but then, as her memory returns, and with it her
sense of shame, she suddenly becomes aware of her own SAME-SEX MEN
body and releases [mukta] first her male nature and then her What about more extreme challenges to 'Tgople who
lover.^ The thirteenth-century commentator Arjtmavarmadeva
glosses the verse, in part, like this: engage in homosexual acy Cto ^^^„^,otlcism, but
An impassioned woman in the woman-on-top position significantly silent on the su )e ^
abandons, first, maleness, and, right after that, her lover. Hmdu mythology does drop dharma
What happened? She perceived her own body, which she excavate a pretty virulent homosexual
had not recognized at all while she was impassioned. Only textbooks, too, either ignore or g^^ albeit
later is there my mention of the distinction between being activity. Male homoerotic activ ty ftne^^ was
male or female. She is described as becoming modest only mildly a ritual bath" or the payment of a small
at the onset or memory.'° often a sufficient atonement. a violent
The sequence here seems ,o be that she takes on a male But the ascetic aspects
dichotomy between marriage, in w'
^^""j^^^g^uality is tolerated
priesthood, in
nature, loses her natural female ntodesty, suddenly regains
her memory, regains her modesty, recognizes her female for the sake of children, and entirely rejected,
body, lets go of her male nature and lets go (physically) of "which asceticism is idealized an homosexual love
the man. The tnter-relatlonship between gendered actions or at least recycled. In this ^o recognize as
(male on top, femde underneath), gendered natures (males represents what Mary Doug as as ^Qgsn't fit into any
rough, females modest) and gendered bodies, together with aexisting
major conceptual
category error,
cubbyho e,
J _^^ythology
out of place'—m a
regards
the loss and recovery ofa sense ofone's own body balanced
agatnst the holding and releasing of the body of a sexual "Word, dirt.^^ Traditional ^^^^.^^g^ual marriage, as a
partner, is complex indeed CTr irax homosexual union not, like et (procreation and
when we recall dtar 'release' 'fr" ^ compromise between two go sin ^^^^jjipation of the
moUa. the word that on th u """"i asceticism), but as a mutually 1,1St). The myths, therefore,
Vatsyayana
y y uses for thne cojr^ technique of getting
courtesan's '""d "Worst of both worlds (sterility an (gt alone
seldom explicitly depict homosexual
i See chapter four,'Women in rhrs r- sympathetically.
me Kamasutra'.
114 the mare's trap THE THIRD NATURE 115

The Sanskrit word kliba has traditionally been translated a woman imitates a woman's dress, chatter, grace,emotio ,
unuch but almost certainly did not mean 'eunuch > delicacy, timidity, innocence, frailty and bashfiilness.
eiinuchs in the particular sense of men intentionally act that is [generally] done in the sexual organ is done in
j.j not^ exist in India beforeguardians in thepresence
royal harem her mouth, and they call that oral sex . She S"®
did the Turkish in the' pleasure and erotic arousal as well as her livelihood from
t century and, therefore, cannot be recorded in texts this, living as a courtesan. That^is the person of the thir
such as the Mahabharata, composed long before that date. nature in the form of a woman.
en were castrated in punishment for various crimes in , . ,^„re about this cross-dressing
The Kamasutra says nothing mo , t • ,r Knt it
hmT\ to control them), male, with his stereotypical femJe gen er e avio ,
inciudt a":rrr.: discusses the fellatio technique of rionaes
of'a man who does nor the gener^ rubric third nature in considerable sensual d™''
who fails to b ^ tnan should act', a man consecutive passage in the text describing a physical act, an
with what might even be called gusto.
their terms sev II ° indicate a man who is in The one in the form ofa man,
challenged), including srmeon'°"i!' when she wants a man and makes her
castrated, a transvesti,
who had
sterile, impotent.
oral sex with other Ketlimbs,as.fsh.„ere=mb«n^h,m^T^^^^^^^^^^ becomes
As she massages the man, she caresses
_
sexual organs a k mutilated or defective more boldly intimate and hnghin^ at
produced only femd^T-u ^ him about how easily he bee
him. If the man does not urge er , that he is
pejorative
god in theforce of'wimn'
Bhamvnrl r Krishna, the incarnate given this clear sign and even w If the
of the conscience-st " p'^' ''t* ^dr the martial instincts aroused, she makes advances to
man urges her to go on, s e
-Stop behavingZ a C™''"'' ''' " unwillingly continues.
de Kamasutra denarr. f ' . c
homosexuality in sip- t dharmic view or And so forth, and, so on. This is a remarkably
extended cxphcu
double
pejorative term kliba at 1^1^^ analysis of the mentality of the c oset, ppgar sexually
^«dre' {tritiya prakriti) ', of a 'thira entendre ofan act that is cleverly want to
sense of sexual behaviour ^ sexuality' in the innocent to a man who does not w but is an
There are two sorts f admit that he wants, a homosexu admit his
^oman and in the ll e form of a explicit invitation to a ^f'^^ssage is a massage m
desire for such an encounter.
""°^a man. The one in the form of
 117
116 THE mare's trap THE THIRD NATURE

^^masutra. Some people think that massaging is also a say, "If the girl sees that the man has not spoken a
of close embrace, because it involves touching. But three nights, like a pillar, she will be discourage an
atsyayana says. No.For a massage takes place at a particular despise him, as if he were someone of the t ir i^
time set aside, has a different use, and is not enjoyed by both So, judgmentalism appears to creep in after • ^
partners in the same way.'i7 Qr is it.? Consider this: 'But we look deer we see that the people who tnake judg^eut
woman who is giving the man a massage makes sure ate the 'scholars' with whom Vatsyayana almos y
e as un^derstood her signals and rests her face on his thighs disagrees," as he does here, for he goes on
e ad no desire but was overcome by sleep, and then Vatsyayana says: He begins to hfentices her
kisses his thighs,that is called a kiss [of]"making advances.'"^' but he still remains sexually contmen . flowers
snnn^ person of the 'third nature' is he does not force her in any way. for wotnen are hke flowers
four °om onove,"aj[d thr''' describing the and need to be enticed very tenderly. If t ey are
of rbp fr. '• contexts in which they arise. One
force by men who have not yet won their trust they hecom
Ital that comes from erotic women who hate sex. Therefore he ^Chom the
gentle persuasion. This is the sort o
tespons;:t:;':b;'.:fr
the course of oral sex wVK recognized m ■" wrong sort of scholar, but not Vatsyayana. mtght^h
third nature or in " ^ ^ woman or with a person of the some people might stigmatize as someon i ;„o. so
commentary^xplT"" nature. It is evidence, all the more impresstve f"j-' ^
the reference to the ^^S'^ificantly, leaves out casual, of the prevalent homophobia of that tim
only to a femaU Person of the third nature and refers Men of th! third nature -^^rl^ine
pronoun 'she', basically because tew
kiatssitheng,moment
embracinofg^ sexn^l ^'^PP'^g in Sanskrit (as it, and most jer, rather than a
these acts experiences a ^ ^ke person performing ^d Greek,. Indeed, the idea o^<h,rd gnde^.
whom they are done als ^^id the woman for binary division, may come rru ^^jgrs neuter as well
merely physical, love be a mental, rather than European languages to assign three gen
passion directed to each imaginative power of as masculine and feminine to all noun ^ ^ p^gyious 'first'
as so often, the later c stimulated.' Here, the word 'third'—which clearly is thinking
the options. ^nmentary has closed down one of and 'second'—demonstrates t at jj^ggtic, terms: two
One remark, in a passa^, primarily in binary, more precise y ^ actually
c too shy with his sh b "-kc bridegroom not to opposed terms modified by a t ir ■
disapprove of men of I ^"ggests that some people I 1 , n( the KamasutrA.
ii See chapter three, The Mythology or u
' 'kird nature: '[Certain scholars]
 119
118 the mare's trap THE THIRD NATURE

Malogizes men and women to grammatical terms, in the homosexual men. Or with the Hijtas. transvestites who
iscussion of gender stereotypes considered above, which were usually castrated, many of whom earn a living as m
does not take account of the third nature at all: 'By his prostitutes in South Asia today, as they did during
P ysical nature, the man is the active agent [the subject] and time, and are often called 'eunuchs'.® The Hi)n«. who hav
e young woman is the passive locus [the locative case, in heen part ofSouth Asian society, but as margin Pt°P ' ,
which the action takes place].'22 [-phe object is the sexual oenturies. do correspond rather closely to the B'"
act.]) ' 'third nature', the cross-dressing female type t at is
>fter just a sentence or two in the Knnmuna h"'
1-V. another, better reason why Vatsyayana uses second type, the closeted male type, to w ic
tht ^ P'^'^i^oun for a person of the third nature, and devotes considerable attention. „p,fpc to his
urc among women who can begender:
lovers.23heThis
lists use
theofthhd
the Burton had written about the Hijr^ m t e
translation of the Arabian Nights, but t ere is no
ptacttces ofsome cross-dressing gay menanticipation
of our day. of the tFeir existence at the time of the ^
anything about such a group m the prakrti^
™ BWTON on the -THtRD NATURE' did Burton use the word 'eunuch to transla
did he not recognize the ^ sex with
has^frimsX
"as misttanslated"in[T"
people of the 'third nature'
Sanskrit circles because «
entire men who happened to prefer avmg
other men? Did he read the text as
used by Enelisfi 1 ^ version of the text that has been the only option available to them ue gurton had
French readers) f readers (and, through translation, malfunction? This ^^/ !^^Xothel(inKarachi)
Richard Franric n ^ rientury; the translation by Sir undertaken at least one study 'Terminal
translation misses thTen in 1883. Burton's staffed by 'boys and eunuchs . . , i • 1885,includes an
because he renders' Puint about same-sex eroticism Essay' to the Arabian
18,000-word Nights,TederastyU
essay entitled publis e ^ i j.gpublishedthat
in
He also leaves out, entirelv^pr^'p ^ '^rmuch' throughout,
nature' in the list of ^ includes the 'third Eis collection of essays entitle ^ fmale homosexuality
Would appear that he sexually available.2^ R Was one of the first serious treatmerits o practice
sense, to designate not ^ word eunuch' in its broader in English, rhough he sra.ed rhar Hmdm
who had been castrated the harem but a man in abhorrence.2^ No, Burton s e ^ 'Orientals' as
he confhsed the men another. Perhaps product of 'Orientalism : the ^vord 'eunuch
^ astic category that i i nature with klibas, the simultaneously oversexed and femi oKout the Orient,
r ■ Rrifish
, usedJ m
Was frequently Brit writings anouL
• both casuatcd men and
120 the mare's trap THE THIRD NATURE 121

conveying a vague sense of sexual excess, cruelty and cucumber, and so forth.' One can imagine little gardens of
impotence. Burton simply followed that tradition in hi® plantain and cucumber being cultivated within th
translation of the Kamasutra. rooms of the palace, the harem.
The Kamasutra makes only one brief reference to
SAME-SEX WOMEN who may have chosen women as sexual partners in preference
What about homoerotic women? Vatsyayana is unique in to men: the text says that a girl may lose her virginity w^t
iterature ofthe period in describing lesbian activity. girlfriend or a servant girl, and the
that'They take her virginity by using a finger. anu
•n a , nef passagebeginning of the
about what chapter
he calls about custonts'.^^
'Oriental the haretn, Kautilya say that a woman who corrupts ^ wr^
punished by having two of her fingers cut o sUjans
what 'Oriental'—or 'Eastern' \fracya\—^°^ -hat Manu and KautUya-like Y-hodhara-th.nk l«b.ns
what tegards as a disreputable lesbian practice in do in bed. Vatsyayana never uses the verb to p y t
inc^eixTa::':: role- when he describes lesbian activities. _ . gut
not wi/1 n P'"-^^gge®ts that 'Orientalism' began ■"efer to women ofthis type as people of a t it „
the commentator's belief that the children
xresitit'rdud:
that have the form of ^ ^ " thi ■ u Ube 'aa 1lirtle boy7 and little girl
w woman is on top might with
'reverse'
that have distinct sexud reversed natures'^^ refers to the view damage,
sexual acts with one y"^«"«tics. But they eng!«e intercourse of parents might wreak em ryoni
through the kind f nnly in the absence of men, not resuhing in the reversed
third nature: 'The choice that drives a man ofthe
because they are ca harem cannot meet meU)
one husband shared b ^ and since they have onlf nature'.
tiot satisfied. Therefor^ Women in common, they are
BISEXUALITY
with the following
helpfully tp k '-^
suggests the pleasure to commentary
^ashodhara's one another
In addition to male and Th^
employ:'Byiinaginin vegetables that one might few oblique, passing remarks behaviour in mind
emotion that gives ext ^ experience a heightened female messenger may have ha ^ according to the
form just like the m 1 ®^dsfaction. These things have a when, praising the man's charm, s desired
J'oot, plantain and so f ^%an: the bulbs of arrow-
bread fruit, and so forpk° . coconut palmS' commentator, 'He has such luck m , 36 composed
' the fruits of the bottle-gourd,
even by a man."' So, too. tn the BuJdhacharm.
 THE THIRD NATURE 123
122 THE mare's TRAP

in roughly the same period as the Kamasutra, the court tbe topic of homosexuality, and even more cauti y
chaplain encouraging a group of women to seduce the bisexuality, it is possible for us as readers to excavat
Buddha tells them, By your knowledge of the telltale sigus ^tetnative sexualities latent in the text s somew a 7
ofemotion, your flirtation, your perfect beauty, you are able boundaries between homoeroticism and hemroero
to enflame the passion even of women, so how much mote Tkis sort of reading suggests various ways in w
is this so of men? In the Kamasutra, two verses embedded StmnrWs implicit claim to sexual
within the passage about fellatio performed by women anyone could ask to know about sex—might be opene
describe men who engage in oral sex not by profession, like into a vision of gender infinity.
the men of the 'third nature', but out of love:
Even young men, servants
who wear polished earrings,
indulge in oral sex
only with certain men.
And, in the same way, certain
cerrain men-about-town
l
who care for one another's welfare
and have established trust
do this service for one another.37
These men, who seem bound to one another by
d,scrnj.,nan„g affection rather than promiscuous passion,
are called men-about-town', nagarakas, the term used to
destgnate the hetetosexual heroes of the In
stnktng contrast wtth men of the third nature, always
desjgnated by the pronoun 'she', these men are described
wrth nouns and pronouns that unambiguously designate
males, yet they are grouped with women. PerLps, then,
they are bisexuals. The
even makes Dattaka
Uattaka,'« the author of the part
'"c of the text
commissioned by the courtesans, a serial biLual,»
Thus, despite the caution with which the text broaches
ii See chapter three, The Mythology of the
Kamasutra
 6

the mare's trap: the nature

AND CULTURE OF SEX
\Y7i W noted the ways in which the ^
W between attitudes that sttike the
as reasonable and others that seem to fin no par e
naodern world.' One link between ancient n la
contemporary world is male anxiety here
remains a prevalent obsession on t e ^ger
again, as in so many of the other apparen p ggiyed as
back and forth between conceptions of what is p
part of nature or part of culture.

SIZE MATTERS
1 • i-1 it"<;
The passage describing genital size, r^aepartofthe
placed at a critical moment at the very s
Kamasutra describing the sexual act.
The man is called a 'hare', 'bull', or a
the size of his sexual organ; a woman^ jPere are three
'doe', 'mare', or 'elephant cow • similar size,
equal couplings, between sexu par of dissimilar
and six unequal ones, between sexual par
size.^ . ,
I chosen for their
Clearly the six paradigmatic anim ^han a doe, a
size, and they do not match: a hare is smaller than an
bull smaller than a mare, and a st

i See chapter one,'The Strange and the Familiar'.

 129
128 THE mare's TRAP THE MARE S TRAP

elephant cow. (The elephant cow, the biggest, is the only elephant cow') is much bigger than the biggest man(
animal to survive as a classificatory type in the much later stallion'). , ,
Kokushustru, which speaks of four types of women: Lotus The text gives only relative, not absolute, sizes,
Woman [Padmini], Art Woman [Chitrini], Conch Woman commentary spells it out:
[Shankhini], and Elephant Woman [Hastini]).
When the Kamasutra describes the possible positions, it The size of the penis is divided into the three ^
uses these animal types as its basic referents for size. When 'hare and so forth, according to the length, m^ad^a^d
the man is larger than the woman, the problem is relatively order: six, nine, and twelve [fingers]. ts circ
easily solved: should measure equal to its length. But some
no fixed rule about the circumference. ^
At the moment of passion, in a coupling where the man is
larger than the woman, a 'doe' positions herself in such a commentator is probably using the lengths
way as to stretch herself open inside. A 'doe' generally has ■fingers', approximately 14 etwchard S"™"
three positions to choose from: the 'wide open', the ' ercfore would be 4 '/z", 6 14 , art African
yawning', or the 'Junoesque'.^ estimated lengths of 3", 4 Tz , an > passing,
In addition, a 'doe' may use drugs to expand herself: 'An Negro dimensions'.^ (We will simply no ,
ointment made of powdered white lotus, blue lotus, racist and Orientalist aspects of 'elephant
morningstar" tree blossoms, rose dammar blossoms, and ^Ity a man prefers a 'doe' to a mare
cow').
marjoram makes a "doe" open wide.'^
the doe is the favoured woman, the ideal erotic The problem of desire
partner; it is in other couplings, when the man is smaller
an e woman, that male anxiety about phallic size raises Tbe problem posed by the greater ^ but mental,
Its head, and the problems are not so easily resolved. The easily solved, in part because it is no jj^jia measuring
mitia^ passage defining the three sizes continues:'The equal No proto-Kinsey went around m apparently
oup ings are the best, the one when the man is much larger ^Ite size of women's vulvas. It is a about physiology
a cross-cultural human fantasy, and it is n
are i ^ woman are the worst, and the rest
in the medium ones, it is better for Tor which there are physical correcti managed to
about desire, the mare that no on affected not
differs, f, Thus, there are cwo though so many have tried. ^hich
'equal is C" u ^g'^udas set forth from the start: ideally, Merely by size but by the ot er intensity o
womtr air C":: » ^e bi,ger,
y nature bigger: the biggest woman because
(the potential partners are ranked- nra
de;:sire:
 131
130 THE mare's TRAP the mare's trap

A man has dull sexual energy if, at the time of making love, Por the problem of fit is merely one aspect of the greater
his enthusiasm is indifferent, his virility small, and he problem ofsatisfaction. That is why the commentator
cannot bear to be wounded, and a man has average or speaking of the woman who has the most s
fierce sexual energy in the opposite circumstances. The (of three types) and lasts longest (also of r^e jg
same goes for the woman. And so, just as with size, so with passion even of a lorrg4asting wom^ wje sex_^^
temperament, too, there are nine sorts of couplings. And totce is quelled when she is slappe . Kautilyan
similarly, with respect to endurance, men are quick, average, that we have already noted as a characterist , it is
and long-lasting. Since there is no difference in the species
of a couple, they seek a similar sensual pleasure. Therefore ^masutra}^^ is here given at least a parti
the woman should be treated in such a way that she rrecessary to deal with oversized , ■ so, as
chieves her sexual climax first. Since the similarity in u
Just as mares are bigger than hares,
.
argument
^maxes has been proved in this way, there are nine forms me commentator points out •m rhp
c context of an argui
^ jtiore desire than
sex keyed to endurance, too, in terms of the time-to- about female orgasm, women have ^ \on§, time to
just as there are nine in terms of size and men: 'Women want a climax that t ^ man.
temperament.® produce, because their desire is eight ^ ^ that'a
Why does Vatsyayana conclude from ail of this that the Given these conditions, it is perfect y p,gcause men s
woman s ould reach her climax first?" The commentator fair-eyed womaneighth
cannotofbewomen's.
®amrl by ^ pjere he is quoting a
explains; desire is just one
• 'A iiT*^ IS ,
'^ell-known Sanskrit saying". ^ rivers that flow into it;
ase is when the man and woman achieve their amount of logs, nor the ocean by r ^ vvorld, nor a
sexu p easure at the same time, because that is an equal death cannot be sated by all the crea ,
up mg. But if it does not happen at the same time, and
fair-eyed woman by any amount o Qattaka'^ is
firll mast, and the climax
womanfirst,
doeshisnot
banner
reachis no
herlonger at
climax. The double knowledge of bisexu ^^drogync® such as
matched by the special expertise o se says, when
woinL°'^^K' unequal rather than equal, the the female-to-male bisexual Chu eight times as
forth ■ ^ ^ treated with kisses, embraces, and so she is a woman, that a woman gould also be
first WV, u^ achieves her sexual pleasure much pleasure (kama) as a man, ii Yashodhara
ren^air"- .T'" fi-P the man, translated as eight times as muc ^j^gri, commenting
diw' -d reaches his own may well have this mythology m m

rioted in chapter four,'Women in the iii See chapter two,'The Kautilyan fCarncis'^^'^ •
iv See chapter five,'The Third Nature
 133
132 THE mare's TRAP the mare's trap

on Vatsyayana's remark that 'It is commonly said. POSITIONAL SOLUTIONS

The man runs out of fluid before the woman runs out of
fluid, he explains,'He runs out offluids first because the Size is still an essential part of this formula,
woman has eight times as much fluid as a man,' and then the commentary (on the verse that says
repeats the saying he cited just a few verses earlier:'And so it tnan to be larger than the woman)spells
is commonly said: "A fair-eyed woman cannot be sated by In the coupling when the man is relieved;
men. '13 with a 'doe'l, a woman's itch is .^ming a
Women are also bigger in the sense that their sexuality h she accommodates the large ^ ^er vagina. But
digger, they are harder to satisfy than men are. This is the position such as the 'wide open , s smaller [a 'hare'
arpment put forth by one of the 'scholars' of the erotic in the coupling when the man is mnc her
science with whom Vatsyayana disagrees, in this case on the with an 'elephant ^ ,he'cup', there is no
question of whether women have orgasms:^ vagina by assuming a position of
relief for her. Vatsyayana will spe .^^joh the woman
A woman has an itch, which the man, during sex, scratches changing the size of the sexual j^crease his. But
continually. And when this scratching is combined, in stretches hers and the man uses evic ^ how long
ion, with the sensual pleasure of erotic arousal, it it is said: 'If a lover has a small penis, fond of
produces a different feeling, and this is what she thinks of the man works, women,they say, o ^ saying
as sensual pleasure. The scratching of an itch also feels him, because he does not relieve t
g or a ong time. Because of this, women love the man
xual energy lasts for a long time, but they resent a " ™ chat a woman who
an whose sexual energy ends quickly, We have already seen Vatsyayana Again, there is
This IS taken as one of the proofs that women do indeed is not satisfied may leave her bus 'jo[es] not grow
the implicit threat that a woman may leave
dowT^^^^^ enough. The 'grinding Very fond of a man who is not w
close tn^r"^°i!' woman bends her thighs so .
But the Kamasutra had its ways o
froping with satisfaction.
which the
particula ^ helow, is
commentI relieving of that itch, as the a kind of end-run around the assures us,'In
lower part thrusts from below into the commentator here alludes; tor, "elephant cow
a coupling where the man is s
extensive i ^the
extensive in h lower part^^°^^ntly, because
of the vagina.
the itch is most
15 contracts herself inside.'^^

See chapter four,'Women

the Kamasutra'. vi See chapter four,'Women in the Kamasutra.
134 THE mare's trap mare's trap 135
THE

MECHANICAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL SOLUTIONS pepper, mixed with honey, you put your sexu^ p ^
And if the positions do not solve the problem, one can your power.Ifyou pulverize a female'circle-maket buxz
always resort to sex tools, drugs, and, in final desperation, that died a natural death, and mix the powder with ho y
surgery. The K/zmusutru helpfully remarks. If you are unable and gooseberry; or if you cur the knotty "Ots o
to pleasure a woman offierce sexual energy, have recourse to mllkwott and mi,k-hedge plants
with a powder of red arsenic an su -nread it
devices, and provides an extensive collection of methods the mixture seven times, mix it with honey, and spmad^^
to increase and enhance the size of the penis, a combination on your pents, you pur your sexual partner in your pow
of dildos, drugs and surgical procedures. We have noted the
use ofsex tools between women in the harem;"" they are also And so on. The commentator's do« no! reidixe,"A
usefiil in heterosexual encounters. When the man is smaller such a way that the woman 7^^ love to
than the woman, Vatsyayana drily comments, 'Sex tools an with something spread on P woman
may also be used.'^^ (The commentator clarifies, 'If he is ') has inspired at least one reader to r
larger than she is, there is no need for sex tools.') who would let you make love to er
The 'elephant cow' may use drugs to contract: 'Arr ^nteared on you would have to be madly
ointment made of the white flowers of the "cuckoo's-eye" surgery
caper bush makes an "elephant-cow" contract tightly for But if drugs fail, the recommended su g ry is fairly brutal:
one night. But drugs may have more extensive sexual , 'c nenis just like his
The people of the South pierce a stands
powers:
ears. A young man has it cut wit peep the opening
If you make a powder by pulverizing leave, scar.ered by in water as long as the blood flo continuously,
the wind, garland, left over ftom corpses, and peacocks' clear, he has sexual intercourse that T ^ig^s the opening
bones, or pulverize a female 'circle-maker' buzzard that Then, after an interval of one ^a^^' p^^ing larger
died a natural death, and mix the powder with honey and with astringent decoctions. i,vood in it, atid he
gooseberry ,t puts someone in your power. If you mix the and larger spears of reeds and ivory with honey-
same powder with monkey shit and scatter the mixture cleans it with a piece of sugar c with a
over a virgin, she will not be given m another man.^" After that, he enlarges it by lubricates it with the
protruding knot on the end, an enlarged opening
Or;
oilsexoftools
.he Irking-mu. He
made in various shapes.
mus!u beaccording
able m b-to
If you coat your penis with Rii ointment made with
powdered white thorn-apple, black a lo, of use, and may be soft or roug
pepper, and long individual preferences.
24

vii See chapter five, The Third Nature'.

^ell, if that doesn't work, try
 137
136 THE mare's TRAP the mare s trap

Rub your penis with the bristles of insects born in trees, Her head thrown down, her pelvis raised up, s ,'
then massage it with oil for ten nights, then rub it again open'. Without lowering her thighs, suspending
the
and massage it again. When it swells up as the result ofthis while spreading them wide apart, she receives h
treatment, lie down on a cot with your face down and let yawning position. Parting her thighs around hi
your penis hang down from a hole in the cot. Then you the same time she pulls her knees back arou Jone
may assuage the pain with cool astringents and, by stages, sides, in the 'Junoesque' position, which can o y
finish the treatment. This swelling, which lasts for a lifetime, with practice 27
IS the one that voluptuaries call 'prickled'.^?
What I have called 'Junoesque' is literally of Indr
Chanted, I have chosen extreme surgical examples, but the wife of the god Indra.'"" , cj > tUp
pharmaceutical recommendations, though less grotesque, . ..
But this position recommenciea
d for the doe , tne
be rather dangerous.'Rfer
Her
hardly more practical. Nevertheless, they are guaranteed 'Junoesque'
to work. ^ ^ head thrownposition,
down, herturns outraised
pelvis to up, she IS "widei open".
'28
At this point, it might seem that ancient India had come mu- 11 a way fnr
1 his position must allow tor rhe
uic man to slide bacR.
to terms with what Freud called penis envy (and Woody And the commentator warns:
Men pointed out was more of a problem for boys than for
g s). erhaps size does not matter after all? But inadequate When she is making love with the man s pe is
size turns out to be just the tip ofthe iceberg ofthe problem she should slide back with her hips; , by little, so
ofsexualityintheii^^^^^^. ^ making love with her he should slide back moves
that they do not press together too tig 7- man's
the mare's trap inside her too roughly, she can be injure , <j.yptured
foreskin can be torn off, which physician
foreskin'.
problem of desire is the problem of
the ^ ^ be caught between So the small woman may be too small-
.17 '0° Sig. producing a kind ofis But it gets worse: the too-large j^er size. The
Charybdis of awoln
oo small,.nspnmg a kind of sexual claustmphobia. who small, by overcompensating, as it were, position
'elephant cow' is encouraged to ^^e fryiug P^
the Ahw favoured in illustrations of that catapults her unsuspecting partner tightness,
to use wh'""'y advises a man of insatiable enormity to the fire of strang position:
those of rh' Koran's genitals arc much smaller than It begins, disarmingly, with the harmless m
'stallion'•rs "TLhe y* oombination of 'doe' and of the Kamasutra-
Vlll See chapter three,'The Mythology
 139
138 THE mare's TRAP the mare s trap

Both partners stretch out both of their two legs straight. If this example, surely not at random; Two "^aifferent
as soon as he has penetrated her, he squeezes her two thighs
together tighdy, it becomes the 'squeeze'. Ifshe then crosses
species, sLh as a man and a mare, would have diff-nt
her thighs, it becomes the 'circle'. In the 'mare's trap >
hinds of sensual pleasure; and so he specifies
• '34
'ecies, the human
species, human species. ^ Hre woman who
c„ IS
which can only be done with practice, she grasps him, like The
I conflation,
th t-* in
in an
on animal
anil imag , .is,
a mare, so tightly that he cannot move.3°
too big with the image of the in a text
There is also a variation with the woman on top: '^OThen she in that sense, too small) begins m
grasps him in the mare s trap" position and draws hitn from about 900 BCE:
more deeply into her or contracts around him and holds T A nness who had vaginas on every
Long-tongue was a demon
him there for a long time, that is the "tongs'", and the limb of her body. To subdue .
commentator explains: 'She uses the lips of the vagina as a his grandson with penises on every remained
tongs.' he,. Ax soon as he had his way ""h ^ ^
This IS the only sexual position that the Kamtmtra
associates with a marc (it is called Catezza or Pompoir in
firmly stuck in he,; Indra thy ran a. her and
down with his thunderbolt.
Europe), and, conflisingly, it is reserved for the 'elephant T
cow' rather than the 'mare' woman. The confiision arises Long-tongue
L; is a j nd she and Indra's grandsonspells
dog, and ge
because the horse, hyper-sexualized, is the only animal that stuck together as dogs sotnetimes
appears on both the male and the female sides of the initial her death, not his, but clearly it is ^ach one
mads of men and women,and the male and female equines corresponds to her excessive y the Catch-
are not paired; the stallion is the largest male, while the presumably demanding to be sa but ifshe
mate is merely the middle-sized woman.'^ Yet in Hindu
22: if the woman is too big yoti injured and/or trapped
is too small {or too big)j you may
mythology, the mare is regarded as sexually 'dangerous, inside her.
bursting with repressed violence; the doomsday fire is lodged
in the mouth of a mare who wanders on the floor of the animals and humans: nature an than men,asas anmi
animals
ocean, waiting for the moment when she will be released, to
burn everything to ashes.® The mare is the sexual animal The tendency to identify women, in contrast with
par excellence; the commentator on the Kamasutra, glossing is assumed in a passage that ^ ^j^rals and said to
the phrase two people ofthe same species'(in the argument naen, creatures both explicitly i
that women have the same sort of climax as men") offers »peak a meaningless animal
There are eight kinds ■ or sobbing. And there
: See chapter four,'Women in the Kamas babbling, crying, panting, s
utra
 141
140 THE mare's TRAP THE mare's trap

