J Indian Philos (2011) 39:4162

DOI 10.1007/s10781-010-9116-6

Padmasrs Nagarasarvasva and the World of Medieval

Kamasastra
Daud Ali

Published online: 8 January 2011

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This essay focuses on a neglected and important text, the Nagarasarvasva of Padmasr, as an index to the changing contours of kamasastra in the
early second millennium (10001500) CE. Focusing on a number of themes which
linked Padmasrs work with contemporary treatises, the essay argues that kamasastra incorporated several new conceptions of the body and related para-technologies as well as elements of material and aesthetic culture which had become
prominent in the cosmopolitan, courtly milieu. Rather than seeing this development
as an attenuation of the earlier science as constituted by Vatsyayanas Kamasutra,
it is possible to see that kamasastra actually developed closer relations with fields
of knowledge that had long developed alongside it.
Keywords Kamasastra  Nagarasarvasva  Ratirahasya  Pancasayaka  Body
_ rasastra  Sanketa
_
technologies  Aesthetics  Alamka
 Hava  Bhava 
Nayikabheda  Conjugal love  Courtly love  Sex  Astronomy  Physiognomy 
Mantra  Nad:

Introducing the text

Among the earliest texts after the composition of Vatsyayanas Kamasutra in the
Gupta period is the Nagarasarvasva or Complete Townsman, by Padmasr. The
Nagarasarvasva is a remarkable and little studied text, but one that is key to
This essay is based on a collaborative project involving a translation and study of the Nagarasarvasva
currently being completed by the author and Dr Mattia Salvini.
D. Ali (&)
Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 820 Williams Hall,
36th and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
e-mail: daudali@sas.upenn.edu

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D. Ali

understanding the evolution of the genre and its relationships with other intellectual
traditions in medieval India. The Nagarasarvasva (NS) consists of approximately
330 verses divided into 38 chapters on a wide variety of different topics (see
Appendix in Desmond).1 Manuscripts preserve a short commentary to the work
attributed to the seventeenth-century Nepali king Jagajjyotirmalla (16171633 CE)
of Bhaktapur.2 To date, it has received very little scholarly attention, and though
noticed in Richard Schmidts Beitrage zur Indischen Erotik and Aufrechts
Catalogus Catalogorum, it has been the subject of only a single scholarly article.3
The date of the text is uncertain. It seems to have been well-known throughout the
subcontinent by the fourteenth century, when it is cited and incorporated into a
variety of literary contexts, including anthologies, treatises on poetics and commentaries on classical kavya works.4 On the other side, the most clearly dateable
work cited in the Nagarasarvasva is the famous Kut::tanmata of Damodaragupta, a
text usually placed at the end of the eighth century CE in Kashmir. Beyond this rather
unhappily wide span of time, ranging between c. 800 and 1300 AD, it is not at the
moment possible to gain a more precise knowledge of when the text was composed.5
Very little is also known about Padmasr, author of the Nagarasarvasva. While
citations of his work suggest that he was known as an author widely across northern
India in the second millennium CE, the surviving manuscript traditions of the text
have been mostly confined to Nepal, where the text gained its only commentary.6
This, in addition to comparatively positive remarks about the women of Nepala
(along with Cna [Tibet] and Kamarupa [Assam]) in the Nagarasarvasvas section
on the regions (desavis: ayabhaga) prompted Lienhard to suggest that Padmasr

Some manuscripts divide the text into 18 chapters. See Tanusukharam Sharmas introduction to NS,
pp. 1617.

More useful, however, is Tanusukharam Sharmas learned Sanskrit :tippan: .

Because of slight variations in the names of its title and author in the manuscript traditions, Schmidt
(1922, pp. 4748, 55), following Aufrecht, postulated two distinct textsthe Nagarasarvasva of
Padmapan: d: ita and the Nagarakasarvasva of Padmasrjnana. Not long after the final edition of Schmidts
Beitrage was published, two printed editions of the text appeared, one edited by the celebrated Bombaybased scholar, Tanusukharam Sharma, in 1921, and the other from Calcutta in 1929 by Srirajadhara Jha.
When Lienhard (1979) published the only scholarly article on the text some 50 years later, he was easily
able to clarify that the various titles and authorial names referred to in manuscript traditions denoted one
and the same text and writer, the Nagara(ka)sarvasva of Padmasr(jnana) or Padmapan: d: ita.
4
Lienhard (1979, pp. 102103 ) noted some sixty verses from the NS cited in the Sarn: gadharapaddhati, an anthology compiled at the Sakhambari Chauhan court in 1363 AD. A passage from the text is
also cited in Visvanathas Sahityadarpan: a (3.101) dated between 13001380. The NS is also cited in
Dinakara Misras well-known commentary on Kalidasas Raghuvam
: sa, the Subodhin, dated in 1385
AD (Schmidt 1922, p. 47). Finally, the text is also mentioned in Ra
ghavabhat::tas famous Arthadyotanika
commentary on Abhijnanasakuntala (1.27; 2.2) composed in the last quarter of the fifteenth century.
3

This has not stopped scholars from giving it more precise dates. Krishnamachariar (1974, p. 891), takes
a golden mean between the upper and lower limits to place the text at 1000 AD with no apparent
justification. More recently Zysk (2002, pp. 68) seems to have followed Krishnamachariar.
6

Two of the three manuscripts used by Tanusukharam Sharma were of Nepali origin, the other being
from Bikaner. See Sharmas Introduction to NS, pp. 1617.

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Padmasrs Nagarasarvasva and the World of Medieval Kamasastra

43

may have been active in Nepal.7 Padmasr tells us nothing of his own family
background, but does inform the reader that he composed the Nagarasarvasva after
the repeated requests of a Brahman friend by the name of Vasudeva, who was
learned in the arts. Though we may surmise that Vasudeva was a Hindu and a
Vais: n: ava, Padmasr was neither. It is clear from the opening verse, which has a
praise invocation to Manjusr, as well as other passages in the text, that Padmasr
was a Buddhist.8 While some scholars have contended that Padmasr was a monk,
Lienhard, building on his hypothesis of Padmasrs Nepali origin, has suggested that
he may have been a non-celibate Nepali vajracarya.9 Whatever the case, Padmasr
takes his place in an established tradition of men formally committed in some
capacity to renunciate orders who also wrote or compiled works on the most
worldly of subjects. Padmasr himself, in his chapter on jewels, may have relied
heavily on one such sourceas the first extant treatise on the subject of gems and
jewels in early India, the Ratnaparks: a, was composed by the Buddhist Buddhabhat::ta.10 In any event, celibacy would hardly preclude a monk from writing on
the subject of erotics. Vatsyayana himself claims to have written the Kamasutra in
a state of chastity, for the sake those pursuing a worldly life (lokayatra).11 Padmasr is even more emphatic, stressing that his work was written from compassion,
in order to help mankind pursue the goals of the trivarga.12
Among later kamasastra works, the Ratirahasya of Kokkoka and Padmasrs
_
Nagarasarvasva have been considered the earliest, with Yasodharas Jayamangala

(the most well-known commentary on the Kamasutra) and Jyotirsvaras Pancasayaka following slightly later.13 The chronology of these works is uncertain. Like
the Nagarasarvasva, the date of the Ratirahasya remains elusive, though we know
7

See Lienhard (1979, p. 99), commenting on NS 20.11. More compelling than Lienhards claim that this
verse shows an extraordinarily positive judgement for the women of Nepal, Kamarupa and Cna
_
(compare with the equally positive remarks about women from Simhala
NS 20.4) is his point, noted in a
footnote, that the Nagarasarvasva seems to be the first text to introduce Nepala and Cna as regions in
this conventionalised feature of kamasastra. As Lienhard points out, the Kamasutra includes neither
Kamarupa, Nepala nor Cna, while the Ratirahasya mentions only Kamarupa. The Smaradpika, a text
which otherwise seems to borrow from the NS, on the other hand, mentions Kamarupa and Nepala
(though not Cna). A tentative conclusion would be that the Nagarasarvasva is the first text to introduce
the northeastern regions of Nepal (Nepala) and Tibet (Cna) to the genre convention of describing the sex
practices of the regions, a point which may (or may not) suggest a Nepali origin for Padmasr.
8

NS 1.1, a pun in the verse also allows it to be dedicated to Kamadeva, who is otherwise identified with
Manjusr in Mahayana Buddhism. Later in the text, in connection with actions to be performed by the
man desiring the birth of a son, Padmasr recommends first the worship (puja) of Tara, showing a
preference for Buddhism, but also provides an alternative ritual for the trthika, a decidedly Buddhist
term for a non-Buddhist, NS 38.611.

Lienhard (1979, p. 99). For earlier interpretations, see Shastri, (19011905 vol. 1, p. 11).

10

See the remarks of McHugh in this volume and also Finot (1896, pp. ixx). Though the study of jewels
formed one of the auxiliary knowledge to be mastered by the nagaraka according to Vatsyayana (KS
1.3.15) it is notable that the Nagarasarvasva is the only kamasastra to include a chapter on the subject.
11

KS 7.2.57 His commentator glosses this as for the sake of the conduct of the householder.

12

NS 1.8110.

13

_
Raghavan (1942, p. 167; 1978, pp. 639643) argued that the Jayamangala
should be dated before the
reign of Bhoja of Dhara (10131055) whose list of sixty-four supporting arts conformed closer to
Yasodharas commentary than to Vatsyayanas list at KS 1.3.16. This dating has generally not been
accepted because of clearer external evidence for the dating of Yasodhara to the thirteenth century.

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that it too was used by commentators beginning in the thirteenth century (including
Yasodhara, who seems to cite a verse from it).14 The relative dating of the Ratirahasya and Nagarasarvasva is difficult, and perhaps undecidable.15 The two texts
also mention substantially different authorities (See Appendix). The only writer
mentioned in both works is Vatsyayana; otherwise, they seem to draw from, or at
least acknowledge, different traditions. Padmasr refers to substantially fewer
authorities than Kokkoka and mentions none of the more commonly cited names
which appear in the tradition from as early as Vatsyayana, like Babhravya,
Gon: akiputra and Nandikesvara. The most frequently cited authority in the
Nagarasarvasva is Mahesvara, whose work does not seem to form part of subsequent kamasastra textual traditions.16 Given this variance, it is tempting to see
the Nagarasarvasva as part of a distinct tradition of knowledge on the subject. Yet
the text itself, despite a number distinctive features, shares much in common with
both the Ratirahasya and the bulk of later kamasastra traditions. And later authors
like Mnanatha (fourteenth century) and Anantakavi (fifteenth century) draw freely
from both works.17
The genealogy of authorities in different texts needs, of course, to be correlated
with an extended analysis of what might be called the core content of the
kamasastra tradition, particularly the enumeration and nomenclature of different
types of kissing, embracing, biting, nail-marking, and coital positions. This is too
large a task to be taken up in this essay, and remains a desideratum, though the
initial work done in this direction in the topical sections of Schmidts Beitrage will
remain an important source for such a study. Comforts assertion, based on his
reading of Schmidt, that kamasastra texts fall into three literary pedigrees by their
contentone group consisting of the Kamasutra and its later verse rendition, the
_
_
Kandarpacud: aman: ; another by the Pancasayaka, Anangara
nga
and Ratirahasya; and a final group consisting of Smaradpika and Ratimanjarhas limited
14
_
RR 3.8 would seem to be cited in the Jayamangala
at KS 2.1.20but no authorial ascription is given
and both may be quoting a prior source. For other citations, see Schmidt (1922, p. 67) and Lienhard
(1960, p. 19), who maintain the thirteenth century as a lower date for the RR. Other scholars have placed
_
the text much earlier. Raghavan (1943, p. 72) on the basis of his dating of the Jayamangala
(see footnote
14) and on an apparent reference to the text in Somadevasuris tenth-century Yasastilaka, and Upadhyaya
(1981, pp. 810; followed by Mylius 2009, pp. 1314) by a reference to the word kokkoka in the same
authors Ntivakyamr: ta (25.1625.17), date the text to the ninth or tenth century. References in the works
of Somadevasuri, however, are ambiguous (in the case of Raghavan) and incorrect (in the case of
Upadhyaya and Mylius).
15
Lienhard (1979, p. 100) contends that Padmasr names the RR as one of his authorities in NS 38.16.
Here he follows the 1929 Calcutta edition, which reads prathamamuditamasmin vks: ya siddhai_ paramaratirahasyam. But Tanusukharam Sharmas edition, superior in its critical apparatus,
kavram
_ paramamatirahasyam, with one manuscript
reads prathamamuditamasmin vks: ya siddhaikavram
having the variant . . . vramaparamatirahasyam . . . It is thus not possible, then, to secure an earlier date
for the RR based on evidence in the NS.
16
Save two possible references in PS 1.2 and 4.56. The twentieth-century Tibetan writer Gedun Chopel
composed a kamasastra based in part on Sanskrit sources, one of which was the chags paii bstan bcos
(ragasastra?) by one Mahesvara, who may be the same as Padmasrs source (Hopkins 1992, p. 36).
17

It is moreover significant that the teachings of the NS borrowed by these anthologies are not in any
way unique to Padmasr, but are shared by the RR and PS, most notably verses dealing with dividing
women by age (NS 16.1 ff.). For NS verses in the SmD of Mnanatha, see Sharma (1921, Appendix
gha); in the Kamasamuha, see Pathak (2008, pp. 254266).

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45

value, not being nuanced enough to account for the multiple overlappings and
distinctions within and between these pedigrees.18
This essay will focus on broader changes in the genre through a comparison of a
single text, the Nagarsarvasva, with other treatises produced before 1500. It will
examine aspects of the text shared with other treatisesincluding the categorization
of lovers, physiological understandings of sexual pleasure, the use of mantras and
allied knowledges for special purposes, and procreative sexas well as topics
_ rasastra
which seem to be unique to the Nagarasarvasva, like the use of alamka
concepts, the incorporation of knowledge on gems and perfumes, and the use of
signs and sign language. For the sake of presentation, the discussion may be
organised under two more or less broad axes of concernknowledges of the body
and aesthetics.

Sex and Knowledges of the Body

Perhaps the most salient of feature of later kamasastra texts, as Desmond (in this
volume) has shown, is the introduction of new categories and criteria for the
classification of lovers, particularly women (nayikabheda). The early kamasastra
division of men and women into six animal types, based on the size or depth of their
sexual organs came to be supplemented by later writers in important ways. The
discourse expanded in both its formal categories and descriptive topoi. Many later
treatises augmented Vatsyayanas basic model by introducing supplementary or
replacement schema to the original six-fold division. Most notable among these new
schema was the fourfold division of women into padmin (lotus woman), citrin:
_
(many talented woman), sankhin
(conch-shell woman) and hastin (sheelephant), first introduced in Kokkokas Ratirahasya alongside Vatsyayanas
scheme, but gradually overshadowing it in later kamasastra.19 Though absent in the
Nagarasarvasva, which retains the older enumeration of Vatsyayana (potential
evidence of its chronological priority to the Ratirahasya), what unites most later
kamasastric classifications of lovers (including the enumeration in the Nagarasarvasva), is an expanded set of topoi forming the criteria for the major classifications. So, for example, while Vatsyayana describes only the genital size of the male
lover known as the hare, or sasa, Padmasr tells us, among other things, that he is a
beautiful, joyful and well-spoken man with even teeth, a wide face, compact fingers,
thin extremities, and with copious and fragrant semen.20 Overall, what we see is a
gradual expansion of the diagnostic features of nayikabhedaincluding information like vaginal shape, sexual odor, body type, physiognomy, complexion, hair-type,
dressing style, eating habits, comportment, voice, and even ethical inclinations.
18

See Comfort (1964, p. 46).

19

See RR 1.101.19. The fifteenth-century Pancasayaka (1.61.9; 2.102.16) contains both the older,
three-type and newer, four-type divisions of women, but adds (unlike the Ratirahasya) a final category of
men (the stag, or mr: ga) to balance the genders, making a symmetrical eightfold scheme, and a number of
still later texts drop the six fold scheme altogether in favor of this eightfold typology. See, for example,
SmD 15, 24; also the Ratimanjar 39, 3538; Ratisastra 1751 and Ratiraman: a 3.43.31; 5.25.19.
20
NS 14.2; Cf. RR 3.313.32.

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The sources of these changes are difficult to determine. They do not seem to have
been based on entirely internal elaborations, not least because of their increasing
incommensurability with the older divisions of kamasastra.21 A similar proliferation of divisions of lovers is also found in Sanskrit (and later, Hindi)
_ rasastra, but the relationship between the two traditions is, despite a general
alamka
overlap of concern and vocabulary, rather surprisingly, somewhat weak.22 More
likely sources for the criteria deployed in such divisions are ayurveda and especially the heterogeneous knowledges of bodily prognostication, divination and
physiognomy that had been developing in India throughout the first millennium CE.
_ (first century AD) and Br: hatsamhita
_ (sixth century AD)
Texts like the Gargasamhita
combined astronomical knowledge with a wide range of materials relating to
physiognomy, divination, and sumptuaryand included chapters on the characteristics (laks: an: a) of men and women in the context of choosing partners suitable
for marriage.23 Vatsyayana and later kamasastra authors also make reference to
observing the marks of maidens (kanyalaks: an: a) in their advice to men in
choosing a virgin for a potential wife.24 But more than this, the types of characteristics enumerated for the basic divisions of lovers in later kamasastra seem to
_ , including
build upon the kinds of characteristics detailed in the Br: hatsamhita
bodily proportions, solidity and thickness of the limbs, physical compactness, skin
color and complexion, teeth, and even voice, walking style, and dispositionthough they often add elements which were specific to kamasastra.25 Padmasr, for example, describes bull (vr: s: a) type men as having a thick neck and a
graceful walk, reddish hands and feet, steady eyes with long eyelashes, a turtle-like

21

While the fourfold classification introduced in the RR was ostensibly distinct and separate from
Vatsyayanas more restrictive typology, and could thus theoretically function alongside it in complementarity, the scheme, over time, tended to interfere with the earlier categorization, revealing a profound
incommensurability, as Desmond has shown. The idea, presumed in the RR, that the schemes were
compatible is belied by the fact that numerous characteristics are shared by both, raising the question of
how they would articulate with one another. So the odor of vaginal secretion (termed variously suratapayas, smarambu, ratisalila, etc.) is given for female types in both schemes, suggesting, for example,
_
that a woman of the doe variety (having a depth of six angulas),
because her vaginal secretions smelled of
flowers, could only possibly be a padmin (whose fluid was to smell of the lotus), while a woman of the
mare variety, with her vaginal secretions having the scent of flesh (palala, or perhaps sesamum), could
not be included at all within the fourfold typology.
22
The PS (5.325.38) and SmD (178188) both include brief iterations of the eight nayikas known from
_ rasastra. While Vatsyayanas theriomorphic classifications of men and women are not taken up
alamka
_ rasastra, the eightfold theriomorphic scheme of later kamasastra works seems to
by writers in alamka
have been used by theorists in Hindi literature. See Rakesagupta (1967, pp. 3031; 139140).
23
_ and Br: hatsamhita
_ , see Pingree (1981, pp. 69
For a summary of the contents of the Gargasamhita
75).
24

Zysk (2002, pp. 1422) notes passages from the KS (3.1.13ff) and RR (11.1ff) which discuss the
choice of a potential bride, to which may be added SmD 126135 and PS 4.14.8 (which includes the
laks: anas of the bridegroom). This use of body divination becomes increasingly important with the
growing conjugal emphasis of post fifteenth-century kamasastra (or ratisastra, as Zysk mantains).
25
_ s relationship to kamasastra, as to other nascent fields of worldly knowledge like
The Br: hatsamhita
silpasastra, gandhasastra and vr: ks: ayurveda is complex and seems to partly overlap with it. Beyond the
topic of kanyalaks: an: a, it includes material related to conjugal relations and recipes for sexual performance, two topics greatly elaborated in later kamasastra literature.

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47

belly, a soft voice, very plump limbsthey are corpulent and prosperous and the
doe (mr: gin: ) type woman as being thin, dark, cool like a moon ray, with a graceful
walk, large teeth, slow speech, very thick hair, kapha constitution, small appetite, a
well-concealed forehead, a glossy complexion and lots of fragrance during sex.26
This sharing of characteristics would seem to indicate that physiognomic conceptions of the body were widely influential in numerous fields of knowledge in early
medieval India.
In addition to new divisions of lovers, the Nagarasarvasva and Ratirahasya also
introduce a conceptualization of bodily pleasure entirely absent in Vatsyayanas
Kamasutra. This doctrine, which Kokkoka attributes to the teachings of Gon: putraka and Nandikesvara, was widely accepted by later kamasastra writers, and came
to be known as the doctrine of candrakala, because of its association of parts of the
female body (as loci of excitement) with the phases of the monthly cycle of the
moon.27 Kamadeva was thought to dwell or arise in different parts of the body in
accordance with increments of the moons phases. According to the Nagarasarvasva, Kama moved gradually up the left side of the body from the toe
(padagra) (through the leg, thigh, uterus, abdomen, breast, palm, neck, lip cheek
eye, and ear) to the top of the head (srs: a) during the bright (waxing) half of the
moons cycle (suklapaks: a), upon which Kama pervaded her entire body for two
days, before moving from the head back downward to the toe during the dark half
(kr: s: n: apaks: a) of the cycle, residing at each locale for one phase.28 The lover was to
stimulate the region of the womans body made especially susceptible by Kamas
presence there by using his hands, mouth, or by contact with similar parts of his own
body.29 This had the effect of exciting, pleasing and moistening a womanin the
same way, according to Kokkoka, that a doll (putrika) made of moonstone oozed or
flowed at the touch of the moons rays.30
The crucial feature of this scheme, however, was that physical stimulation could
also be accompanied by a mantric visualization of efficacious syllables on the
relevant parts of the womans body. The Ratirahasya briefly recommends that the
lover direct, with his eyes, various vowels (matra) onto the womans body like
sparks from a fire.31 The Nagarasarasva elaborates in more detail. It would seem
that a different vocalic syllable, understood as a seed of Madana, resided on the
part of the body visited by Kama during each phase of the lunar cycle. A man was to

26

NS 14.3; 14.5.

27

RR 2.5.

28

See NS 17.117.3. The parts of the body differ somewhat in the RR (2.1), most notably, while
_ : :tha) to tip of the head (murdhan),
Kokkoka enumerates fifteen anatomical locales from the big toe (angus
Padmasr provides only 14, maintaining that on the fifteenth Kama resides in all parts of the body
(sarvasarradesa). For Padmasr a woman is susceptible over her entire body for two consecutive days
monthly at purn: ima.
29

NS 18.318.5; RR 2.2ff.

30

RR 2.3. The term majjanti is used for majjayanti here, which Kancinatha glosses, in accord with other
verses in the chapter, as dravayanti.
31
RR 2.42.6. According to Kokkoka, Nandikesvara and Gon: putraka differed in the number and place
of vowels to be visualized.

