155-436: Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas The Kama Sutra ( / ˈ k ɑː m ə ˈ s uː t r ə / ; Sanskrit : कामसूत्र , pronunciation , Kāma-sūtra ; lit. ' Principles of Love ' ) is an ancient Indian Hindu Sanskrit text on sexuality , eroticism and emotional fulfillment. Attributed to Vātsyāyana ,
310-534: A commentator and teacher-guide to comprehend the details and the inter-relationship of the ideas. The Kamasutra too has attracted commentaries, of which the most well known are those of 12th-century or 13th-century Yaśodhara's Jayamaṅgalā in the Sanskrit language, and of Devadatta Shastri who commented on the original text as well as its commentaries in the Hindi language. There are many other Sanskrit commentaries on
465-405: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." Purusharthas Traditional Purushartha ( Sanskrit : पुरुषार्थ, IAST : Puruṣārtha ) literally means "object(ive) of men". It
620-450: A diverse spectrum of options and regional practices. According to Shastri, as quoted by Doniger, the text analyses "the inclinations of men, good and bad", thereafter it presents Vatsyayana's recommendation and arguments of what one must avoid as well as what to not miss in experiencing and enjoying, with "acting only on the good". For example, the text discusses adultery but recommends a faithful spousal relationship. The approach of Kamasutra
775-476: A diversity of views, in each category. Some Purushartha-focused literature include, The Sanskrit Epics devote major sections on purusharthas , in particular debating dharma. The ancient Tamil moral literature of the Tirukkural focuses on the first three of the purusharthas (Dharma, Artha, and Kama) without discussing Moksha, suggesting that "the proper pursuit of the other three will inevitably lead to
930-503: A dramatic fiction where two characters called nayaka (man) and nayika (woman), are aided by the characters called pitamarda (libertine), vita (pander) and vidushaka (jester). This format follows the teachings found in the Sanskrit classic Natyasastra . The teachings and discussions found in the Kamasutra extensively incorporate ancient Hindu mythology and legends. On balance in life In any period of life in which one of
1085-649: A far stronger erotic disposition, her delight in the sexual act is greater than a man's". The Kamasutra manuscripts have survived in many versions across the Indian subcontinent. While attempting to get a translation of the Sanskrit kama-sastra text Ananga Ranga , which had already been widely translated by the Hindus in their regional languages such as Marathi, associates of the British Orientalist Richard Burton, stumbled into portions of
1240-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
1395-429: A fulfilling and happy life, Ancient Indian literature emphasizes that dharma is foremost. If dharma is ignored, artha and kama - profit and pleasure respectively - lead to social chaos. The Gautama Dharmashastra, Apastamba Dharmasutra and Yājñavalkya Smṛti , as examples, all suggest that dharma comes first and is more important than artha and kama. Kama states the relative value of three goals as follows: artha
1550-544: A fulfilling and happy life: Each of these pursuits became a subject of study and led to prolific Sanskrit and some Prakrit languages literature in ancient India. Along with Dharmasastras , Arthasastras and Mokshasastras, the Kamasastras genre have been preserved in palm leaf manuscripts. The Kamasutra belongs to the Kamasastra genre of texts. Other examples of Hindu Sanskrit texts on sexuality and emotions include
1705-581: A harem, and the royal harem did not exist in India before the Turkish presence in the ninth century. The Sanskrit word Kliba found in older Indian texts refers to a "man who does not act like a man", typically in a pejorative sense. The Kamasutra does not use the pejorative term kliba at all, but speaks instead of a "third nature" or, in the sexual behavior context as the "third sexuality". The text states that there are two sorts of "third nature", one where
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#17327728837481860-538: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
2015-658: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
2170-428: A man behaves like a woman, and in the other, a woman behaves like a man. In one of the longest consecutive sets of verses describing a sexual act, the Kamasutra describes fellatio technique between a man dressed like a woman performing fellatio on another man. The text also mentions same-sex behavior between two women, such as a girl losing her virginity with a girlfriend as they use their fingers, as well as oral sex and
2325-412: A man should go about finding the right bride, while the fourth offers equivalent discussion for a woman and how she can get the man she wants. The text states that a person should be realistic, and must possess the "same qualities which one expects from the partner". It suggests involving one's friends and relatives in the search, and meeting the current friends and relatives of one's future partner prior to