are various sounds that have meaning, such as 'Mother!, equivalent of coming up to see his etchings). T p g
Stop! , Let go!, Enough!' As a major part of moaning
she may use, according to her imagination, the cries of the
abour slapping and groaning ^ ^^nX,
before, what we now recognize P
dove, cuckoo,green pigeon, parrot, bee, nightingale, goose, disregarding a woman's protests agains p
duck, and partridge. He strikes her on her back with his rreatntenr of women is justified by a contbrnatron of
fist when she is seated on his lap. Then she pretends to be official naming of women after over-size anim
unable to bear it and beats him in return, while groaning, expectation that in the throes of passion women wdl speak
crying, or babbling. If she protests, he strikes her on the
head until she sobs, using a hand whose fingers are slightly like animals. , after
ent, which is called the 'out-stretched hand'. At this she The practice of naming the sexu^ 'frolicking
babbles with sounds inside her mouth, and she sobs, animals—the 'boar's thrust, the
en the sex ends, there is panting and crying. Shrieking like a sparrow'^S—has inspired 'A^en the
parodied protest ^'^'^mal Embraces such as
a kberry^faU^g into
^ bamboo
water.splitting,
Always, ifand sobbing
a man tries sounds
to forcelike
his lovers decide to join in any of th j^^nkey embrace,
sses and so forth on her, she moans and does the very the Bull Elephant embrace, the ow Escapes
T in the throes of The Vulture Has Second Thoughts, The M
p 1 • •
Exploitation, andj The
mk Antelop
Antelones Form a Support
animal names
W T" words like they...call into question the very i ea ^ imagery
screams m-"E" 'Enough!' or 'Mother!' and utters to describe human sexual ^hich sex, even
and groanhig aI' ''tithing, panting, ciying, implies that there is a vety ^^^e, is bestial,
extremely q„fck|y S'T T" when done according to the boo , chosen for their
babble, fasr, like a partrid' '
of groaning and s ^>>0- the ways Clearly the six paradigmatic ^^at they have
size, but the dissymmetry in their siz relationship
It is worth noting that tk r not literal but symbolic implioation ^jrnost certainly
birds, never of m r '^omen make the noises of between men and women. Vatsyay ^ rhe broader
characterise "L inherited from his predecessors, as vve ^^^jes and hares,
Moreover,one ofthe bhd women- ancient Indian tradition, the anim nomenclature
imitates—-the parrot-— ^^ babbling the sexual woman as well as the male anxiety and t e po precisely its
as one of the elsewhere in the Kamasutra
humans; teachina r, ^ taught to speak like as a whole. But the KamasutrA s claim k drugs—^to
that both a man tnynah birds to talk is a skill boast that it has found ways—positions,
can use to lure a v ^ ^^"aan should learn, and that a man
woman to his home (the ancient Indian X See chapter four,'Women in the KamAs
 the mare's trap 143
142 THE mare's TRAP

deal with the mind as well as the body, to satisfy women not Yashodhara's commentary expands upon the
only of any size but of any degree of desire. (There is an Even animals like cows, whose intellects are ■"
American expression for this approach: it is not the size of
the wand, but its magic.) Vatsyayana's words do not seem to
to,pot, visibly manage sex witho.JJ-'- t:ong
textbook; how much more mu passion? As
reflect male anxiety at all; the women are depicted not as humans, whose iniellects consist primarily of passi
enormous monsters but as pliant and manipulatable sources it is said;
of great pleasure.
And this is because the book insists that the sexuality of For desire is satisfied without instruc
animals is differentfrom that ofhumans. Despite its recurrent ^d does not have to be taught- jpethodology
zoological terminology, the Kamasutra argues that people Who is the guru for deer and >
are not animals, and that human men and women have to give and take pleasure with those t ey
, . Kmrause the qualities of
resources that animals lack. The very passages in which And desire goes on all the There is
people are advised, for the sake of variety, to imitate the wanting and hating are always because
sexual behaviour of animals, or women are told to imitate no guarding or any other form mate only
t e cnes of animds, imply that such behaviour is therefore, the females of the species are oo . children,
by definrtton, d.fferent frotu ours. Vivd la difference: because during their fertile season, but also
however, do it during a please the
ttch^ Trf' nrore precisely the outside her fertile season, m or same. And
which must
mil ,
'surely incline male phallic anxietv.
our baser instincts, woman. So animals and a climax; they
animals engage in sex just unti
sexuali^TfffMgum''''"r''T''"
beginnfng to
do not wonder, 'Has he reac e
therefore wish to mate a secon same, animals need
goal of animals and humans is no think,
no method for sex. Animals, mo c„„pen to dharma,
and since h goeniTdlT""'''' '''' before engaging in sex, ^^t ppr faction?
handled with the help ofa)«"v" artha, sons, relatives, and t e
man and a woman dhm a Because a Sex just happens to animals ^
requires a method another in sex, it . - ore complex than that or
Kamasutra. The mati '"^^^Bod is learnt from the hdumans, whose sexuality is ^ ^xt puts it-
based "pon
upon any
anv m
method, c
beranof contrast,
r isjnot
• animals, are more repressed ,,viialitv ftotn animals,
they mate only when the fenn 1 ^ Humans, therefore, have a different s pq^nans also
until they achieve the" T and need a text for it, where anim
thinking about it first without have, unlike animals, the capacity
 145
THE mare's trap
144 THE mare's trap

the culture of the kamasutra When the man receives the woman, we learn more about
his preparations:
The privilege of the Kamasutra lovers is expressed in the
opulence of the instructions on the home decorating of the In a room of his house dedicated to sex, a room
two bedrooms in the home of the ideal loverT The two hiU of flowers, and fragrant with perfimte an in .
bedrooms are not, as in European conventions, a hint that man-about-town receives the woman when ^
the man and woman may not be sleeping together; an and adorned herself! and has <1'-^ ■^TTH^rdL
cc Rear another drink. He sits aowi
contratre, as the commentary makes clear; puts her at ease and offers he
on her right side and touches ' embraces her
The inner bedroom is where the wives sleep. The outer sari, and the knot of her waist ^ yphey talk
bedroom is for sex. The couch is for the man to sleep on gently with his left together before,
after sex. That is what decent people do; but the lovers of together about things that tn y ^ things
courtesans sleep together with them in the bedroom, and joldng and trrillating, be singing and
have no need for a couch. And so there is a saying: hidden and obscene. Ihe dancing, and
'The lover makes love with his beloved instrumental music, with or entices her
wherever he happens to be, conversation about the fine arts, an
but a wise man, a pure man, with another drink.^^
does not sleep there on that polluted bed.'^^ There are also things to eat and dr
Many other items are also strewn around the bedrooms-- er or eat some bite-sized
Both of them may drink some w temperament
lemon bark and books, for instance—and the commentary snacks or something else, H^foods, sour rice-broth,
tells us why they are necessary: and inclination: fruit juice, gn ^ jnangoes, dried
The lemon bark is chewed to dispel the bad taste in the soups with small pieces o to to the tastes of e
mouth and prevent bad breath; about this there is a saying: meat, citrus fruits withL.sugar,heaccor
tells nei,
^
The lover who, m the evening, sucks region. 7\s he tastes each o ^ her.'^
a stick oflemon bark, smeared with honey, or 'delicate' or 'soft and offers inside the
, • bedroom is
is not plagued by foul breath
But we must not assume ^ many peoP^®
when he is caught in the net- /-.PR: > >
ot hts woman s arms.
1 he book is understood to be a c
bouse. In a hot climate like In la S' penthouse
read aloud m oe a book of recent poetry, to the tops of buildings, the rich in o ^ place not
gardens. The Kamasutra descri es^^ ^er love
primarily on which to make love
xi See chapter two,'The Kautilyan Kamasutra'. making:
146 THE mare's TRAP

As for the end of sex, when their passion has ebbed, the
man and woman go out separately to the bathing place,
embarrassed, not looking at one another, as if they were
not even acquainted with one another. When they return,
they sit down in their usual places without embarrassment,
and chew some betel, and he himself rubs sandaiwood
paste or some other scented oil on her body. He embraces 7
her with his left arm and, holding a cup in his hand,
persuades her to drink. Sometimes they sit on the rooftop the rise and fall of KAMA AND
porch to enjoy the moonlight, and tell stories that suit
their mood. As she lies in his lap, looking at the moon, he THE KAMASUTRA
points out the rows of the constellations to her; they look
at the Pleiades, the Pole Star, and the garland of Seven
Sages that form the Great Bear. That is the end of sex.
They look at the circle of the moon with eyes moist and
flickering with passion. They talk about it all, about the
desires they felt when they first saw one another long ago,
and t e unhappiness they felt when they were later
separated. And when they finish talking they embrace and
ktss wtth p^non. Through these and other feelings the
young couple s passion grows again.
And wc may resume that, when the passion had, in bet,
grown again, they stayed on the roof.
In this way,thc^matutra ofifers a solution to the problem
of the violence of sexuality that it inherited, in part, from
the arrhtttWn.™ Cultnre-the unique culture of ancient
Indta-.s the an^er to the universal and perhaps natural
problem taf sexuality anxiety. But this solution was available
only to the privileged few, and, as we will see"'' it was
trumped by other forces in the later history of India.
xii See chapter two. The Kautilyan Kamasutra'.
xiii See chapter seven,'From Kama to Karma'.
 IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF INDIA
T- j ■ The earliestlanguage
Kama is as old as Hinduism. Hindu text, the
of both
% Ved^ (c. 1500 BCE), revels
pleasure and fertility and tells at the very
upon the creator as the firs which followed a
beginning of creation.^ The ablation of butter
few centuries later, analogized procreation: the
into the sacrificial fire to the act imagines each
Y^orshipper in a sexual embrace wit oblation: the
part of the act as a part of the ritu o
firewood is the vulva; the smoke, t e pu^^
tbe vagina; and the embers an sp ^ making the
penetration and climax.^ Presum action as its
offering into the fire could also instance of the
sexual parallel. This is a very terms of non-
interpretation of human sexu rn^ prefer, the reverse),
sexual, sacred matters (or, i door of the
Sensuality continued to of India,
bouse of religion throughout the ggpt
But the Upanishads also intro cncietv and children,
oftwo paths, one,he path offamily life and
tbe other the path of renunciation, s the violent
asceticism. The tension between t e addictive
(sacrificial), materialistic, sensua a j^^j^wiolent
path of worldliness on tbe one han , path of
(vegetarian), ascetic, spititua
150 THE mare's trap THE RISE AND FALL OF KAMA AND THE KAMASUTRA