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stimulate the relevant syllable by visualizing it on his lovers body and adding a
candrabindu white like the autumn moon and shining like the sun.32 Such a
visualization caused sexual arousal and even complete satisfaction in a woman.33
Padmasr adds further mantras that involved the visualization/activation of other
syllables on the vagina and clitoris that were to be used before touching the
womans body or even for the purpose of deterring the advances of rival suitors.34
The theory of the stations of kama found in the Nagarasarvasva and
Ratirahasya was undergirded by a physiology of pleasure entirely absent in the
Kamasutra. Padmasr mentions an elaborate network of channels or tubular
conveynaces, called nad: or nad: ka, which acted as carriers (avaha) of pleasure
or arousal (mada) in the female body.35 He initially notes some 24 of these
channels, which seem to have connected the anatomical pleasure points governed by
the lunar cycle to the vagina, particularly the clitoris (madanatapatra, lit. loves
umbrella), described as the mouth or meeting point of all the nad: ikasyet in his
ensuing discussion he notes a number of discrete and consequential nad: s in the
female sexual organs.36 This physiology explained, among other things, how sexual
excitement in the erogenous zones of the body produced effects in the female organ,
most importantly, the emission of fluid. The idea was to stimulate the nad: s through
different means in order to excite the woman. Other texts like the Ratirahasya and
Pancasayaka, while containing little on the madananad: s around the body, discuss
in detail a number of nad: s or nad: cakra (groups or wheels of nad: s coming
together) which were asociated with various parts of the vulvatic organs.37 Padmasr
too enumerates smaller nad: s located in various parts of the vaginagood (sat)
and not good(asat) located on the left and right sides (respectively) of its surface,
unfortunate (durbhaga) and fortunate (subhaga) on the left and right slightly
further inside, and son-bearing (putr) and daughter-bearing (duhitr: n) on the left
_
and right sides of its interior. Stimulating (samcodana)
these nad: s during
32

NS 17.417.7.

33

Even without coital contact, according to Mahesvara, NS 17.8.

34

Most notably, the three syllable (tryaks: ara) and stimulation (ks: obhana) mantras, as well as a
visualization of a rival suitors name within the vagina of his beloved, together with seed syllables and the
like, in order to kill him, NS 18.1 ff.

35

NS (181.1). The texts seem to use nad: and its diminuitive nad: ka interchangeably. See for example
NS 18.4 ff. and RR 10.610.7.
36
Padmasr (NS 18.4ff) lists nad: s in the eyes (2), face (2), mouth (1), toes (2), ears (2), thighs (2), flanks
(2), lower back (1), and cranium (1), which together only constitute only 15. The elaboration here may be
an adumbration of the anatomical loci of the candrakala (17.1) which could, when totalled, constitute the
number 24: toe (2), leg (2), thigh (2), vagina (1), navel (1), abdomen (2), breast (2), palm (2), neck (1),
lips (2), cheek (2), eyes (2), ears (2), and head (1). Such an interpretation is not without its problems, not
least of which being that the mouth (tun: d: a), flanks (parsva) and lower back (trika) are not mentioned
among the bodily regions governed by the lunar cycle.
37

The RR (10.610.8) mentions the nad: s called the madanagamanadola (resembling a phallus, at the
centre of the vagina, giving forth the flow of the womans passion fluid) and purn: acandra (filled with
sexual fluid) along with an organ (nad: ?) called the manmathacchatra (=kamatapatra?, the clitoris, a
nose-like hood above the madanagamanadola) as being all controlled by a unnamed nad: cakra. The PS
(5.2 ff.) mentions three nad: s, each associated with different places and functions in the vagina. For a
detailed and learned discussion of these passages and others relating to the physiology of the female
procreatory organs, see Das (2003, pp. 409428).

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Padmasrs Nagarasarvasva and the World of Medieval Kamasastra

49

intercorse had various effects on different sorts of women, and could lead to varied
emotional and physical outcomes, not least of which was the birth of male, female,
and hermaphroditic embryos.38
The physiology of nad: s and their stimulation (nad: ks: obhana) connected
kamasastra to a vast world of contemporary thinking about the body. Theories of
nad: s were particularly widespread at the turn of the second millennium in South
Asia, and cut across a variety of literatures with specific physiological and meditational meanings, including yogic, tantric and medical. The history of these often
overlapping traditions and uses is extraordinarily complex.39 For the purpose at
hand it may suffice to note that though the kamasastric idea of the madananad: ka
seems not to be found in texts from these traditions, it does seem to approximate
those found in yogic/tantric and pulse-diagnostic medical traditions.40 This conception of nad: as a channel was not purely biological in the modern sensewhich is to say that while the nad: s of the Nagarasarvasva, Ratirahasya and other
texts had discernible physical form and physiological functions (that could be
manually excited), they were at the same time part of a more subtle physiology
governed by yogic principles and susceptible to the powers of mantra recitation and
seed syllable visualization.41 It would seem that the authors of kamasastra adapted
an important physiological idea circulating in their time to the specific needs of
understanding the body from the vantage points of sexual pleasure and reproduction.
We have already seen how in connection with the stations of Kamadeva
(kamasthana) and channels of pleasure (madananad: ka) the Nagarasarvasva
and Ratirahasya recommended not only manual stimulation but also the use of
mantras and visualization. Such practices were part of a more general rise in the
recourse to what may be called para-technologies relating to sex which were to be
deployed alongside (or sometimes in lieu of) the methods of beautification, courtship and sex as set out in the remainder of the tradition. The Kamasutra had
included such techniques in its final book under the category of aupanis: adika, or
esoterica, that were recommended to the man who could not fulfill his desires
through the methods laid down in the earlier chapters of his work. These included
both recipes and mantras for success in romance (subhagakaran: a) enabling
influence over others (vaskaran: a), creating virility (vr: s: yayoga), rekindling
exhausted passion (nas: :taragapratyanayana), increasing penis size (vardhanayoga)
and other unusual techniques (citrayoga).42 In the Ratirahasya and
Nagarasarvasva the prominence and diversity of such para-technologies (both herbal
38

See NS 19.1ff. Padmasr (NS 19.11) mentions another opinion that these nad: s were located elsewhere on the body. Compare the gender division of the womb (udara) in the context of producing
_ (78.24).
children, but without reference to nad: s, in the Br: hatsamhita

39

On the complex history of the rise of medicine based on diagnosis through nad: s, see Bruns (2009,
pp. 3997).
40
Notable in the case of Padmasrs 24 nad: s meeting in the clitoris, is the similar enumeration of 24
nad: s meeting in a tortoise at the navel in pulse diagnosis. See Bruns (2009, p. 6).
41
Padmasr suggests that the son-bearing channel (nad: ka putr) was connected to the solar/lunar
_
organisation of nad: s in the yogic body (yada suryen: a margen: a dehe vahati marutah: j samcodya
_ pascan mohanam acaret k NS 38.5).
nad: ikam putrm
42
See KS 7.1.1ff.

