Kamashastra Discourse (Life in Ancient India)
by Nidheesh Kannan B. | 2018 | 52,434 words
This page relates ‘The Body in Kamashastra’ 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.
8.3. The Body in Kāmaśāstra
The consideration and thought about body is an unavoidable one in life whether it is human or non-human. Indian concept about the care of physical body has simply and humbly defined in few words by poet Kālidāsa as “śarīramādyaṃ khalu dharmasādhanam”[1].
Mādhavācārya in Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha, while introducing Cārvāka system (Madan Mohan Agarwal, 2002: 3) quotes a verse:
“While life is yours, live seriously; none can escape death’s searching eye. When once this “frame” (the biological body) of ours they burn, how shall it ever again return?”[2]
This is a sensible as well as relevant thought on the existence of body. A healthy mind should be survived only in a healthy body itself is a frequently used saying about the consideration of the “frame”. In sexual intercourse, body is one among the most important factors. So, the thought about the importance of body; especially in the styles, trends, adornments etc are considerable. Most of the Kāmaśāstra works deals this subject with much importance.
Divisions of Body
While going through the contents, it can be seen that most of the Kāmaśāstra treatises deals with the classification of body types. In Kāmasūtra it has classified as three for men and three for women according to the length and depth of genital organs. Men are classified as śaśa (hare), vṛṣa (bull) and aśva (stallion); women are as mṛgī (doe), baḍavā (mare) and hastinī (elephant cow) respectively[3]. Equal intercourse between sexual partners of similar size is always favorable and is categorized with many divisions for equal and unequal intercourses. In Ratirahasya Kokkoka has followed the division of Vātsyāyana.
The classification [for women are]:
- padminī,
- citriṇī,
- śaṅkinī and
- hastinī
And [for men]:
[These] are seen in several later works. Such works concentrates mostly in categorizing men and women, so that the authenticity and quality of the texts became poor. It is remarkable that all the classifications are under the basis of important animals in human surroundings, which shows the ardent zeal of human in the animal strength. This zeal may be the basis of making animal images as official royal symbols of kings and other aristocrats.
Body as the Concreteness of Beauty
The writers of Kāmaśāstra mostly concentrated upon the physical maintenance of male or female body. It is necessary of the beautification of body in a rich social class living in concentrating upon the joyful life. As a basic text in this field, Vātsyāyanakāmasūtra deals some basics of this subject. Later authors of Kāmaśāstra treated this with much importance. Kokkoka, Padmaśrī, Jyotirīśvara, Jayadeva, Prauḍhadevarāja, Mīnanātha etc were some of them. This section stressed on the beautifications and caring of human body through various methods as referred in selected works on Kāmaśāstra
Daily routines of nāgaraka have explained by Vātsyāyana in detail. In the morning after getting up, one should finish the routine of toilette, brushing teeth, besmear sandal paste on forehead and take fragrant smoke in hairs, use wax and lac. After seeing the face in the mirror, and taking mouth wash and betel chewing he should attend his business. Bath daily, should apply the soap on every third day, every fourth day should get himself shaved, and in every fifth and tenth day should cut the hairs on private areas. The perspiration of sides should dried by a fragrant handkerchief. He should take meals in the forenoon and afternoon. After meals, can engage himself in teaching speech to the parrots and the maina, may see the bird fights and engage in various sports or may have exchange views with the counsellor, the pander and the clown. In the evening, after attending music recitals sit in the bedroom, decorated and fragrant with sweet-smelling incense with his companions and wait for the beloveds. After the arrival of beloveds, he should welcome them by sweet-cultured words and engage in pleasured sleep.
As a part of the beautification of body, Kāmaśāstra recommends to care the hair and the use of perfumes. Most of the Kāmaśāstra works have dealt the subject hair caring in the name “keśasamskāra”. In Kāmasūtra the seventh book has referred about the hair caring tips and medicines for colouring hair (7. 2). The fifth Sāyaka of Pañcasāyaka explains the same in a more detailed description. Tips for growing hair, thickening, whitening, darkening, etc. and remedies for baldness, protecting hair from louse etc. are described (6. 1-14). In the text, Ratikallolinī also have a description on coulouring, caring and making attractiveness of hair (25, 26). Kalyāṇamalla’s Anaṅgaraṅga also gives a short description on the same (6. 77-87).
Smell is an important factor which influences one’s personality as well as in bodily relationships, especially perfumes and other fragrances. Nāgarasarvasva and Anaṅgaraṅga have described a detailed account on different types of fragrance items and their usages as well as making.
The fourth chapter of Nāgarasarvasva is entirely about fragrances.
Padmaśrī gives an informative introduction for the chapter:
“Various artful perfumes are celebrated as eminent inflamers of lust. The best lover should be carefully instructed at the start from perfume texts. Having collected the essential part of the perfume texts, which are difficult to understand for those who are not clever, and which are by Lokeśvara[4] etc., I set it forth with very well known texts”[5].
After introducing the topic, Padmaśrī himself lists the contents of the short chapter, which consists of a number of aromatic formulae for the hair, armpits, dwelling, mouth, water, betel-nut, bathing-powder, etc. and those are in two category in the form of incense-sticks and lamp-wicks[6]. After that a descriptive account on each of the perfumes has described (4. 4-19).
Kalyāṇamalla in Anaṅgaraṅga has described various types of fragrance items for smelling body, water for bathing, mouth fresheners etc (7. 43-70).
“As we can see, the chapter introduction (Nāgarasarvasva) makes very clear that there is a direct connection between kāma and perfumery; that the right smells, carefully blended, can inflame lust in lovers. Therefore a command of the techniques of perfumery is a powerful tool in the hands of the right person. In the Bṛhatsamhitā, the chapter on perfumery immediately precedes that on the union of a man and a woman and follows the chapter on aphrodisiacs, again placing perfumery in a clearly erotic context. This erotic use of perfume is entirely consistent with the technical/philosophical classifications of smells propounded by almost all schools of thought in India. By the early centuries of the first millennium CE. these were for the most part unanimous that smells are to be classified as either fragrant an non-fragrant, or desired and not desired. This quite unlike the objects of the other senses which were not universally classified in hedonic terms. These qualities, fragrant and non-fragrant, were thus established as an unavoidable feature of the experienced world of smell; given that this was the case, the creation of a very beautiful perfume could not fail to please the person smelling it” (Sarma S. R. & Wojtilla Gyula, 2011: 212-213).
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
api kriyārthaṃ sulabhaṃ samitkuśaṃ jalānyapi snānavidhikṣamāṇi te |
api svaśaktyā tapasi pravartase śarīramādyaṃ khalu dharmasādhanam || (kumārasaṃbhavam, 5. 33)
[2]:
yāvajjīvaṃ sukhaṃ jīvennāsti mṛtyoragocaraḥ | bhasmībhūtasya dehasya punarāgamanaṃ kutaḥ? ||
[3]:
[4]:
The science of perfumes was seen in ancient literatures. But there is no works have yet discovered in this field. Only a scattered knowledge from different works are available on this topic. Here Padmaśrī has remembered Lokeśvara-an expert in the science of fragrances and says that the works of them are very hard to understand. So, Padmaśrī has initiated to describe an essence of the topic in a simple way for better understanding. Lokeśvara or Avalokiteśvara was a Buddhist monk of 9th century C. E. and is the author of Lokeśvaraśataka. The work deals about the Praśastis of Buddha. May be he has written another work about the science of fragrances or this Lokeśvara is different from the author of Lokeśvaraśataka.
[5]: