Vatsyayana / Arch Vatsyayana Kama Sutra

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-7519-3211-0
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 219 Seiten

Special service after purchase: For the booking of an exclusive round of discussions/reading with the publisher, questions, wishes or suggestions write an email to books.gabrielarch [at] t-online.de. Vatsyayana Kama Sutra is the most famous ancient Indian text about love philosophy, eroticism, sexuality and the art of living well. Kamasutra informs about topics like SM/sadomasochism, homosexuality, foreplay, different sex positions, flirting, kissing and prostitution.

The Indian sage Vatsyayana was the author of Kama Sutra.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Vatsyayana, Sage

Arch, Gabriel

Leseproben

1.3 ON THE STUDY OF THE SIXTY-FOUR ARTS.

Man should study the Kama Sutra and the arts and sciences subordinate

thereto, in addition to the study of the arts and sciences contained in

Dharma and Artha. Even young maids should study this Kama Sutra along

with its arts and sciences before marriage, and after it they should

continue to do so with the consent of their husbands.

Here some learned men object, and say that females, not being allowed to

study any science, should not study the Kama Sutra.

But Vatsyayana is of opinion that this objection does not hold good, for

women already know the practice of Kama Sutra, and that practice is

derived from the Kama Shastra, or the science of Kama itself. Moreover,

it is not only in this but in many other cases that though the practice

of a science is known to all, only a few persons are acquainted with the

rules and laws on which the science is based. Thus the Yadnikas or

sacrificers, though ignorant of grammar, make use of appropriate words

when addressing the different Deities, and do not know how these words

are framed. Again, persons do the duties required of them on auspicious

days, which are fixed by astrology, though they are not acquainted with

the science of astrology. In a like manner riders of horses and

elephants train these animals without knowing the science of training

animals, but from practice only. And similarly the people of the most

distant provinces obey the laws of the kingdom from practice, and

because there is a king over them, and without further reason11. And

from experience we find that some women, such as daughters of princes

and their ministers, and public women, are actually versed in the Kama

Shastra.

A female, therefore, should learn the Kama Shastra, or at least a part

of it, by studying its practice from some confidential friend. She

should study alone in private the sixty-four practices that form a part

of the Kama Shastra. Her teacher should be one of the following persons,

viz., the daughter of a nurse brought up with her and already

married12, or a female friend who can be trusted in everything, or the

sister of her mother (i.e., her aunt), or an old female servant, or a

female beggar who may have formerly lived in the family, or her own

sister, who can always be trusted.

The following are the arts to be studied, together with the Kama

Sutra:

1. Singing.

2. Playing on musical instruments.

3. Dancing.

4. Union of dancing, singing, and playing instrumental music.

5. Writing and drawing.

6. Tattooing.

7. Arraying and adorning an idol with rice and flowers.

8. Spreading and arraying beds or couches of flowers, or flowers upon

the ground.

9. Colouring the teeth, garments, hair, nails, and bodies, i.e.,

staining, dyeing, colouring and painting the same.

10. Fixing stained glass into a floor.

11. The art of making beds, and spreading out carpets and cushions for

reclining.

12. Playing on musical glasses filled with water.

13. Storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns and

reservoirs.

14. Picture making, trimming and decorating.

15. Stringing of rosaries, necklaces, garlands and wreaths.

16. Binding of turbans and chaplets, and making crests and top-knots of

flowers.

17. Scenic representations. Stage playing.

18. Art of making ear ornaments.

19. Art of preparing perfumes and odours.

20. Proper disposition of jewels and decorations, and adornment in

dress.

21. Magic or sorcery.

22. Quickness of hand or manual skill.

23. Culinary art, i.e., cooking and cookery.

24. Making lemonades, sherbets, acidulated drinks, and spirituous

extracts with proper flavour and colour.

25. Tailor's work and sewing.

26. Making parrots, flowers, tufts, tassels, bunches, bosses, knobs,

&c., out of yarn or thread.

27. Solution of riddles, enigmas, covert speeches, verbal puzzles and

enigmatical questions.

28. A game, which consisted in repeating verses, and as one person

finished, another person had to commence at once, repeating another

verse, beginning with the same letter with which the last speaker's

verse ended, whoever failed to repeat was considered to have lost, and

to be subject to pay a forfeit or stake of some kind.

29. The art of mimicry or imitation.

30. Reading, including chanting and intoning.

31. Study of sentences difficult to pronounce. It is played as a game

chiefly by women and children, and consists of a difficult sentence

being given, and when repeated quickly, the words are often transposed

or badly pronounced.

32. Practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff, and bow and arrow.

33. Drawing inferences, reasoning or inferring.

34. Carpentry, or the work of a carpenter.

35. Architecture, or the art of building.

36. Knowledge about gold and silver coins, and jewels and gems.

37. Chemistry and mineralogy.

38. Colouring jewels, gems and beads.

39. Knowledge of mines and quarries.

40. Gardening; knowledge of treating the diseases of trees and plants,

of nourishing them, and determining their ages.

41. Art of cock fighting, quail fighting and ram fighting.

42. Art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak.

43. Art of applying perfumed ointments to the body, and of dressing the

hair with unguents and perfumes and braiding it.

44. The art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words

in a peculiar way.

45. The art of speaking by changing the forms of words. It is of various

kinds. Some speak by changing the beginning and end of words, others by

adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a word, and so on.

46. Knowledge of language and of the vernacular dialects.

47. Art of making flower carriages.

48. Art of framing mystical diagrams, of addressing spells and charms,

and binding armlets.

49. Mental exercises, such as completing stanzas or verses on receiving

a part of them; or supplying one, two or three lines when the remaining

lines are given indiscriminately from different verses, so as to make

the whole an entire verse with regard to its meaning; or arranging the

words of a verse written irregularly by separating the vowels from the

consonants, or leaving them out altogether; or putting into verse or

prose sentences represented by signs or symbols. There are many other

such exercises.

50. Composing poems.

51. Knowledge of dictionaries and vocabularies.

52. Knowledge of ways of changing and disguising the appearance of

persons.

53. Knowledge of the art of changing the appearance of things, such as

making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as

fine and good.

54. Various ways of gambling.

55. Art of obtaining possession of the property of others by means of

muntras or incantations.

56. Skill in youthful sports.

57. Knowledge of the rules of society, and of how to pay respects and

compliments to others.

58. Knowledge of the art of war, of arms, of armies, &c.

59. Knowledge of gymnastics.

60. Art of knowing the character of a man from his features.

61. Knowledge of scanning or constructing verses.

62. Arithmetical recreations.

63. Making artificial flowers.

64. Making figures and images in clay.

A public woman, endowed with a good disposition, beauty and other

winning qualities, and also versed in the above arts, obtains the name

of a Ganika, or public woman of high quality, and receives a seat of

honour in an assemblage of men. She is, moreover, always respected by

the king, and praised by learned men, and her favour being sought for by

all, she becomes an object of universal regard. The daughter of a king

too, as well as the daughter of a minister, being learned in the above

arts, can make their husbands favourable to them, even though these may

have thousands of other wives besides themselves. And in the same

manner, if a wife becomes separated from her husband, and falls into

distress, she can support herself easily, even in a foreign country, by

means of her...