2480-609: A more accurate translation of the Kamasutra , there are issues with the manuscripts that have survived and the text likely underwent revisions over time. This is confirmed by other 1st-millennium CE Hindu texts on kama that mention and cite the Kamasutra , but some of these quotations credited to the Kamasutra by these historic authors "are not to be found in the text of the Kamasutra" that have survived. Vatsyayana's Kamasutra states it has 1,250 verses distributed over 36 chapters in 64 sections organised into 7 books. This statement
2635-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
2790-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
2945-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
3100-406: A partner's body, finding a partner and emotional connection, marriage, the power equation over time in intimate relationships, the nature of adultery and drugs (aphrodisiacs) along with many simple to complex variations in sex positions to explore. It is also a psychological treatise that presents the effect of desire and pleasure on human behavior. For each aspect of Kama , the Kamasutra presents
3255-424: A person should learn how to make a living; youth is the time for pleasure, and as years pass, one should concentrate on living virtuously and hope to escape the cycle of rebirth. According to Doniger, the Kamasutra teaches adulterous sexual liaison as a means for a man to predispose the involved woman in assisting him, as a strategic means to work against his enemies and to facilitate his successes. It also explains
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#17327728837483410-481: A portion with other living beings, sprinkling the remainder with water he should eat it as if it were a medicine. Baudhāyana also makes repeated references to the Sannyasa (ascetic) stage and its behavioral focus, such as in verses II.13.7 and 11.18.13. This reference, Olivelle states, is found in many early to mid 1st millennium BC texts, and is clearly from gnomic poetry about an established ascetic tradition by
3565-522: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
3720-538: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
3875-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
4030-711: Is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in
4185-575: Is a key concept in Hinduism , and refers to the four proper goals or aims of a human life. The four puruṣārthas are Dharma (righteousness, moral values), Artha (prosperity, economic values), Kama (pleasure, love, psychological values) and Moksha (liberation, spiritual values, self-realization). All four Purusharthas are important, but in cases of conflict, Dharma is considered more important than Artha or Kama in Hindu philosophy. Moksha
4340-455: Is a mix of prose and anustubh -meter poetry verses. Kamasutra acknowledges the Hindu concept of purusharthas , and lists desire, sexuality, and emotional fulfillment as one of the proper goals of life. It discussed methods for courtship, training in the arts to be socially engaging, finding a partner, flirting, maintaining power in a married life, when and how to commit adultery , sexual positions, and other topics. The text majorly dealt with
4495-516: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
4650-454: Is also unclear. The likely candidates are urban centers of north India, alternatively in the eastern urban Pataliputra (now Patna ). Vatsyayana Mallanaga is its widely accepted author because his name is embedded in the colophon verse, but little is known about him. Vatsyayana states that he wrote the text after much meditation. In the preface, Vatsyayana acknowledges that he is distilling many ancient texts, but these have not survived. He cites
4805-607: Is an early Upanishadic rishi (scholar-poet, sage), whose ideas are found in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad such as in section 6.2, and the Chandogya Upanishad such as over the verses 5.3 through 5.10. These Hindu scriptures are variously dated between 900 BCE and 700 BCE, according to the Indologist and Sanskrit scholar Patrick Olivelle. Among with other ideas such as Atman (self, soul) and
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4960-448: Is considered the ultimate goal of human life. At the same time, this is not a consensus among all Hindus, and many have different interpretations of the hierarchy, and even as to whether one should exist. Another hindu scripture Veda says Moksha is ultimate in which human soul reach to the ultimate consciousness where human being get rid of shadripu kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada ,matsarya. Historical Indian scholars recognized and debated
5115-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
5270-514: Is included in the opening chapter, a common practice in ancient Hindu texts, likely to prevent major and unauthorized expansions of a popular text. The text that has survived into the modern era has 67 sections, and this list is enumerated in Book 7 and in Yashodhara's Sanskrit commentary ( bhasya ) on the text. The Kamasutra uses a mixture of prose and poetry, and the narration has the form of
5425-672: Is more important and should precede kama, while dharma is more important and should precede both kama and artha. Kautiliya's Arthashastra , however, argues that artha is the foundation for the other two. Without prosperity and security in society or at individual level, both moral life and sensuality become difficult. Poverty breeds vice and hate, while prosperity breeds virtues and love, suggested Kautiliya. Kautilya adds that all three are mutually connected, and one should not cease enjoying life, nor virtuous behavior, nor pursuit of wealth creation. Excessive pursuit of any one aspect of life with complete rejection of other two, harms all three including
5580-500: Is more like deciphering and filling in the text. Condensing a text into a sutra-genre religious text form makes it easier to remember and transmit, but it also introduces ambiguity and the need to understand the context of each chapter, its philological roots, as well as the prior literature, states Doniger. However, this method of knowledge preservation and transmission has its foundation in the Vedas, which themselves are cryptic and require
5735-465: Is not to ignore nor deny the psychology and complexity of human behavior for pleasure and sex. The text, according to Doniger, clearly states "that a treatise demands the inclusion of everything, good or bad", but after being informed with in-depth knowledge, one must "reflect and accept only the good". The approach found in the text is one where goals of science and religion should not be to repress, but to encyclopedically know and understand, thereafter let
5890-402: Is of two kinds: pravrtti and nivrtti , The first kind of activity leads to progress ( abhyudaya ), and the second, to perfection ( nihsreyasa ). Indian scholars offered a creative resolution to the tension between "action"-filled life and "renunciation"-driven life, by suggesting the best of both worlds can be achieved by dedicating oneself to "action with renunciation", that is when "action
6045-671: Is one that is based on the awareness of the avastha (the emotional state of one's partner) when the two are not in a sexual union. During sex, the text recommends going with the flow and mirroring with abhiyoga and samprayoga . Other techniques of foreplay and sexual intimacy that are described in the kamasutra include; various forms of holding and embraces ( grahana , upaguhana ), mutual massage and rubbing ( mardana ), pinching and biting, using fingers and hands to stimulate ( karikarakrida , nadi-kshobana , anguli-pravesha ), three styles of jihva-pravesha ( french kissing ), and many styles of fellatio and cunnlingus. The Kamasutra , states
6200-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
6355-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
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6510-589: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
6665-463: Is the vagina, when one penetrates her, that is her embers, and her sparks are the climax. In that very fire the gods offer semen, and from that offering springs a man. – Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 6.2.13, c. 700 BCE , Trans.: Patrick Olivelle According to the Indologist De, a view with which Doniger agrees, this is one of the many evidences that the kamasutra began in
6820-464: Is without attachment or craving for results". Action must be engaged in because it is Dharma , that is, it is good, virtuous, right, a duty and a moral activity, and not because of one's craving for the results or material rewards without any consideration for Dharma. This idea of "craving-free, dharma-driven action" has been called Nishkama Karma in Bhagavad Gita . Other Indian texts state
6975-540: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
7130-852: The Ratirahasya (called Kokashastra in some Indian scripts), the Anangaranga , the Nagarasarvasva , the Kandarpachudmani , and the Panchasayaka . The defining object of the Indian Kamasastra literature, according to Laura Desmond – an anthropologist and a professor of Religious Studies, is the "harmonious sensory experience" from a good relationship between "the self and the world", by discovering and enhancing sensory capabilities to "affect and be affected by
7285-580: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
7440-551: The Gupta Empire , which ruled over major urban areas of ancient India, reshaping arts, culture, and economy from the 4th century through the 6th century CE. For these reasons, she dates the Kama Sutra to the second half of the 3rd century CE. Doniger notes Kama Sutra was composed "sometime in the third century of the common era, most likely in its second half, at the dawn of the Gupta Empire ". The place of its composition
7595-613: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