renunciation, on the other, was sometimes expressed as the words and indeed whole literary works that simultaneously
balance between bourgeois householders and homeless mean two different things^—the Century ofthe poet
seekers, or between traditions that regarded karma-—the consists of a hundred poems that are simultaneous y em
accumulated record of good and bad deeds—as a good or a and ascetic—it seems wise to assume that the ^
bad thing, respectively. capable of walking and chewing imaginary gum at
The tension remains in the Tantras, a large body of texts,
composed between about 650 and 1800 CE,which proposed 'Ha continued to thrive in Hinduism-
strikingly transgressive ritual actions, violating all the taboos gods in the medieval devotional tradition o jgpict the
of conventional Hinduism, such as drinking wine and the god ^ a lofy, often an unfanlA
relationship With all the sensual
menstrual blood, eating meat and engaging in sexual activity
with forbidden women. These Tantras thus collapsed the The poet Kshetrayya, who may , r die god
Upanishadic metaphor, saying that the ritual sexual act is seventeenth century, and who wors ippe customer
not just like a ritual (as it is in the Upanishads) but is itself a Krishna, imagined a courtesan spe songs
ritual, the equivalent of making an offering into the fire- who is both her lover and formed by male
ther Tantras, however, situated within the anti-erotic survived among courtesans an
tradition of Hinduism, insisted that the ritual instructions Brahmin dancers who played female roles^^^ ^
were nevemntended to be followed literally, but were purely ofsuch down-to-earth matters that she conceived
a drug or a magic potion to abort e g
^ R argued that'wine'really meant a meditational from her lover—the god and her cus incorporated
^,1hat the
L sexual act stood
meantfor
the'the
tongue of theessence.'^
supreme practitioner,
This and
was In addition to these religious r seated the
eroticism, there were more worl foe most
mer^ ^^ censorship, and a very mild form, for erotic tout court, of which
the tXf k j ^'-crnative, anti-erotic interpretation of ^ k u vender arestereotypes
famous.The Kamasutrds ideas a o ^
surprisingly
of
interpretation.' ^"^mpt to muzzle the other, erotic modern, as we have already seen, g^pectedly subtle. It
feminine and masctiline natures are and sexual
side bv s"d ^ °f meditation and ritual action lived also reveals attitudes to women s homosexual acts,
somelef^r;r"
that sav that
^
instance, in some texts
freedom, and non-judgmental view other texts in
advanced n actually do the Tantrie ritual, while
that are strikingly more liberal than pj-ary India- The
ancient India—or, in many cases, con
connotation/wrrepT"
that Indian lit
T" meditate. The split-level
"om the start. Given the attention
^ry theory pays jg double meanings, m i See chapter five,'The Third Nature .
152 THE mare's TRAP THE RISE AND FALE OF KAMA AND THE KAMASUTRA 153
Kamasutra was a revolutionary document for sexually liminai fttndamentalist, nationalist branch of Hitiduism that in
people, and for women. It exerted a profound influence on most cases, presides over the censorship ofart, film, i e
subsequent Indian literature, particularly in court life an<i and social behaviour. , . t^j;^ in
the privileged, classless society that it describes at The British lion, even after its official dear '»
length. But, at the same time, the dharma texts like Manu s 1947, dealt another blow to Indian freedom of e^p^
dharmashastra, with their deep suspicion of women and through the Film Censor toTts among the
eroticism, retained their stranglehold on much of Hindu 1950s,implemented a policy b aition than about
society. And then came the British. British (who had worried ° f pedagogy,
sex). The Film Censor Board s conce aed over
DETUMESCENCE under the BRITISH nationalism and publicity cast a shadowjha^""
A Supreme Court ruling from 1862 states that'Krishna.• -the Indian visual arts and literature as we pberal Indian
love hero, the husband of 16,000 princesses...tinges the In the nineteenth J^^Xudes^
whole system (of Hinduism) with the strain of carnal intellectuals, who noticed the s barrassment, tended to
sensualism of strange, transcendental lewdness.'^ Given erotic past from appreciation to em ^-erms of power
this view of everyday Hinduism, it is hardly surprising that explain contemporary Hindu pru e j^cConnachie
vange ic rotestants greatly preferred the other path of and patronage from the had been the
Hinduism, the philosophical, renunciant path. summarized the situation, argument ran, and as
uence y British Protestantism, and embarrassed by creation of poets and princes, t "fanatical
aspects oftheir faith that the colonial rulers found abhorrent "lascivious" Hindu despots ha g erotic literature
oos, the highly Anglicized Indian elite during the Mughal overlords, the patronage ^ Haipaul in his
depended had withered and j. jaded, version of this
mov forms of Hinduism, particularly the book Haifa Life offers his own, rat e
Renair""' Renaissance or the Hindu accusation; ■ ore
wasTr "he 6ct that Beng^ ...[I]n our culture there is no se
nn. Our marriages arc
^be boys here talk
tradition C """tishcd Tantta and the erotic
British le°d' k ® and Radha.) FoUowing the arranged. There is no art ofsex. j.^Red about that at
to me of the Kama Sutra. Ho ^ Jon't believe my
-S of hIh wrote off the dominant home. It was an upper-caste rex , looked at a copy-
Eventually these"iL'" the passions of the gods- poor father, brahmin though e , 1 -v^rith sex belongs
Vedanta caller^ ™ the form of Neo- That
Dharma) that " Dharma (Eternal or Universal to outphilosophical-practical way o
past, artd that wotld«a5«"Be jdestroyed by
Sanatana Dhr ™ ,s the banner Hindus
Dhatnta to this day-
of H.ndutva, the the Muslims.^
 155
u iTARtA AND THE KAMASUTRA
154 the mare's trap THE RISE AND FALL OF KAMA AN

And then (the twisted, chauvinist argument goes) came the is known,in both India and Europe, almost entirely
British missionaries, adding insult to injury. Thus nationalist the flawed English translation by Sir Richard
blamed India s sexual conservatism on an unholy (Popular, abridged versions n's Engh
combination of imposed Muslim religiosity and impott^ other Indian languages have also o ^
British "Victorianism"'.io translation, rather than the original S '
There is some truth in that general historical argumen > This translation was published in "-p—t
but it has three serious flaws. First, as for the Muslints, Jt Hindus, cowering under the „„aer the
proselytizers, wanted to sweep
ignores the enthusiasm for the erotic arts on the part ofsnc
Muslims as the Lodi dynasty in the sixteenth century,
Upan,shadicrug.Theiour„a)br Cun^^^^^^^^^^ „rrifine in the
commissioned one of the last great works of Sanskrit San Francisco Chronicle at tha 'mipht act as
eroticism,^^AnangaRanga}^ and the Mughals (particularly publication of Burton's ^7'" a
Akbar and Data Shikoh) who had textbooks of Hintlit a usefhl corrective to the prevailing gurton did for
erotic arts and religious texts translated from Sanskrit to of asceticism'.i3 And in many during
Persian and illustrated with Persian painting technique^" the Kamasutra what Max Mullet i c A effect upon
The Nationalists dismissed all of this, ungenerously, as 'the this same period; his translation ha a p^o^
last, valedictory flourishing of a tragically deracinated literature across Europe into Hindu
sexual freedom or
tradition'. Second, blaming the British for Hindu prudeiT
allows the very real memory of missionary Puritanism and consciousness. eroticism ricocheted
the racist snobbery ofthe Raj club culture to overpower the Victorian British attitudes to ^
between the pornographers an F e,
equally important role ofother sorts ofBrits in the rediscovery
ofIndia's erotic heritage.12 Most ofall, blaming the Muslims connoisseur of eroticism m Ar ntribution was the
and the British ignores the history of native Hindu anti- was certainly not a prude. His at all; he
eroticism. For, as we have seen," India had its own home courage and determination to pu is censorship
grown traditions of prudery in opposition to its oWU was the Larry Flynt of his day. To get ^ house. The
sensuality.
laws. Burton set up an imaginary p Mth printers
Kama Shastra Society of London an
said to be in Benares or
SIR RICHARD BURTON'S VERSION OF THE KAMASUTRA 'The Kama Sutra ofVatsyayana, gon and Concluding
One reason why the KamoAutrA plays almost no role at dt in In Seven Parts, with Preface, I"'-'-® ^ 3 Shastra Society
the sexual consciousness of Remarks. Cosmopoli: 1883: for t e only-')
contemporary Indians is that it
ii See chapter two,'The Kautilyan Kam. of London and Benares, and for pr
'O-sutrd.
156 the mare's trap THE RISE AND FALL OF KAMA AND THE KAMASUTRA 157
Even though it was not legally published in England and replacing these voices with reported speech rephrased by a
the United States until 1962, the Burton Kamasutra soon man. Thus, where the text says that, when a man is stri g
after its publication in 1883 became'one ofthe most pirated a woman,'^''She uses words like "Stop!" or Let me go. m
books in the English language', constantly reprinted, often "Enough!" or "Mother!"' purton translates it i e
with a new preface to justify the new edition, sometimes •She cLtinually ueters words expressive of
without any attribution to Burtond^ srrfficiency,
1 1-
or desire1 ofliberation.' Moreover, when thejxt
'Wben a man [is] m the thr
This lack of attribution is actually quite appropriate, says that this may happen When
the Burton translation is not primarily the work of Burton- passion", and "If a man tries f
was far more the work of Forster Fitzgerald ( Bunny) on her". Burton says it happen
^buthnot, whose name appears on the title page with accustomed to striking , reversing g
Burton's only in some editions, though Burton later referred
to t e Kamasutra translation as 'Arbuthnot's VatsyayanaT Burton" , women•«s ag
also erodes aeencyy by mistranslating or
strong
- „rKich women have S11U115
act, the translation owed even more to two Indian erasing some passages m w . j^ore or less
ars whose names do not appear on the title page at all- privileges.'" Take this passage (here
Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivaram Parashuram Bhide.(There literally) about a wife's powers of recrimi
IS a pre-post-colonial irony in the fact that Arbuthnot later ' * Priflitics she does not
Mildly offended by him with abusive
h!lf truthn by stating, in that
1885,the^ accuse him too much, but s friends She does not,
that he almost certainly regarded as a lie: language when he is alone °'^°^^"oots,for, Gonardiya
ans anon was done entirely by Indian pundits.) It tealft however, use love-sorcery worKC , >19
u ,t erefore,beknownastheIndrajit-Bhide-Arbuthnot' says,'Nothing destroys trust like t
famr"^ ation,
us member but team,
of the since itBurton was bybeen
has always far called
the most
the Burton renders it: , ,
fhe part of her husband,
burton translation. In the event ofany misconduct on though she be a
she should not blame him excessiv ^^g^Jge toward
m!stra!rr-^ "^7"'" be called the Burton little displeased. She should not use a whether he
simnlv d ' tbe Sanskrit text him, but rebuke him with conciUato y hdoreover, she
S'rd P-baps one of the be in the company of friends or
Burton tranT ^ ° says it says. The rl chapter six, "Ihe
iii See chapter two, The Kautilyan Kamasutra, an
the dialogue that anim'^''^ A Mare's Trap'. ,
presence of the
f the --y women^ who speak inerasing the vivid
the Kamasum, iv See chapter four,'Women in the Kamasutra -
158 THE mare's TRAP
should not be a scold, for, says Gonardiya, 'There is no
cause of dislike on the part of a husband so great as this
characteristic in a wife'.^°
What is wrong with this picture? In the first place, Burton
mistranslated the word for love-sorcery worked with roots
THE RISE AND FALL OF KAMA AND THE KAMAS^TJ^ 159
remains precious, like Edward Fitzgerald's Ruhaiyat, as a
monument of English literature, but it is certain y not a
monument of Indian literature.
the demise of KAMA

