The many positions on Kamasutra

Gender neutral erotica or tuned to male pleasure and actually debasing women? An imperialist construct or a true celebration of life and creativity? About mere physicality or spirituality too? The Kamasutra has always evoked debate and continues to do so with academics, feminists and historians deliberating on the many interpretations of the ancient Sanskrit treatise on sex and sexuality that has long held the world in thrall.

"Why should the very mention of Kamasutra evoke only nuances of male seduction, sensual pleasure, love, marriage and sexual positions suited to enhance his joy?" asks filmmaker Surendra Hiwarale whose six-minute film on six lovemaking positions Kamasutra– The Poetry of Sex has got nearly five lakh hits in a month on YouTube.
His actor in the video, Bhairavi Goswami, not only echoes this view but amplifies it. "Sexual pleasure can't be and isn't the preserve of males alone. If anything ,women have a lot more to celebrate," she says.

All male or misogynist?
If that's indeed the case, why has the Vatsyayana text become perceived as the pursuit of only male desire? Dr Radheshyam Tiwari, a doctorate on the symbolism in Hindu mythology, is amongst those who believes the Kamasutra also addresses women's need. "One rarely comes across a text as ancient as the Kamasutra, so sensitive to fulfillment of a woman's need," says the Varanasi-based scholar. "It is not only about extra-human postures meant for contortionists," he laughs.

Cultural commissar and ex-diplomat Pavan Varma, who has written Kamasutra: The Art of Making Love to a Woman, says Kamasutra is about "evoking an erotic mood - the rasa of desire". In his view, the ancient text is telling men, "It asks you to invest in foreplay, put aside primary obsession and invest in making the woman an equal participant. In short, it's teaching men to make women happy."

Bureaucrat K R Indira, who has written Sthraina Kamastram, her critique of Kamasutra in Malayalam, vehemently disagrees. "Vatsyayana may not be instigating sexual violece but he speaks of forcefully extracting sex from a woman."

According to her, what most people called Kamasutra is just one chapter, the one about coition. "The other chapters show how the Kamasutra debases women." She names chapters on the duties of a wife, on seducing another's wife and yet another about the duties of a prostitute. "Which self-respecting woman will find this okay?" she asks.
"Unfortunately, many constructs of gender-divide continue to use such paradigms and are at the root of society's deification/reification of women. It is particularly alarming that judges too cite these gender-unequal doctrines while passing remarks and orders in their judgements."

Bhairavi calls this a misunderstanding. She points out how Kamasutra lays great stress on both fitness and beauty. "It spends a lot of time discussing beauty regimens for the hair, skin and creating a supple and fit body and celebrating one's womanhood," says the actor. "Today, if a working woman has to go for facial, she'll think twice of juggling her busy schedule but the women of Vatsyayana's times appeared to invest whole days in such beauty and fitness regimens."

The firang take 
Kamasutra, believed to have been written by Vatsyayana in 2nd century CE, "was rescued" by Sir Richard Francis Burton when an English translation was privately printed in 1883. Though attributed to the Orientalist-author, most work was actually done by pioneering Indian archaeologist, Bhagwanlal Indraji. Burton's approach suggests an obvious fetishisation of "Oriental women and their sexuality", calling on "frigid Victorian women to be as experimental with their sexuality". Of course, these "experiments" were conveniently tailored to suit the needs of Victorian men.

While gender equality activists and academicians have accused Burton's text of imperialism, Hiwarale, who spent a long time researching what he calls the "love-making Bible", says this is indeed India's tradition and blaming the British is part of a pattern of trying to fix everything that's wrong about India on the West. "Wonder why our overzealous right-wing nationalists fight shy of accepting how they keep this unbroken, linear, unsullied tradition alive. It's almost as if being Indian is equated with the onerous nationalistic duty of doing so," he observes.
"While this section wants to talk only of Kamasutra's imperialist agenda, the others equate nationalism to a time before the Mughal empire, and by extension re-imagines India as suited only for a certain class and caste of people of a certain religion," he adds.

Wendy Doniger, professor of history of religions at the University of Chicago, writes, "Burton managed to get a rough approximation of the text published in English in 1883, nasty bits and all". However, philologist and Sanskrit professor Chlodwig Werba of the Institute of Indology at the University of Vienna regards it second in accuracy only to Richard Schmidt's German-Latin Kamasutra published in 1897.

According to Tiwari, of all the takes on Kamasutra by foreigners, Alain Daniélou's The Complete Kama Sutra comes the closest. "This 1994 translation, which first appeared in French, and then English, features the original Vatsyayana text, along with a commentary. Unlike Burton, Alain Daniélou's new translation preserves the numbered verse divisions of the original, and doesn't incorporate notes in the text."

Burton and many Orientalists like Clarrise Bader, Max Muller and others often saw "Indian sexuality as effeminate", using that to justify its colonisation. Tiwari points out how others like S.C. Upadhayaya - who authored Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - wash off all references to homosexuality and re-frame it to suit the Hindu nationalist agenda. "Before lauding Kamasutra as being ahead of its time, we need to look at how its instances of homosexuality are often only practiced on bodies of slaves and servants and that too on the command or pleasure of the husband/man of the house."

Holy union
Author and new age guru Deepak Chopra feels the Kamasutra is not merely about physical attraction and coition. In his book on the Kamasutra, he speaks of the seven spiritual laws of love, fusing the spiritual with the sexual and says, "Losing yourself in another person is the best way to find your true self. Surrender is the result of relinquishing the ego's last claims to separation. Surrender and non-attachment open the door to the miraculous, because miracles exist outside the realm of I, me, and mine."

Tiwari too says that the idea of worshipping the sexual act of the lingam (phallus) and yoni (vagina) coming together in most Hindu texts pertains to the celebration of life and creativity. "It is where the sage writer of the treatise too is trying to take his readers. Socio-culturally this is well-known and established but is often ignored."
Perhaps a case of the spirit being willing but the flesh too weak.

On Reel
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996) is a romantic art-house visually striking saga by Mira Nair of a woman's search for personal and sexual freedom in 16th century India. Two childhood friends - Maya (Indira Varma), a handmaid, and Tara (Sarita Choudhury), a princess, trained by courtesan Rasa Devi (Rekha), in Kamasutra lessons become rivals when they grow up. Several erotic scenes of this love, sex, palace intrigue and war mix were trimmed for an 'R' rating for the US release. It underwent more extensive cuts by the censors before its India release, where it was filmed as Maya & Tara to avoid controversy.

Kamasutra 3D (2013) which "weaves the transformative changes in body, mind and soul by the forbidden world of sexual love and sensuality," got a lot of attention because of Sherlyn Chopra. The Rupesh Paul-directed classical erotica film was entered for nominations as best motion picture, best original song and best background score at the 2014 Oscars.

p_yogesh@dnaindia.net,
@powerofyogesh