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D. Ali

and mantra based) were significantly expanded, as well as the range of phenomena
to which they related. The Ratirahasya devotes two substantial chapters to such
topics with an impressively wide ambit of concernfrom ensuring seduction,
increasing virility, controlling semen-flow, and inducing orgasms to removing body
hair, freshening the breath, winning friends and improving the voice.43 The
Nagarasarvasva too, in addition to its recommendations on seed syllable visualization, contains other chapters detailing erotic recipes and setting out mantras for
various ends.44 The source of such para-technologies for the kamasastra authors
was clearthey mention either general or specific tantric, agamic and ayurvedic
authorities.45 The development of para-technologies was widespread after the Gupta
period and traversed a wide variety of genres and knowledges. Technologies
relating to courtship and sex were key themes in this literature. Mahukas Haramekhala, a text cited by the Ratirahasya and discussed by McHugh (in this volume), contains a very large number of recipesboth facilitative and
injuriouswhich relate to sex and courtship, including recipes for the genitals, for
couples, intoxication and controlling others. This knowledge, cutting across
numerous fields, seems to have been widespread, and kamasastra borrowed from it
as much as later tantras and other fields.
One sphere which formed a growing concern in the para-technologies of later
kamasastra, was procreative sex and both the Nagarasarvasva and Ratirahasya
anticipate this development. Beyond its discussion of child-bearing nad: s, the
Nagarasarvasva contains an entire chapter on the subject of obtaining a son.46 In
it Padmasr draws on tantras from both the Buddhist and Saiva traditions, recommending a combination of ritual and efficacious actsgiving food to monks
(or brahmins), worshipping Tara (or some other god), reciting mantras, stimulating
the proper nad: , and taking herbal potions.47 The Ratirahasya, for its part, provides
a variety of recipes to facilitate conception, delivery, abortion, and the relief of
postnatal discomfort.48 These sorts of concerns were largely absent in the Kamasutra and became an increasingly important feature of kamasastra knowledge as it
evolved throughout the second millennium. It also might be the case that the
increased interest in topics like female vulvatic anatomy, female sexual fluids, and
methods of female sexual excitation (through the stimulation of the kamasthanas
and nad: s)all noted abovewere connected to concerns and debates about the
physiological basis for procreation. Rahul Peter Das has demonstrated that in a

43
See RR 14.1ff; 15.1ff; see also 1.23, above and beyond the mantra visualization on the kamasthanas
mentioned above RR. 2.4ff. See also PS 3.1ff.
44

NS 12.1ff; 38.1ff.

45

See RR 14.1 and NS 12.3; 38.16.

46

NS 38.2ff.
Padmasr (NS 38.16) claims to have consulted the Siddhaikavra and the very secret Kamatantra of
_
Sankara
in composing this chapter. A collection of Buddhist Vajrayana mantras under the title Siddhaikavramahatantra has recently been published by the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies
(1998), which contains a Tara mantra (2.35) nearly identical to that found at in NS 38.17. I thank Mattia
_
Salvini for discovering this reference. I have not been able to locate the Kamatantra of Sankara.
47

48

See RR 15.6015.83.

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Padmasrs Nagarasarvasva and the World of Medieval Kamasastra

51

number of medieval medical texts the assumption seems to have been that the
emission of female procreative fluid (presumably during orgasm) was deemed
necessary for conception.49 The Kamasutra alludes to such an understanding,
noting that the followers of Babhravya maintained that the embryo could not form
without a woman achieving orgasm (lit. bhava) during sexinterpreted by his
commentator Yasodhara as reference to the emission of female semen.50 Yasodharas onward discussion indicates, however, as Das has suggested, that there seems
to have been confusion and debate as to the origin and nature of this fluid among
scholars, and that the debate was largely conducted in ayurvedic circles.
Kenneth Zysk has argued that by the end of the sixteenth century a distinctive
science by the name of ratisastra, primarily oriented around conjugal love and
procreation, had emerged from the tradition of kamasastra.51 While this distinction
is far from clear within the tradition itself, Zysk is surely correct to draw our
attention to the preoccupation of some treatises with conjugality and procreation.52
The emphasis on reproductive sex seems to have been closely related to the
incorporation of material from the physiognomic, astronomical and medical
knowledges.

Aesthetics and Representation

A distinctive feature of the Nagarasarvasva is its relationship with courtly aesthetics and covert systems of signification. The connection between erotics more
generally and the world of the court had been constitutive from the beginning of the
extant kamasastra tradition. Vatsyayanas Kamasutra, as is well-known, famously
addressed itself to the nagaraka, whose lifestyle, associates, accomplishments and
pastimes, as set out in its first book (on generalities, sadharan: a) bore a distinctively courtly idiom.53 Early medieval court poetry, conversely, borrowed heavily
from conventions of courtship detailed in kamasastra. Overall, the world of the
49
50

See the extended discussion of Das (2003, 368ff.)

KS 2.1.18, and comm. I thank Laura Desmond for drawing Yasodhras discussion to my attention.

51

Zysk (2002, pp. 912).

Most later kamasastric texts and their commentators use ratisastra and kamasastra generically,
imprecisely and even interchangeably. The RR (1.6,8), for example, a text that Zysk places in the
kamasastra tradition, uses kamasastra and ratitantra to denote one and the same field of knowledge,
sees itself as a continuation of Vatsyayanasastra but calls itself the Ratirahasya, or Secrets of Sexual
Pleasure. Jayadevas fifteenth-century Ratimanjar (2, 5859), another text of the kamasastra tradition,
calls itself a ratisastra (58, 59) but also claims to be distillation of the essence of kamasastra and
ratisastra (2). Padmasr makes it clear that he presents a distillation of kamasastra (NS 30.15; 11.1; esp.
1.2) but uses the term ratisastra throughout to denote the same knowledge tradition (15.10; 38.17).
Jagajjyotirmallas seventeenth-century commentary glosses Padmasrs use of ratisastratattvajna as
kamasastrajna. The distinctiveness of the texts Zysk takes up, the Ratisastra and Ratiraman: a, lies
primarily in their extensive adoption of large amounts of ayurvedic, physiognomic (samudrikasastra)
knowledge, as well as particular features like bed types for the different nayikas. These texts are no doubt
remarkable in this respect, but perhaps not enough to warrant classification as a separate genre. We have
seen in any event that the nayikabheda of later kamasastra seems to draw implicitly upon physiognomic
knowledge.
52

53

See Ali (2004, pp. 7477).

