Kamashastra Discourse (Life in Ancient India)
by Nidheesh Kannan B. | 2018 | 52,434 words
This page relates ‘Works on Kamashastra (d): Ratimanjari’ of the study on Kamashastra representing the discipline of Kama (i.e., ‘sensual pleasure’). The Kamasutra of Vatsyayana from the 4th century is one of the most authoratitive Sanskrit texts belonging this genre. This study focusses on the vision of life of ancient India reflected in Kamashastra.
2. Works on Kāmaśāstra (d): Ratimañjarī
Ratimañjarī of Jayadeva is a small work on erotics, which comprises of 60 verses. Jayadeva is quite different from the author of Gītagovinda. Radhavallabh Tripathi argues: “This Jayadeva must be different from the famous saint-poet of the same name who is known to have composed one of the finest lyric poems in world literature, i.e. Gītagovindam and also it is unlikely that another Jayadeva, the well-known rhetorician and dramatist, authored this treatise on Kāmaśāstra. The author of this treatise is utterly lacking in the poetic skills and perceptions of both these Jayadevas” (2005: 46).
There are only seven short chapters in Ratimañjarī dealing with a gist of various topics on Kāmaśāstra. Of them, the first chapter deals with different kinds of women, second chapter is about the sexual behavior, where the sites of sexual instinct in different organs of female body are described. Third chapter is a general outline of sexual intercourse, where techniques of coitus and sensitive kissing parts of female body are depicted. The fourth chapter specifically deals with coitus. Characteristics of vagina and penis, characteristics of men are described in the fifth and sixth chapters. The text Ratimañjarī ends by the seventh chapter with the description of sixteen verities of sexual postures.