7750-422: The Kamasutra because he revised the collaborative translation by Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivaram Parashuram Bhide with Forster Arbuthnot to suit 19th-century Victorian tastes. The original composition date or century for the Kamasutra is unknown. Historians have variously placed it between 400 BCE and 300 CE. According to John Keay , the Kama Sutra is a compendium that was collected into its present form in
7905-411: The Kamasutra discusses same-sex relationships through the notion of the tritiya prakriti , literally, "third sexuality" or "third nature". In Redeeming the Kamasutra, Doniger states that "the Kamasutra departs from the dharmic view of homosexuality in significant ways", where the term kliba appears. In contemporary translations, this has been inaccurately rendered as "eunuch" – or, a castrated man in
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#17327728837488060-509: The Kamasutra is largely dedicated to the art of courtship with the aim of marriage. The book's opening verse declares marriage to be a conducive means to "a pure and natural love between the partners", states Upadhyaya. It leads to emotional fulfillment in many forms such as more friends for both, relatives, progeny, amorous and sexual relationship between the couple, and the conjugal pursuit of dharma (spiritual and ethical life) and artha (economic life). The first three chapters discuss how
8215-412: The Kamasutra is neither exclusively nor predominantly a sex manual on sex positions , but rather a guide on the art of living well, the nature of love, finding partners, maintaining sex life , and other aspects pertaining to pleasure-oriented faculties. It is a sutra -genre text with terse aphoristic verses that have survived into the modern era with different bhāṣya s (commentaries). The text
8370-470: The Kamasutra manuscript. Burton then commissioned the Sanskrit scholar Bhagvanlal Indraji to locate a complete Kamasutra manuscript and translate it. Indraji collected variant manuscripts of the text in libraries and temples of Varanasi, Kolkata and Jaipur. Burton later published an edited English translation of these manuscripts, but not a critical edition of the Kamasutra in Sanskrit. According to S.C. Upadhyaya, known for his 1961 scholarly study and
8525-997: The Kamasutra , such as the Sutra Vritti by Narsingha Sastri. These commentaries cite and quote Hindu texts such as the Upanishads , the Arthashastra , the Natyashastra , the Manusmriti , the Nyayasutra , the Markandeya Purana , the Mahabharata , the Nitishastra and others to provide the context, per the norms of its literary traditions. The extant translations of the Kamasutra typically incorporate these commentaries, states Daniélou. In
8680-673: The Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh is a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Among the surviving temple, one in Rajasthan has all the major chapters and sexual positions sculpted to illustrate the Kamasutra . According to Wendy Doniger , the Kamasutra became "one of the most pirated books in English language" soon after it was published in 1883 by Richard Burton . This first European edition by Burton does not faithfully reflect much in
8835-645: The Mughal Empire era is confirmed by its regional translations. The Mughals, states Doniger, had "commissioned lavishly illustrated Persian and Sanskrit Kamasutra manuscripts". The first English translation of the Kama Sutra was privately printed in 1883 by the Orientalist Sir Richard Francis Burton . He did not translate it, but did edit it to suit the Victorian British attitudes. The unedited translation
8990-753: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
9145-532: The Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
9300-531: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
9455-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
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#17327728837489610-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
9765-530: The "aims of human life". In his book Bhagavad-Gita As It Is , Prabhupada describes Purusartha as "material religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and, at the end, the attempt to become one with the Supreme." Purushartha is also referred to as Chaturvarga . Purushartha is a key concept in Hinduism, which holds that every human has four proper goals that are necessary and sufficient for
9920-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
10075-598: The 2nd century CE. In contrast, the Indologist Wendy Doniger, who had co-translated the Kama Sutra and published many papers on related Hindu texts, stated that the surviving version of the Kama Sutra must have been revised or composed after 225 CE because it mentions the Abhiras and the Andhras, dynasties that did not co-rule major regions of ancient India before that year. The text makes no mention of
10230-532: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
10385-601: The Babhraya's school, for these eight categories of embraces. The various forms of intimacy reflect the intent and provide means to engage a combination of senses for pleasure. For instance, according to Vatsyayana the lalatika form enables both to feel each other and allows the man to visually appreciate "the full beauty of the female form", states S.C. Upadhyaya. On sexual embraces Some sexual embraces, not in this text, also intensify passion; these, too, may be used for love-making, but only with care. The territory of