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nagaraka depicted in the Kamasutra fit well with the everyday practices and
aesthetic registers of early Indian court life. The Nagarasarvasva extends this link
with courtly mores in two ways. First, it includes chapters on material commodities
and sign systems that formed major foci of aesthetic delectation at courtthese
knowledges, briefly indicated as supporting arts of love in the Kamasutra, are
openly included within the ambit of the Nagarasarvasva. Second, Padmasr also
engages substantially with formalized literary aesthetics in a way unparalleled in the
history of kamasastra. While the use of kamasastra by literary theorists was formally sanctioned, diverse and widespread, the reverse was not necessarily so.54
After a brief chapter describing the decoration of the body and house of the
nagaraka in terms reminiscent of Vatsyayanas more extended treatment of the
subject in the opening book of the Kamasutra, Padmasr takes up two subjects not
treated in any other kamasastrathe examination of gems (ratnapars: ka) and the
preparation of perfumes (gandhadhikara). While these two subjects appeared
_
among the sixty-four supporting arts (angavidya
/kala) to be mastered by the ideal
lover, according to the Kamasutra, as knowledges they remained largely discrete
from kamasastra. Yet, as McHugh has pointed out, with the growth of cosmopolitan courtly culture in early medieval India and the informed consumption of
luxury commodities that went with it, knowledge of gemstones and perfumery
gained increasing prominence as sciences in themselves and were incorporated into
a range of other discourses, from Puran: as to sumptuary and astrological manuals.55
As we have mentioned, Padmasr likely drew heavily on the tradition of ratnasastra
as it had developed throughout the first millennium in South Asia. The relevance of
gems to the domain of kamaas objects which possessed both decorative beauty
and potentially special powersis simply assumed by Padmasr. His treatment is
self avowedly adumbrated, providing only general remarks on how the best of
gems may cause good or bad and briefly describing their excellences and flaws.56
In the case of scents, Padmasr emphasizes that smells form the major elictors of
sexual arousal (madanapradpaka) and recommends a lovers diligent training in
this field. He goes on to cite the as yet unknown authority of Lokesvara, providing a
brief survey of a variety of perfuming techniques including ointments powders and
incense to be used both for ones body (hair, armpit, mouth and face) as well as
objects and substances (water, air, and betelnut).
Also partly related to material culture is the Nagarasarvasvas elaborate treat_
ment of hints or sanketa,
which extends over a number of chapters in the work.
_
The term sanketa refers to an indicatory sign, mark or hint, an agreed assignation,
_ rasastra, an ppointment made between lovers.57 Padand by extension, in alamka
54

For recommenations that the poet be familiar with kamasastra, see Kavyalam
: kara-Sutra-Vr: tti 1.3.8
1.3.9, 11. Patel (in this volume) shows how kamasastra categories were put to further use in the emic
conceptualizations of the Sanskrit literary canon among commentators and critics.

55

See McHugh (in this volume).

56

NS 3.7.

57

_
_
Conventions of kavya understand sanketa
as an engagement or tryst (sanketa),
particularly one
attended by the abhisarikanayika or heroine going out [to meet her lover]. See Amarakosa (2.6.10):
_
_ sabhisarika. This sense is noted in numerous scholarly contexts, i.e.
kantarthin tu ya yati sanketa
m
_ a 16.12.
Kavyaprakasa 1.3+ and Mallinatha on Raghuvams

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53

masr conceives of it in the former sense, as a covert agreed upon sign used by a
woman (or, presumably, a man communicating with her), to indicate information
_
about a secret meeting. Padmasr enumerates several types of sanketassigns
from
_
oblique speech (vakrabhas: a) bodily gestures (angamudra),
bundles (pot:ali), garments (vastra), flowers (pus: pa) and betel (tambula). The range of material domains
presented by Padmasr would seem to resemble that of the divinatory knowledges of
_ and its successor texts. The main difference, of course, is that the
the Br: hatsamhita
_
sanketas
in the Nagarasarvasva are instruments of human agency, not its limitsthey were to be used by individuals to secretly communicate with one another.
This is most clear in Padmasrs presentation of a range of everyday words whose
usual denotative meanings were unconnected to their tryst-related assignations. So
fruit (phala) was to indicate a man, flower (pus: pa) a woman, pomegranate
_
(dad: ima) someone twice-born, jackfruit (panasa) a ks: atriya, sprout (ankura)
questioning about ones family, plantain fruit (kadalja phala) a vaisya, mango
(amra) a sudra, moon in the second digit (dvityendu) a kings son, clouds shade
_
_
(ghanacchaya) the kings son, while words like sankha,
mahasankha,
padma,
mahapadma, rama, virama, pravara, and pratyus: a were assigned the various
watches in the night, presumably for arranging meetings.58 Non-verbal gestures
included touching various parts of the body (ears, head, breasts, hair) to indicate
greetings and degrees of passion, as well as a very elaborate set of assignations for
the fingers and hands relating to the time and place of a meeting. If gestures with the
fingers and hands indicated availability for meeting, touching the fingers themselves
and their joint lines (rekha) indicated, respectively, the cardinal directions and days
of the lunar monthonce again, presumably for the purpose of arranging clandestine meetings.59 The colors and tears of garments (vastra) and the strings of
flower garlands were to indicate degrees of passion. Perhaps the most interesting of
_
the sanketas
are those relating to bundles (pot:al) and betel-leaf rolls (bit:aka).
The meanings of betel-leaf rolls varied depending on their ingredients and the
different shapes into which they were folded (a betel leaf roll with no areca nut
[puga] indicated displeasure!) , while bundles (wrapped in red thread and sealed
with beeswax), differed depending on the precious substances they contained.60
_
At one level Padmasrs overview of sanketa,
like other chapters of the
Nagarasarvasva, depicts a world where familiarity with sumptuous material goods
was deemed to be an integral support of sexual pleasurea presentation entirely
consistent with Vatsyayanas account of the lifestyle of the nagaraka. And, the
more elaborated material world of the Nagarasarvasva is reminiscent of contemporary medieval encyclopedia and sumptuary manuals like the Manasollasa, perhaps even the closely related prognosticatory literatures which divided the world

