Everyone mentions Krishna’s Bhagavad Gita from the Mahabharata, but no one talks about Kama Gita also found in the Mahabharata. To appreciate Kama Gita, we need to explore India’s long tryst with kama, spelt in English both without and with capitalisation.

Kama of Kama-sutra and Kama-shastra can be both a common noun and a proper noun.

• As the common noun kama (spelt without capitalization) refers to desire, both romantic and erotic, which eventually leads to fertility. This is the driving force of life, known as ‘eros’ in English. The word is used in this sense in the Vedic corpus composed between 1500 BC and 500 BC.
• As a proper noun, Kama (spelt with capitalization) refers to a god who arouses the body, fills it with heat of passion. He has two consort: the more popular Rati, goddess of sex, and the less known Priti, goddess of romance. Kama became the enemy of hermits from Buddhist times, and eventually a friend of householders, in Puranic lore, who has to be regulated carefully to ensure there is order in the world.

Kama-sutra text speaks of kama (common noun) not Kama (proper noun), the god who enchants Brahma, is burnt by Shiva and is resurrected through Vishnu. Known as Mara in Buddhism, Kama’s earliest image, housed in Mathura Museum, is dated to 100 BC. His popularity becomes widespread only after 500 AD.

Vatsyayana presented Kama-sutra as a truncated version of what was known to the gods. There were 100,000 chapters in the first erotic treatise written by Prajapati himself who created all living beings.

There were 1000 chapters in the next erotic treatise written by Nandi, who was given this knowledge by the divine couple, Shiva and Shakti, atop Mount Kailas. There were 500 chapters recorded by Shvetaketu, son of Uddalaka, who introduced the institution of marriage as per the Mahabharata. Shankha edited these to 300 chapters, for the benefit of husbands and wives. Babhravya further edited them to 150 chapters and divided them into seven sections, which was distributed amongst seven of his students:

1. Understanding kama, was taken up by Charayana
2. Preparing for kama, was taken up by Suvarnanabha
3. Kama for the virgin, was taken up by Ghotakamukha
4. Kama within marriage, was taken up by Gonardiya
5. Kama outside marriage, was taken up by Gonikaputra
6. Kama with the courtesan, was taken up by Dattaka, who could pleasure both women and men, and so knew every secret of pleasure.
7. Kama that needs aphrodisiacs, both chemical and physical, was taken up by Kuchumara.

Vatsyayana put these seven sections back together, just as Veda Vyasa put together the scattered mantras of the Veda long ago. Like all shastra-texts, Kama-sutra does not present itself as an original idea, but as a particular expression of a timeless boundless idea (sanatan).

This way of approaching knowledge, as something that exists forever, needing to be contextualized as per place (sthan), time (kala) and people (patra), is typically Indian thing.

Following Vatsyayana, there were many texts. The following is a short list.

• 10th century, Nagara-sarvasva (urban way) of Padmasri
• 12th century, Rati-rahasya (secret of erotica) of Kokkoka
• 13th century, Pancha-sayaka (five arrows) of Jyotirisvara
• 14th century, Smara-dipika (lamp of longing) of Minanatha
• 15th century, Rati-manjari (love blossoms) of Jayadeva
• 15th century, Rati-ratnapradipika (love jewel collection) of Praudha Devaraja Maharaja
• 16th century, Ananga-ranga (arena of love) of Kalyanamalla
• 16th century, Kandarapa-chudamani (crest-jewel of desire) of Virabhadra

Amongst these, Nagarasarvasva is Buddhist as the author praises the goddesses Tara and Aryamanjushri. While Kama-sutra comes from a cosmopolitan ecosystem, the later texts become increasingly elitist as they are written for kings and for the courtly life.

They do not engage too much with the concept of balance between dharma, artha and kama, and focus on the sexual act. Some new ideas emerge, a greater comfort with oral sex performed by, and on, men and women.

These treatises are written in Sanskrit, thus limited to the elite. Erotic art, after a brief appearance on temple walls, was restricted to privacy of inner chambers, where they appeared on walls, or in palm leaf, birch bark and paper manuscripts, locked in ornamented boxes.

But kama-shastra managed to reach the public in the most innovative of ways – the use of devotional metaphors. Spiritual language became the armour of sensuality and eroticism. For the gods knew pleasure, not power, is what makes life worth living.

As the Kama-gita of the Mahabharata informs us, locked in the act of regulating and restraining kama is kama. Those who deny pleasure, those who confuse pleasure with exploitation, those who get outraged by equating pleasure with corruption, are simply those who seek pleasure in the most perverse way. This is revealed by Krishna to Yudhishthira. In Book 14, Ashwamedha parva, Section 13 Verse 12-17, Kama reveals:

I am present in the very knowledge used to destroy me.
I am present in the very rituals used to destroy me.
I am present in the very restraint used to destroy me.
I am present in the very resolve used to destroy me.