10540-535: The Burton version, rather than the original Sanskrit manuscript. The Burton version of the Kamasutra was produced in an environment where the Victorian mindset and Protestant proselytizers were busy finding faults and attacking Hinduism and its culture, rejecting as "filthy paganism" anything they found sensuous and sexual in Hindu arts and literature. The "Hindus were cowering under their scorn", states Doniger, and
10695-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
10850-532: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
11005-521: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
11160-476: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
11315-519: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
11470-499: The Indologist and Sanskrit literature scholar Ludo Rocher , discourages adultery but then devotes "not less than fifteen sutras (1.5.6–20) to enumerating the reasons ( karana ) for which a man is allowed to seduce a married woman". Vatsyayana mentions different types of nayikas (urban girls) such as unmarried virgins, those married and abandoned by husband, widow seeking remarriage and courtesans, then discusses their kama/sexual education, rights and mores. In childhood, Vātsyāyana says,
11625-470: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
11780-496: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
11935-499: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
12090-638: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
12245-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
12400-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
12555-406: The affairs of Mananat (mind, meditation). केश्यग्निं केशी विषं केशी बिभर्ति रोदसी । केशी विश्वं स्वर्दृशे केशीदं ज्योतिरुच्यते ॥१॥ '''मुनयो''' वातरशनाः पिशङ्गा वसते मला । वातस्यानु ध्राजिं यन्ति यद्देवासो अविक्षत ॥२॥ He with the long loose locks (of hair) supports Agni, and moisture, heaven, and earth; He is all sky to look upon: he with long hair is called this light. The Munis , girdled with
12710-407: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
12865-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
13020-527: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
13175-428: The colonial era marked by sexual censorship, the Kamasutra became famous as a pirated and underground text for its explicit description of sex positions. The stereotypical image of the text is one where erotic pursuit with sexual intercourse include improbable contortionist forms. In reality, according to Doniger, the real Kamasutra is much more and is a book about "the art of living", about understanding one's body and
13330-614: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
13485-653: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
13640-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
13795-471: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
13950-460: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
14105-490: The early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in
14260-487: The elements of the trivarga – dharma, artha, kama – is the primary one, the other two should be natural adjuncts of it. Under no circumstances, should any one of the trivarga be detrimental to the other two. — Kamasutra 1.2.1 , Translator: Ludo Rocher The Kamasutra is a " sutra "-genre text consisting of intensely condensed, aphoristic verses. Doniger describes them as a "kind of atomic string (thread) of meanings", which are so cryptic that any translation
14415-514: The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are the first known sources that comprehensively present the notion that integrated living entails the pursuit of four goals or ends. Prasad (2008) states that the division between the trivarga and mokṣa is intended to highlight the context between the social ( trivarga ) and personal ( mokṣa ) spheres. The Sannyasa is entirely focussed on the pursuit of Moksha without violating Dharma . Baudhayana Dharmasūtra, completed by about 7th century BC, states
14570-548: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
14725-425: The first three ashramas must devote itself predominantly to one specific goal of life. The fourth stage of Sannyasa is different, and the overwhelming consensus in ancient and medieval Indian texts is that anyone accepting Sannyasa must entirely devote to Moksha aided by Dharma , with a complete renunciation of Artha and Kama . With the known exception of Kamasutra , most texts make no recommendation on
14880-534: The following behavioral vows for a person in Sannyasa , These are the vows a Sannyasi must keep – Abstention from injuring living beings, truthfulness, abstention from appropriating the property of others, abstention from sensual pleasures, liberality (kindness, gentleness) are the major vows. There are five minor vows: abstention from anger, obedience towards the guru, avoidance of rashness, cleanliness, and purity in eating. He should beg (for food) without annoying others, any food he gets he must compassionately share