{mukkarika), which he renders as 'she should not be a An adolescent girl in Vikram Sula,
scold (though elsewhere he correctly translates mukkarika)- Sister Carmina didn't want to te • „arents have
Second, misconduct is not so much a mistranslation as an which she says isn't in the library. But Gise a p
error ofjudgment, for the word in question {apacara) does a copy whJ they think .s
have the general meaning of'misconduct', but in an erotic shelf We looked it up there. And the
context It takes on the more specific meaning of'infidelity'- tells this says,'You put that book ac affluent.
a choice that is supported by the remedy that the text And don't read any more In nja to
, - p 3 roDV Ot tne
suggests (and rejects): love-magic. But the most serious usually anglophone people wi g demonstrate
problem is the word 'not' that Burton gratuitously adds and r aZedding
(in English translation) as awe mg p P-ent,to demonstrate
people
that negates the wife's right to use abusive language against their open-mindedness and ^tron^eW
her straying husband, a denial only somewhat qualified by will merely sneak a surreptitious o
the added phrase, that she might 'rebuke him with ^•^tise.
^use. _ r^Mirine has taken
I „^|jrins
conciliatory words'. Was this an innocent error or does it A pervasive and often vio ent mo ^ instance of
reflect a sexist bias? We cannot know. An even more serious over parts of the Indian worl to A ^_old student
disservice to the Kamasutra was done by Burton's this occurred in 2007, when a twenty (ybandramohan
mistranslation of the passages about people of the 'third of Fine Arts at Baroda University n students and
nature'.'' Srilamantula mounted an exhibition work,
The so-called Burton translation is widely read in Europe staff. He had previously receive . g^ji^nion award
artd Amenca. t .s free (a, f.rsr poached from the illegal including the Lalit Kala Akademi Bhopal Biennale.
editions, then long out of copyright) and recognizable as in 2006; later he won first prize in t e ^ crucified
what people think the Kamasutra should be Indeed, it is In the 2007 exhibition, one painting cross;
quite a wonderful text: great fun to read, extraordinarily Christ with explicit genitals and a toi woman
bold and frank for its time, and in many places a fairly another, entitled 'Durga Mata, w ghiva), a baby
approximate representation of the Sanskrit original. It attacking, with a "Xd® P""®
issuing from her womb. Gh Hindu chauvinist
'See chapter five,'The Third Nature'
against the first painting, and a gioup
160 THE mare's TRAP THE RISE AND FALL OF KAMA AND THE KAMASUm Kl

activists belonging to the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) There has been an increasing number ofcampaigns agnnst
and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) vandalized the exhibitio^^ artists and writers who link Hindu deitres wit sexu .
and roughed up Chandramohan for the second painting- talk openly and frankly about sexuality. In J .
(This group was led by Niraj Jain, who has been known to Hindutvavadis began tettori^dng death
brandish a revolver and once threw eggs at the Gujarat paintings of naked Hindu goddesses. ..ded as
education minister for including them in school midday threats and legal cases, Husain, whom many ten ded
meals. The police stood by and then arrested not the India-s greatest l.ving artist, and Xdon
vandals hut the artist. (He was later released.) When the years old, was forced into exile m _
acting Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Shivaji Panikkar, in 2011. Some Hindutvavadis ore about the
refused to close down the exhibition, the Vice-Chancellor, Varanasi, where she was ma mg ^ /Try 2005)-^^
Manoj Soni,suspended him. Panikkar, stating that he feared mistreatment ofHindu widows m ^ j^jia's
for his life, went into hiding. Students and spokespersons of In 2013, Rajnath Singh, leader of the BJP _an^
the Indian art community held protests throughout India, home minister (since the BJP newspaper that
c aiming that the closing of the exhibition was a direct 2014), said in an interview to t ^ ^3 cannot be supported'.
assault on the rights of freedom of expression. homosexuality is an unnatural act an Haryana
n commenting on this event, the well-known editor, In October 2014,''"".XT'^lTs dressed decently, a boy
columnist and critic Anil Dharker remarked: Was repotted to have said, it a g y If [they] want
^at has made the artists come together in protest is that will not look at her in the wrong wa^
IS attac isn t an isolated one, but one more in a series freedom, why don t they just ^ A^estern influences,
frequency and wantonness.•-The
has to be limited. These short clot ^ ({j-ess decently- In
Our country's tradition asks git ^ Indian cities.
theatre^ h V when Shiv Sainiks attacked cinema Bangalore, Bombay, Delhi '"iToTlike the Sri Ram Sena
a lesh-' which showed vigilante Right-wing Hindu gt P young couples
famiiv/^R relationship in a middle-class Hindu ('The Army ofLord Rama')toutmely
did some moral
'comorLi """^'dng young couples found in seen together in public and ^^rds-
women havingMdr^' vandalize shops that sell Valenti people whom they
g neir arms around each other). The Hindutvavadis often influences, while,
censor of being polluted by actions close y
these fewTr*^ several more instances, but even ■tonically, many of the Hindutvavam^.^^^
resemble censoring frenzies in ^ ^ of a separate logic o
HindutvavadiX'' members call themselves Indian incidents are better seen as p
 163
162 THE mare's trap

Hindu Puritanism, which, as we have seen, has a long acts that Nehru condemned by ^Wng- such vie ^
history of its own. When a group of students and artists at were due toscorn
Western influence'.^ Thecontemp
irony is
Baroda University attempted to stage a protest demonstration the British for Indian sexuality,
for Chandramohan at the Faculty ofFine Arts, they organized who favour censorship are letting
an exhibition ofphotographs taken from the explicitly erotic Hinduism triumph over and drive o j diversity
sculptures that adorn the temples at Khajuraho, in Madhya about-andpridein--theirownrehg.^
Pradesh. In choosing Khajuraho, they were making an and tolerance that have always c ar
irnplicit historical statement: the art heritage ofIndia is rich the mind in Hinduism. Among t e j-haps, during
in erotic themes, of which the images on the Khajuraho picked up from the West, fioiu see s contacts
temples (built between 900 and 1100 CE) are a famous colonization but flowering on y m pfotestant habit of
example. What happened to that tradition? How did India with American imperialism, was jg^ision between the
get from there to the scandal in Baroda? censorship. Never the form ofone
owadays,on the public scene,'a Hindu-nationalist health erotic and ascetic strains o „exist,
minister can insist that the "Indian traditions" of abstinence path telling the other path th
e ity are more effective barriers against HIV than
oms, and...the I860 Penal Code [still in effect] defines the rebirth of KAMA _ •
extramarital sex as criminal'.27 Many Hindus, in India b India of the ancient erotic
u also increasingly in the American diaspora, advocate a But kama, which is to say c the nineteent
past, is not so easily stampe on the path that
nar" ^l"' of Hinduism (and, in India, a century, most Hindus continue [jyg on
pr hi ^titi-Muslim form). For such Hindus, the celebrated the earthier aspects o j Uj -\vho would have
bn ^ some liberal Indian intellectuals) in 'a reported two-thirds ed marriage', and
but Ittdia lost its appreciation of eroticism casual, pre-marital sex before an JgarnaSuW-^'^
I , ^ contrary, how to maintain that Hinduism was who, since 1991, can buy'^""'^''"^Vyoured condoms, too,
^11 became,tninded,
tu^ly for manyanti-erotic,
upper-classascetic tradition
Hindus, only inthattheit chocolate-, vanilla- and straw erry i j.^oels. Throng a
nineteenth century. marketed freely on Indian television sung
this, many hundreds of folk songs and ^j^^^ly
side oftb ^ this argument was to swing to the other or told by women—-have remaine pPrnASi^^^ i"^°
Indian erofidsr^ b suppressing the attempt to transform the cu tu ali c,
government chose m what nrany people, "'"^l^l-ui^WyaVedalitic
ofsexual repression foTbVl!!-^ mistakenly refer to as the Karm ^^geded.
idding severalcolonial era penal
acts'against code
nature'— . ■
text about reincarnation; n
bas not succeeocLi
164 THE mare's TRAP

But reports of the death of Kama have been, as Mark

Twain famously said of his own death, greatly exaggerated.
Kama is incarnate in a god who, like his Greek and Roman
counterparts Eros and Cupid, enflames passion by shooting j
lovers with arrows of desire. And this Kama was indeed ]y[OTES
killed, but not permanently. In a poern entitled 'The Birth
of the Prince', by Kalidasa, often regarded as the greatest
poet ofancient India(he probably lived in the fifth century),
Kama tried to shoot an arrow at the god Shiva at a time
when Shiva was deeply engrossed in ascetic meditation.
Shiva opened his third eye and burnt Kama to ashes. But by
destroying Kama's body, Shiva actually infused him into a
number of other substances that worked Kama's magic even
more effectively—moonlight, the arched brows of beautiful
women, and so forth. I find this an encouraging metaphor
for the unofficial thriving of movements that public
censorship forces underground.
And it gets better. Later, when Shiva had fallen in love
with Parvati, the exquisitely beautiful daughter of the
mountain Himalaya, and had married her, he was in a
rather different mood. Now when Rati, the wife of Kama
and the incarnation of pleasure, begged Shiva to resuscitate
her husband, the god granted her wish. (Kalidasa then
describes the union of Shiva and Parvati in a canto so erotic
that many later, more prudish scholars reftise to accept it as
a genuine part of the poem.) I find this poem a persuasive
and hopeful scenario for the revival of the Kamasutra, and
the ultimate flourishing of its joyous spirit, in India.
INTRODUCTION: REDEEMING THE KAMASUTRA
1. Kamasutra 2.2.6-7.1:^^ f ■ ^ T im using zxt Arthashastra of
Kangie. Bombay: University
Kautilya (critical edition. Ed. ■ Vatsvavana, with the
of Bombay, I960); Hindi "Jaya
commentary of 29.
commentary by Devadatta Varanasi.) Unless otherwise
Chaukhanabha S^'^j^Qj^'Jii^^'^anslation oithcArthash^tra
noted,I will cite Patrick O Ancient India: Kautilya s
{King, Governance, „(^i^h Sudhir Kakar)ofthe
Arthashastra and my own tran Pattick Olivelle.
lU,na>ut,a. A New Annotat^ Transla ^ ^
Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sanskrit rather
made is to leave dharma, ^ ^ , ^-jjed translations
than translating them in English, as the tw
do- ^ A new translation, introduction,
2. The Kamasutra London and New York:
and commentary. With Sudhir
Oxford World Classics, 2002. 2^ ^^anslation by Vincenzo
3. It has been translated into It lan reprint, 2010),
Vergiani, Milan: Adelphi E German (translation
Norwegian (Oslo: Kagge ^|„„c Wagenbach, 2004,
by Robin Cackett, Berlin: Verlag ^dzela Suvajeva,
paperback, 2008), Latvian j^^i.rion by Mariano
Riga: Zvaigzne ABC, 2004), Spams (translation by
Vazquez, Madrid: EDAF, 2005h a" 2OIO). A Portuguese
Alain Porte, Paris: Seuil, 2007; Sagesses,
translation is forthcoming. vidva Series, 1972-8)
4. Manu {ManusmnH. Bomba). Bharauya Vidya
3.45-49. j o afio 378- Arthashastra 3.3-4-
5. Manu 5.161-4 and 8.352 3 '
 NOTES 169
168 NOTES

