2. Works on Kāmaśāstra (c): Nāgarasarvasva

The Buddhist worshipper Padmaśrī, who flourished between tenth and fourteenth century is the author of Nāgarasarvasva (Narendranath Bhattacharyya, 1975: 110). This work is considered one of the most authentic discourses in the field of Kāmaśāstra. It is divided into 38 short chapters or paricchedas, each of them furnishing a gist of the subject. There is no elaborate description of topics. Topics in Nāgarasarvasva are more or less amplifications of subjects found in the Kāmasūtra and Ratirahasya. But, Padmaśrī has introduced some new topics too in few chapters which are not found in the other works of Kāmaśāstra including Kāmasūtra. The subject matter in Nāgarasarvasva are briefly introduced below.

In the first pariccheda, the work starts with a prayer to Āryamañjuśrī-a Buddhist deity^[1]. When one compares this work with other works written in the field of Kāmaśāstra, Nāgarasarvasva is the only one which starts with a salutation to Buddhist order. Purposes behind the composition of the work, relevance of Kāmaśāstra etc are described in this pariccheda as an introduction. The second pariccheda contains only three verses, where the tips for attracting women, setting suitable places for the better enjoyment of sexual intercourse etc are described. Third pariccheda discusses the merits and demerits of wearing gems. Among all the texts on erotic, Nāgarasarvasva is the only one where Gemology has been taken up for discussion in a particular chapter. Fourth pariccheda deals with the subject of cosmetics. Paricchedas fifth to eleventh deal with the saṅketa or the code language of lover. This is also the most significant and peculiar aspect of this text and this topic has not been treated by any of the authors or works in the field of Kāmaśāstra including the most authentic or basic text called Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana. Aphrodisiacs, gestures of lover, classification of men and women according to the size of sexual organs, types of heroines, relationships with other’s wives, erogenous zones and their relation to lunar dates, exciting sensitive nerves in female body and the mantras for activating them, regional characteristics of women, erotic articulations, scratching, biting, embracing, kissing, sucking etc are described in the paricchedas twelfth to twenty seventh. From the paricchedas twenty-eighth to thirty-second, different postures of sexual intercourse are depicted. Thrashing, hitting and squeezing in the organs at the time of intercourse are in paricchedas thirty-three to thirty five. The thirty sixth pariccheda deals with five different kinds of inserting fingers into the vagina. Innovative advice for women for attracting males is given in the thirty seventh pariccheda. The text ends with the putrotpattiprakaraṇa, where some directions are given for the birth of a good male baby. Here also the most important thing is the worship of Tārā—the Buddhist Goddess. It is believed that donating food for the Bhikṣus will help for the birth of a wise son^[2]. While concluding the text, Padmaśrī states that he was advised by a Brahmin called Vāsudeva to write a sex manual^[3].