15035-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
15190-624: The fourth." The Nalatiyar , another work of the Sangam literature , too, follows similar philosophy as the Tirukkural. The four puruṣārthas are often discussed in the context of four ashramas or stages of life ( Brahmacharya – student, Grihastha – householder, Vanaprastha – retirement and Sannyasa – renunciation). Scholars have attempted to connect the four stages to the four puruṣārthas, however Olivelle dismisses this, as neither ancient nor medieval texts of India state that any of
15345-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
15500-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
15655-415: The individual decide. The text states that it aims to be comprehensive and inclusive of diverse views and lifestyles. The 3rd-century text includes a number of themes, including subjects such as flirting that resonate in the modern era context, states a New York Times review. For example, it suggests that a young man seeking to attract a woman, should hold a party, and invite the guests to recite poetry. In
15810-508: The inherent tension between active pursuit of wealth (Artha) and pleasure (Kama), and renunciation of all wealth and pleasure for the sake of spiritual liberation (Moksha). They proposed "action with renunciation" or "craving-free, dharma-driven action", also called Nishkama Karma as a possible solution to the tension. Puruṣārtha (पुरुषार्थ) is a composite Sanskrit word from Purusha (पुरुष) and Artha (अर्थ). Purusha means "spirit" , "immaterial essence" , or "primaeval human being as
15965-486: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
16120-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
16275-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
16430-514: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
16585-675: The lover. In the rare mention of caste, it is about a man finding his legal wife and the advice that humorous stories to seduce a woman should be about "other virgins of same jati (caste)". In general, the text describes sexual activity between men and women across class and caste, both in urban and rural settings. The Kamasutra includes verses describing homosexual relations such as oral sex between two men, as well as between two women. Lesbian relations are extensively covered in Chapters 5 and 8 in Book 2. The text also mentions "pretend play", sadomasochism , and group sex . According to Doniger,
16740-487: The marriage. While the original text makes no mention of astrology and horoscopes, later commentaries, such as one by 13th-century Yashodhara includes consulting and comparing the compatibility of the horoscopes, omens, planetary alignments, and such signs prior to proposing a marriage. Vatsyayana recommends, states Alain Danielou, that "one should play, marry, associate with one's equals, people of one's own circle" who share
16895-511: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
17050-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
17205-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
17360-602: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
17515-545: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
17670-412: The one excessively pursued. The sastras , states Kane, observe that the relative precedence of artha, kama and dharma are naturally different with age. Moksha is considered in Hinduism as the parama-puruṣārtha or ultimate goal of human life. Indian scholars recognized and have debated the inherent tension between renunciation and Moksha on one hand, and the active pursuit of Kama and Artha on
17825-407: The ontological concept of Brahman , these early Upanishads discuss human life, activities and the nature of existence as a form of internalized worship, where sexuality and sex is mapped into a form of religious yajna ritual (sacrificial fire, Agni ) and suffused in spiritual terms: A fire – that is what a woman is, Gautama. Her firewood is the vulva, her smoke is the pubic hair, her flame
17980-740: The open discussion of sex in the Kamasutra scandalized the 19th-century Europeans. The Burton edition of the Kamasutra was illegal to publish in England and the United States till 1962. Yet, states Doniger, it became soon after its publication in 1883, "one of the most pirated books in the English language", widely copied, reprinted and republished sometimes without Richard Burton's name. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
18135-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
18290-513: The other. This has led to the concepts of Pravrtti (प्रवृत्ति, Pravritti) and Nivrtti (निवृत्ति, Nivritti), with the former meaning "giving or devoting one's self to" external action, while the latter means "withdrawing and restraining one's self from" external action in order to focus on one's own liberation. Artha and Kama are Pravrtti , while Moksha is Nivrtti . Both are considered important in Hinduism. Manusmriti, for example, describes it as, Activity, according to orthodox tradition,