6. Manu 8.371-2. 4. RoJand Baithes, The Pleasure ofthe Text. New York: Hill and
7. And the Arthashastra tells you how to smoke out the guilty Wang, 1975. ^A^ Henceforth, all citations oJ
couple: 'Adultery is indicated by the caressing of each other s 5. Yashodharaonthe •• . £•
hair; or else by circumstantial evidence of carnal enjoyment, numbered verses without other attributions ate from
through experts in these matters, or through the woman s Kamasutra, and Y will d&ignate Yashodhara.
confession.' AS 4.12.36. 6. 1.5.1.
8. AS 4.12.34. 7. 3.5.5.
9. KS 5.6.46-48. 8. 2.10.22-25.
9. 1.4.2.
1. the STRANGE AND THE FAMILIAR IN THE A>hWA56/77M 10. 1.4.31-33.
11. 1.4.5-7.
1. This chapter is a much revised combination ofseveral published
articles: 'The Kamasutra-. It isn't All about Sex' in the Kenyan
12. 1.4.8-13. ^1leered in The Ocean of Story
Review, 2003; Reading the Kamasutra". The Strange and the 13. These stories were collecte
{Kathasaritsagard) m about e ten
Familiar in Daedalus, 2007;'On the Kamasutra in Daedalus,
14. 1.4.29-30.
2002, Other Peoples Religions, Other Peoples' Kama and
15. 1.3.15.
Karma! in The Stranger's Religion: Fascination and Fear, ed.
16. 1.3.16.
Anna Lanstrom (Notre Dame,Indiana. Notre Dame University
17. 2.8.4-5.
Press, 2004); and La Trappola della Giumenta (Milan: Adelphi
18. 3.4.9.
Edizione, 2003).
2. The Kamasutra must have been written after 225 CE because 19. 5.4.54.
the western Indian political situation that Vatsyayana describes 20. 2.2.89.
21. 4.1.9.
shows the Abhiras and the Andhras ruling simultaneously over a
22. 3.4.6.
region that had been ruled by the Andhras alone until 225 CE.
Its style seems very close to that of the Arthashastra, also of 23. 6.2.1-73.
24. 6.3.27-35.
uncertain date, but generally placed in the second century CE;
it cites the Arthashastra explicitly at 1.2.10, and implicitly 25. 1.5.12-14.
26. 2.8.25-29.
elsewhere. The fact that the text does not mention the Guptas,
who ruled North India from the beginning ofthe fourth century 27. 2.6.23-33.
CE,suggests that the text predates that period. The Kamasutra 28. 2.9.41.
IS mentioned by name in the Vasavadam ofSubandhu,composed 29. 7.2.55.

under Chandragupta Vikramaditya,who reigned at the beginning 30. 2.4.25.

of the fifth century CE. & B ^
3. The Cosmo Kamasutra', Cosmopolitan, September 1998;'The 2. THE KAUTILYAN KAMASUTRA
^osmo Kamasutra, #2', Cosmopolitan, September 1999, 256- 1. Yon KS 1.1.2.
10.95(Wendy Doniger
2. For Pururavas and Urvashi,see
 notes 171
170 NOTES

O'Flaherty, The Rig Veda:An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated Gonardiya, Gonikaputra, Dattaka, ^d
from the Sanskrit. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1981, cited here no longer exist, but quote direcdy
253-6); Shatapatha Brahmana (Benares: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Vatsyayana,since he and,later,
Series, 1964, 11.5.1.1-17; Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Women, from them. Rh„radvaia, Vishalaksha,
Androgynes, and Other MythicalBeasts (Chic^o: University of 21. AS 1.17.4-43. There he and the
Chicago Press, 1980); and Wendy Doniger, Splitting the Parashara, Pishuna, Kaunapadan.a, Vatavyad
Difference: Gender andMyth in Ancient Greece andIndia(Chicago Ambhiyas. .purifies one by one, in the
and London: University of London Press and University of 22. AS 1.8.1-29. Here P^thiyas are replaced by
Chicago Press, 1999). same order, except th
3. Y on 1.2.41. Bahudantiputra.
4. It can also be translated as goal or aim (as in the three aims of 23. 1.5.22-26.
human life), gain (versus loss), money, the meaning of a word, 24. AS 1.20.1, 10-13.
and the purpose of something. 25. 1.4.1-4.
5. From kutila,'crooked'. 26. AS 13.1.1-3.
6. The KS cites the AS explicitly at 1.2.10. 27. 3.1.6.
7. 1.2.9-10. 28. AS 4.13.28.
8. Moreover,the KS calls the AS'The Tasks ofthe Superintendent', 29. 4.1.19-21.
the name of a preexisting source, the Adhyakshapracara, which 30. AS 14.2.6-8, 14.3.1.
may predate Kautilya by a century or more and which forms the 31. 5.6.24-25, 7.L
bulk of Book Two of the extant text of the AS. 32. AS 14.3.5-8-14.
9. Charaka Samhita\.\.W.'i-'i^, 33. AS 14.2.6-8 and KS 7.2.41,
10. Manu 4.214-16. 34. AS 1.14.1-6.
11. Manu 12.44-45. 35. 5.1.50-54.
12. Manu 8.362-3. 36. 1.5.5-21; 5.1-21-42.
13. Plato had a similar problem with them. 37. 5.1.17-42. a r, o 0^-6-9.3.39; 9.4.8.
14. AS 7.17.34-39. 38. AS 6.2.38; cf. also 7-15.12; 9- _ ' ^ 5.35.6, 3-4.32-33,
15. Manu 6.33-86. 39. AS 1.16 and throughout the
16. In much the manner, Romeo and Juliet employed Friar 3.5.1-11, 3.5.19-27, 5-4.
Lawrence. 40. AS 2.7.9-10.
17. AS 1.1.1. 41. 5.1.17-42.
18. 1.1.3. 42. 5.1.43-49.
19. 1.19-12. 43. AS 7.6.23-37.
20. There are nine: two general editors (Shvetaketu Auddalaki and 44. 6.4.3-37.
Babhravya ofPanchala) and the individual editors ofeach ofthe 45. AS 1.6.5-6.
seven books: Charayana, Suvarnanabha, Ghotakamukha, 46. AS 1.17.28-33.
47. AS 1.17.34-38.
 notes 173
172 NOTES

48. AS 1.10.3-12. The Hindus generally formulated a group of 76. 3.5.1-27.

three emotions, usually desire, anger, and greed (Bhavagad Gita 77. 3.5.29.
7.101.14) or, occasionally, desire, anger and fear. But they 78. Manu 3.35.
often added a fourth, metaphysical, epistemological emotion: 79. 3.5.28.
delusion (mohu). The Arthushastra speaks of desire, anger, and 80. AS 2.27.28; 1.3.15.
greed (the original triad) plus pride, conceit, and excitement, as 81. AS 4.13 41.
the 'six enemies'.
82 5.6.3.
49. AS 1.10.7-8.
83. AS 4.12.36-40.
50. AS 1.10. 13.
84. 5.4.42.
51. 5.6.40-42.
85. AS 3.2.31.
52. AS 1.20.21. Olivelle renders varshadhara here as 'eunuch' but I
86 1.5.30.
don't think there were eunuchs in harems at this time, and so I
87. AS 1.6.2.
prefer to render the term 'celibate'.
53. AS 1.17.2. 1.2.11-12.

54. AS 1.20.14-17. 89. 2.7.1.

55. AS 1.10.18-19. 90. 2.5.27. 31.
56. In this case it is the Ambhiyas. 91. 2.7.1-21.
57. 5.6.43-44. 92. 2.4, 5, and 7. ofsexual love, however. A more
58. M™u 4.145-6; 6,86, 92; W many other places. 93. This was not the only P®'*'?'","'Si in love and'""atn tme to
59.
rrameDaston.personal communication,September 14,2014. romantic view,oftwo people who jevebped
60. AS 1.6.1, 3-4. one another through various ea^SlStoties ofRam» «dSna
61. AS 1.7.1. in classical Intlia, most f»;"<"")'p,„,yanti in the Mahakharata.
62. AS 1.16.18-23. in the Ramayana,and N a an
63. AS 1.15.11. and in many subsequent wotta- ^„ette Hansh
64. AS 1.6.4-12 94. The torch song, Mean to
65. 1-2.34-36. in 1929. . lyrics by Roy
66. 1.2.37. Music by Fred E. Ahlert an Y
67. AS 8.3.15.
You're mean to me ^
68. 3 1.2.
Why must you be mean to
69. 5.5.37.
70.
Gee, honey, it seems to me
5.5.28-9.
71.
You love to see me cryin .
2.7.28-30.
72. Manu 4.127. I don't know why
73. 1.5.8-21. I stay home each night
74. Manu 3.27-34.
When you say you'll phon^
75. AS 3.2.1-10. You don't and I'm left alone-
Singing the blues and sig
 notes 175
174 NOTES

You treat me coldly

Each day in the year 17. Wendy Doniger,
You always scold me Myth. New York: Columbia University Press,
Whenever somebody is near, dear edition, 2010.
It must be great fim to be mean to me 18 3.5.5.

You shouldn't, for can't you see 19 5.4.14.

What you mean to me? 20 Mahabharata 1.64-69.

95. Nina Paley,'The Sitayana, or, Sita Sings the Blues'. 21 Kalidasa, Abhijnanasakuntabtm.
22. Yon 5.4.14.
3. THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE KAMASUTRA 23 1.2.34-36.
24. Yon 1.2.36.
25. 5.4.14.
^ rntichtherevised
he^thropologbtand Native:version of an
Essaysfor essay published
Gananath in
Obeyesekere 26. Y on 5.4.14.
. .Seneviratne: Firenze: Societa Editrice Florentina; Delhi, 27. KathasaritsagaraXGl-^'^• Sources of Bhasa s (?)
Manohar, 2009)
2. 1.1.5-10.
28. Jeffrey M-son. 'A No.eJ^* ^ xK.
Vimaraka.Journal of th
3. Y on 1.1.8. September-December 1965. nos. ^^rals
4- Y on 1.1.9. 29 A good precedent for this te supposed and intended
5. Mahabharata 1 113 9-20 seem diametrically oppose There Satyavati tells sever
6. 1.1.11. mordsappearsinrheMufeW--^^^^^^^^ allow
7. Y on 1.1.11.
stories to her two t\vasa. the brother of their
themselves to be impregnated y ^j^ries she
^ Ihe Difference: Gender and Myth in dead husband, in order m -jjly impregnated by men
tells, about women similarly disastrous births; one
9. 1.1.9-14.
other than their husbands,in a jie son o
^ Doniger,'Echoes of the Mahabharata-. Why is a Parrot of them is born blind, as, indeed,
oneofSatyavati'sdaughters-m-law.TW. 1.98-100.
plr Bhagavata Parana and the Devibhagavata 30. Yon 6.1.17. .. ,
ZeUUniversity of New York Press, 1993), 31-57. Wb-V- 31. Y on 1.2.36. „^i„ed from the criuc
32. Mahabharata 4.21.1-67, with a vers
t!-LZToVi\-1
12. 2.6.11.
edition after 4.21.46.
33. 1.5.30.
13. 1.2.29.
34. Yon 1.2.35.
14. Y on 1.2.29. 35. 1.2.41.
15. 2.10.12. 36. Doniger, Splitting the Difference.
37. 2.7.28-30.
 NOTES 177
176 NOTES

38. Y on 2.7.28-30. 22. 4.1.19-21.

39. 5.5.29. 23. 1.5.22.

40. Y on 5.5.29. 24. 4.2.31-4.

41. 5.5.1-2. 25. 1.2.20.