18445-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
18600-460: The party, a poem should be read with parts missing, and the guests should compete to creatively complete the poem. As another example, the Kamasutra suggests that the boy and the girl should go play together, such as swim in a river. The boy should dive into the water away from the girl he is interested in, then swim underwater to get close to her, emerge from the water and surprise her, touch her slightly and then dive again, away from her. Book 3 of
18755-455: The philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire, what sustains it, and how and when it is good or bad. The text is one of many Indian texts on Kama Shastra . It is a much-translated work in Indian and non-Indian languages, and has influenced many secondary texts that followed since the 4th-century CE, as well as the Indian arts as exemplified by the pervasive presence of Kama-related reliefs and sculpture in old Hindu temples . Of these,
18910-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
19065-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
19220-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
19375-609: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
19530-497: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
19685-469: The relative preference on Artha or Kama, that an individual must emphasize in what stage of life. The Kamasutra states, The life span of a man is one hundred years. Dividing that time, he should attend to three aims of life in such a way that they support, rather than hinder each other. In his youth he should attend to profitable aims (artha) such as learning, in his prime to pleasure (kama), and in his old age to dharma and moksha. This text does not mention
19840-452: The religious literature of the Vedic era, ideas that were ultimately refined and distilled into a sutra -genre text by Vatsyayana. According to Doniger, this paradigm of celebrating pleasures, enjoyment and sexuality as a dharmic act began in the "earthy, vibrant text known as the Rigveda " of the Hindus. The Kamasutra and celebration of sex, eroticism and pleasure is an integral part of
19995-487: The religious milieu in Hinduism and quite prevalent in its temples. Human relationships, sex and emotional fulfillment are a significant part of the post-Vedic Sanskrit literature such as the major Hindu epics: the Mahabharata and the Ramayana . The ancient Indian view has been, states Johann Meyer, that love and sex are a delightful necessity. Though she is reserved and selective, "a woman stands in very great need of surata (amorous or sexual pleasure)", and "the woman has
20150-562: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
20305-530: The same answer to tension between "pursue wealth and love" versus "renounce everything" Purusharthas , but using different words. Isa Upanishad, for example, states "act and enjoy with renunciation, do not covet". The concept of mokṣa appears in the Upanishads , while the preceding Samhitas, Brahmanas and Aranyakas commonly refer to kāma , artha and dharma as the " trivarga " or "three categories" of possible human pursuits. The Dharmaśāstras and
20460-496: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
20615-769: The same values and religious outlook. It is more difficult to manage a good, happy relationship when there are basic differences between the two, according to verse 3.1.20 of the Kamasutra . Vatsyayana's Kamasutra describes intimacy of various forms, including those between lovers before and during sex. For example, the text discusses eight forms of alingana (embrace) in verses 2.2.7–23: sphrishtaka , viddhaka , udghrishtaka , piditaka , lataveshtitaka , vrikshadhirudha , tilatandula and kshiranira . The first four are expressive of mutual love, but are nonsexual. The last four are forms of embrace recommended by Vatsyayana to increase pleasure during foreplay and during sexual intimacy. Vatsyayana cites earlier – now lost – Indian texts from
20770-556: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
20925-441: The signs and reasons a woman wants to enter into an adulterous relationship and when she does not want to commit adultery. The Kamasutra teaches strategies to engage in adulterous relationships, but concludes its chapter on sexual liaison stating that one should not commit adultery because adultery pleases only one of two sides in a marriage, hurts the other, it goes against both dharma and artha . The Kamasutra has been one of
21080-615: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
21235-461: The soul and original source of the universe". , depending on the darsana , the school of thought. Artha in one context means "purpose", "object of desire" and "meaning". Together, Purushartha literally means "purpose of human being" or "object of human pursuit". Alf Hiltebeitel translates Purushartha as "Goals of Man". Prasad clarifies that "Man" includes both man and woman in ancient and medieval Indian texts. Olivelle translates it as