42. 5.5.1-4. 26. Manu 9.12-17.

27. 5.1.8.

4. WOMEN IN THE KAMASUTRA

28. 5.1.23, 25-6, 28-9, 31-35, 37-41.
29. 5.1.43.
1. This chapter is revised from an essay that was written for 30. 6.3.39-44.
Indolo^ca: T. Ya. Elizarenkova Memorial Volume, Book 2, ed. 31. James C. Scott, Weapons ofthe Weak and Domination and the
L. Knlikor (Moskva, 2012), 207-224; combined with 'Lost in Arts ofResistance.
Translation: Gender in the Kamasutrd, in The Magazine, 2002. 32. 5.1.51-4.
2. There is also a Kama Sutra for Cats (by Mrs Woodhouse, of 33. Doniger, The Implied Spider, c\ia.px.ex ib/e.
'good dog' fame). 34. 5.5.7-10.
3. 1.3.1-11.
4. 3.4.36-47. 5 THE THIRD NATURE: GENDER INVERSIONS
5. 1.1.11. IN THE KAMASUTRA
6. AS 3.2.31.
7. 1.5.30. 1 This chapter is revised from an essay that was written for
8. AS 3.2.14. Id! ' ■ T. Ya Elizarenkova Memorial Volume, Book 2, ed.
9. AS 3.2.19-34. Kultort.(Moskva. 2012) 207-224; combinrf with 'Lost U.
10. 4.1.1-41. Translation: Gender in the Kamasutra , in The Magazine,2002.
11. Manu 4.150. 2. 2.1.10.
12. Manu 9.10-11. 3. in21.
13. 3.2.35 and 4.2.31-5. 4. Rig Veda 10.129.5-
14. 5.4.42. 5. 2.6.17.
15. 2.8.17-18. 6. 2.7.23.
16. Yashodhara's commentary on 2.1.30 7. 2.8.6.
17. 2.1.23-30. 8. 2.8. 39.
18. 2.8.16.
19. Sir Richard Erancis Burton, The Kama Sutra ofVatsyayana: The 10.9. Amarushataka,
Thanks .0 Blakeverse
wen^orth
)■ or bnng
kHneingg this commentary to
C sic Hindu Treatise on Love and Social Conduct(Introduction my attention and translaung It.
by John W. Speilman. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co, Inc, 11. Manu 11.174.
1962), p. 121.
20. 3.2.35 and 4.2.31-5. 12. AS 3.18.4. „ An Analysis of Concepts of
21. Manu 5.154. 13. Pollution
Mary Douglas, PuntyCondon.
and Taboo. an V and K. Paul, 19
178 NOTES NOTES 179

14. Bhagavad Gita 2.3. Vergiani. Milan: Adelphi Edizione, 2003. Also: Le Kama Sutra
15. 2.9.1-5. de Bikaner. Trans. Fabienne Durand-Bogaert. Paris: Gallimard,
16. 2.9.6-11. 2004. La trampa de la Yegua. Traduccion de Damian Alou.
17. 2.2. 27-8. Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama, 2004.
18. 2.3. 31. 2. 2.1.1.

19. 2.1. 42. 3. 2.6.1, 7.

20. 3.2.3. 4. 7.2.37.
21. 3.2.4-6. 5. 2.1.1.3-4.
22. 2.1.26. 6. 2.1.1.

23. 1.5.27.
7. Sir Richard Francis Burton. [Anangarangd]. The Hindu Art of
Love (Ars Amoris Indica) or Ananga-Ranga (Stage ofthe Bodiless
24. 1.5.27.
One). Translated from the Sanskrit of Kalyana Malla and
25. Serena Nanda, Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras ofIndia. annotated by A. F. F. and B. F. R. Privately issued by the British
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1990. Bibliophiles' Society. 1907. [1885].
26. Fawn M. Brodie, The Devil Drives: A Life ofSir Richard Burton 8. 2.1.5-8, 30-31.
(New York: Ballantine, 1967), 369.
9. 2.7.11.
27. William G. Archer, Preface to the Kama Sutra ( Lxjndon:
10. 2.1.19.
George Allen and Unwin, 1963), 17.
28. Brodie, 370. 11. For the story of Chudala, from the Yogavasistha, see Wendy
29. 5.6.2-4. Doniger Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities (Chicago: The
30. 5.6.2.
University ofChicago Press, 1984)and Wendy Doniger,Splitting
31. 7.1.20. the Difference- Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India
32. Manu 8.369-70, AS 4 12 20-22 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 287-
33. 5.6.1-4. 292.
34. 2.8.41. 12. 2.1.36.
35. 5.4.15. 13. Yon 2.1.14.
36. Buddhacharita ofAshvaghosha (Ed. E.H. Johnston. Calcutta: 14. 2.1.11, 12, 15, 16.
unjab University Oriental Publications, 1935-6). 4.12. 15. 2.8.24.
37. 2.9.35-36. 16. Y on 2.1.4.
38. 1.1.11. 17. 2.1.3, 6.
18. 7.2.1.
6. THE MARE S TRAP: THE NATURE AND CULTURE 19. 2.1.3, 6.
OF SEX 20. 7.2.36.
21. 7.1.25-30.
1. This chapter is based on the text of a book first published in 23. 7.1.25,
22. An undergraduate
27, 28. woman said tbsm
^ i was teaching on
talian and subsequently published in French and Spanish, but
never m English: TrappoLt delk Giumenta. Trans. Vicenzo the Kamasutra.
 notes 181
180 NOTES

24. 7.2.14-24.
The Politics of Creativity in ^I^h 1 edvolume
Society (New Delhi.
On Hinduism
25. 7.2.25-27.
26. 2.6.12.
Raintree, 2012), and later reprinted in my
27. 2.6.8, 10-11.
(Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 201 )•
VXMcuu; uuur

Rig Veda \Q.\29.^.

2. RF Vpd^ 1 n 1 79.4. n 6.4.3-
28. 2.6.8-9.
3- Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad • ■ ' ■ ■ "pantric Sex in its
29. Y on 2.6.9.
30. 2.6. 13-20.
4. David Gordon White, Kiss of the og^
South Asian Contexts (Chicago-
31. 2.8.33.
32. See Wendy Doniger,'The Mythology of Horses in India , pp- 2003), 220. .r. Couth Asian Movement of
438-451 of On Hinduism (Delhi; Aleph Book Company,2014). 5- Yigal Bronner, Extreme Poetry: ^ j^^^bia University Press.
33. See Wendy Doniger,'The Submarine Mare in the Mythology Simultaneous Narration(New
of Shiva, pp. 452-472 of On Hinduism. 2010). ,Rao and David Shulman,
34. 2.1.24. '• A.K. Ramanujan.Velcheru pos Angeles, London.
35. Jaiminiya Brahmana 1.161-163. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, When
'ren God is
ts a Customer 117-1^-
ll7-i»- , ■
Tales ofSex and Violence: Folklore, Sacrifice, and Danger in the nivcrsity of California Press,
^UJniversity PrMS- ' gefort „f
of thef
Maha
Jaiminiya Brahmana (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ambay (Presidency) Supreme
2. B'Ombav (Presidency) Suprern
Uholfo:Andofa,eBhaUioCon,procl (Bombay.B''"'''"'
1985), p. 101. Rrbel Case:And of the
36. 2.7.1-21.
Press, 1862), 213. , fjoye'In
Gazette Press. Search ofthe rnos
- ,.o.,rd,ofi'eon>mm
37. 1.3.15, 1.4.8, 6.1.15.
S. JamesMcConnachie.rfcHee^/i""-
.. _ 1 -_ -rAz, fi

38. 2.8.27-29. (Undon: Atlantic, 2007),!P7-8- Books. 2002),

39. Jon Spayde,'The Politically Correct Kama Sutra'. In The Utne 5. V.s. Naipaul,//<r//ui./c(N««'''°*'
1 1 0. 1 OVe-S.
/JWer, November-December 1996 p 57 ^0- McConnachie, The Book ofLove,
40. 1.2.16-20.
41. Yon 1.4.4. McConnachie, The Book ofLove, 7 ,
42. Y on 1.4.4. M. McConnachie, The Book of o ^ j vturton)
43. 2.10.1-4. M. McConnachie, The Book ofLove, Richard B
44. 2.10.7-8. M. Fawn M. Brodie, The . George
45. 2.10.6, 9-13. New York: Ballantine, 1967),
M. William G.Archer, Preface to the
7. THE RISE AND FALL OF KAMA AND THE KAMASUTRA Allen and Unwin, 1963), 36^
16. Brodie, The Devil Drives, 357■
1. This chapter is loosely based on part of an article entitled 'From 12. KS 2.7.20. ,g_
K^a to Karma:The Resurgence ofPuritanism in Contemporary M. Burton, The Kama Sutra, 1
ndia, originally published in Social Research: India's World, 19. KS 4.1.19-21. m .ton: Little'
vol. 78, no. 1, Spring 2011, eds. Arien Mack and Arjun 20. Burton, The Kama Sutra, 1 • . Bombay
ppadurai, pp. 49-74. Reprinted as pp.47-70 oUndia's World: 21. Vikratn Chandra,
Brown and Company, 199
182 NOTES

22. Binoy Valsan, 'Baroda Art student's work stirs up religious

controversy'. RedijfIndia Abroad, May 10, 2007.
23. Anil Dharker,'Beauty And the Beast: Baroda episode underscores
threat to creative ex^KssvonlMainstream 45: 23(May 25,2007)-
24. Dharker,'Beauty And the Beast'.
25. Richard Philips and and Waruna Alahakoon.'Hindu chauvinists
block filming of Deepa Mehta's Water.' World Socialist Web
Site, 12 February, 2000.
26. Sandhya Bordewekar, Interview with Shivaji K. Panikkar and
Chandramohan. Art/Wzlt, 12:3 (2007), 61-67; here, 62.
27. McConnachie, The Book ofLove, 2^8.
28. McConnachie, The Book ofLove, 20)3.
29. McConnachie, The Book ofLove, 223.
30. Kalidasa, Kumarasambhava.
those that explain away women's protests
and exclamations of pain as part of a ploy
to excite their male partners. In these, as in
its"more enlightened observations on sexual
love, we see the nearly two-thousand-year-old
Kamasutra mirror twentieth-century realities.
In investigating, and helping us understand,
a much celebrated but under-appreciated text,
Doniger has produced a rich and compelling
text of her own that will interest, delight
and surprise scholars and lay readers alike.

Wendy Doniger is the Mircea Eliade

Distinguished Service Professor of the
History of Religions at the Univcrsit)'
of Chicago. She has taught at the school
of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London and the University of California.
Berkeley. Her books include the acclaimed
bestsellers The Hindus: An Alternative History;
On Hinduism; Siva, the Erotu Ascetic: Hindu
Myths; Dreams. Illusion and Other Realities;
and translations of the Rig Veda and the
Kamasutra (with Sudhir Kakar),
 Covtr design by Puja Ahuja
Cover picture court^j0hanJ. Martelacr

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