21390-644: The text extends only so far as men have dull appetites; but when the wheel of sexual ecstasy is in full motion, there is no textbook at all, and no order. — Kamasutra 2.2.30–31 , Translator: Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar Another example of the forms of intimacy discussed in the Kamasutra includes chumbanas (kissing). The text presents twenty-six forms of kisses, ranging from those appropriate for showing respect and affection, to those during foreplay and sex. Vatsyayana also mentions variations in kissing cultures in different parts of ancient India. The best kiss for an intimate partner, according to kamasutra ,
21545-531: The third and fifth century CE. Vatsyayana's Kamasutra is mentioned and some verses quoted in the Brihatsamhita of Varahamihira, as well as the poems of Kalidasa. This suggests he lived before the 5th-century CE. The Hindu tradition has the concept of the Purusharthas which outlines "four main goals of life". It holds that every human being has four proper goals that are necessary and sufficient for
21700-622: The time Baudhayana Dharmasutra and other texts were written. Katha Upanishad, in hymns 2.1–2.2 contrasts the human feeling of pleasant ( preyas , प्रेयस्) with that of bliss ( sreyas , श्रेयस्), praising the latter. The hymns of Rig Veda in Book 10 Chapter 136, mention Muni (मुनि, monks, mendicants, holy man), with characteristics that mirror those found in later concepts of renunication-practising, Moksha -motivated ascetics ( Sannyasins and Sannyasinis ). These Muni are said to be Kesins (केशिन्, long haired) wearing Mala clothes (मल, dirty, soil-colored, yellow, orange, saffron) and engaged in
21855-653: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
22010-487: The unique sources of sociological information and cultural milieu of ancient India. It shows a "near total disregard of class (varna) and caste (jati)", states Doniger. Human relationships, including the sexual type, are neither segregated nor repressed by gender or caste, rather linked to individual's wealth (success in artha ). In the Kamasutra , lovers are "not upper-class" but they "must be rich" enough to dress well, pursue social leisure activities, buy gifts and surprise
22165-461: The use of sex toys between women. Svairini , a term Danielou translates as a lesbian, is described in the text as a woman who lives a conjugal life with another woman or by herself fending for herself, not interested in a husband. Additionally, the text has some fleeting remarks on bisexual relationships. According to Doniger, the historical records suggest that the Kamasutra was a well-known and popular text in Indian history. This popularity through
22320-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
22475-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
22630-468: The wind, wear garments of soil hue; They, following the wind's swift course go where the Gods have gone before. Scharfe states, "there are abundant references both to the trivarga and caturvarga in Hindu literature throughout the ages". Each of these four canonical puruṣārthas was subjected to a process of study and extensive literary development in Indian history. This produced numerous treatises, with
22785-462: The work of others he calls "teachers" and "scholars", and the longer texts by Auddalaki, Babhravya, Dattaka, Suvarnanabha, Ghotakamukha, Gonardiya, Gonikaputra, Charayana, and Kuchumara. Kamasutra was considered to have been put together from a 150 chapter manuscript that had itself been distilled from 300 chapters which in turn came from a compilation of some 100,000 chapters of text. It was thought to have been written in its final form sometime between
22940-461: The world". Vatsyayana predominantly discusses Kama along with its relationship with Dharma and Artha. He makes a passing mention of Moksha in some verses. The earliest foundations of the kamasutra are found in the Vedic era literature of Hinduism. Vatsyayana acknowledges this heritage in verse 1.1.9 of the text where he names Svetaketu Uddalaka as the "first human author of the kamasutra ". Uddalaka
23095-502: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
23250-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
23405-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
23560-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
23715-738: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
23870-417: Was produced by the Indian scholar Bhagwan Lal Indraji with the assistance of a student Shivaram Parshuram Bhide, under the guidance of Burton's friend, the Indian civil servant Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot . According to Doniger, the Burton version is a "flawed English translation" but influential as modern translators and abridged versions, even in the Indian languages such as in Hindi, are re-translations of
24025-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
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