58

NS 5.45.5, 1011. The last of these words, daybreak (pratyus: a) perhaps too openly indicates the
final watch of the evening, to which it is assigned. Some words had connotative connections to their
_ a), while an
assigned meaning. Summoning, for example, was to be indicated by the word goad (ankus
obstacle to meeting by the word wall (prakara), NS 5.9.
59

NS 6.1ff.

60

NS 7.1ff; 9.1ff.

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D. Ali

into vast signifying minutiae. Yet such sources bear only a superficial intersection
_
with the theory of sanketa
as set out by Padmasr. The problem is made more
astra),
_
intruiging by Padmasrs reference to a discrete science of signs (sanketas
though no such treatises seem to have survived.61
The conceptual and practical background of the Nagarasarasvas treatment of
_
sanketa,
however, is probably neither sumptuary nor prognosticatory, but religious.
In the Buddhist context, which Padmasr was probably familiar with, similar sign
systems were most frequently encountered in texts called the yogintantras, dating
from the eighth century CE. Such signs were referred to by the general term choma,
and were used by initiates in connection with arranging secret feasts and ritual
gatherings.62 They involved both gestures and speech. In the Hevajra Tantra, hand
gestures were used as signs of recognition among initiates. Secret speech, known in
the Buddhist tantric materials as sandhyabhas: a or coded language, relied on a
system of apparently arbitrary equivalences in the manner we have seen in the
Nagarasarvasva. According to the Hevajra sandlewood (malayaja) referred to a
meeting and small drum (d: in: d: ima) an untouchable.63 Like the treatment of
_
sanketas
in the Nagarasaravasva, the system of choma and sandhyabhas: a allowed tantric practitioners to indicate the details of secret meetings, and even refer
to substances used in antinomian ritualsemen, human flesh, and urine, and alcohol
were among the objects one could indicate covertly through the use of sandhyabhas: a. The connection is perhaps even closer, as the Hevajra Tantra understands
this coded language as consisting of what it calls conventional signs or
_
samayasanketaand
here we have a usage largely identical to that in the
Nagarasarvasva.64 The range of gestures and words, as well as their specific
equivalences, differed in the Nagarasarvasva and yogintantras. Their ends, too,
were obviously distinct. Though the romantic tryst and tantric ritual both shared
secrecy, the former was entirely devoid of antinomian or transgressive elements,
and its goal was sexual pleasure, not spiritual transformation. Though one might
expect tantric practices to build upon or transform already existing norms and
conventionsas seems to be the case in the Can: d: amaharos: an: as enumeration of
different coital positions (bandhas) in its description of the yogin and yogins
ritual sex65in this case the Nagarasarvasva, where there exists no kamasastric
_
precedent for the system of sanketas,
the case would seem to be the reverse: where
tantric ritual practice is adapted for conventional, worldly ends.
Beyond what seem to be clear links with esoteric Buddhism, the Nagara_
sarvasvas use of sanketa
may also have been closely connected with established
(but not particularly well understood) traditions of oblique signification at court.
61

NS 5.2.

62

See the Hevajra Tantra 1.7.1ff.; 2.3.552.3.67. See also the very useful discussion of Davidson (2002,
pp. 262269), who notes that choma is a late middle-Indic word related to the Sanskrit chadman, deceit
or covering.
63

Hevajra Tantra 2.3.56, 58.

64

Hevajra Tantra 2.3.55.

65

See the Can: d: amaharos: an: a Tantra 6.180ff. for a list of bandhas. Though likely inspired by
kamasastric discourse, most of the names in the Can: d: amaharos: an: a cannot be traced to the nomenclature of any specific kamasastra text.

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55

Vatsyayana himself lists among the sixty four supporting arts of erotic pleasure the
ability to speak in sign language (aks: aramus: :tikakathana) and the understanding
languages made to seem foreign (mlecchitavikalpa), which Yasodhara notes were
for the purposes of secret advice (gud: havastumantran: artha).66 Padmasr claims
_
that knowing the assignations set out in his sanketa
chapters was of the utmost
importance, for it was not enough simply to be proficient in the artsone also had to
understand the secret signs used by women to arrange trysts. As he puts it, although
a man may be skilled in all the arts and have a host of virtues, urbane young women,
abounding in good qualities, will cast him away like a faded flower if he does not
understand their hints.67 Though it is difficult to imagine that the inditement of the
particular significatory equivalences found in the Nagarasarvasva made them very
useful, Padmasrs account (and his admonishment) makes clear how such codes
functionedas a set of agreed assignations hidden behind normal communicative
convention. They were, to extend Padmasrs characterization of speech hints,
indirect (vakra) signs.68 Beyond presupposing a certain hierarchy of knowledge,
one wonders to what extent such systems of indirection may themselves have been
implicated in the production of desire and the excitation of pleasure.
The most intriguing link with aesthetics in the Nagarasarvasva is Padmasrs
discussion of the term havaunderstood as a captivating action or disposition
exhibited by the nayika in courtship. No other extant kamasastra uses this term as a
category of analysis, and Padmasr here clearly draws upon what was an already
_ rasastra characterizing the alluring attitudes and
established tradition within alamka
_ rasastra writers, beginning with Bharata, tend to
actions of female lovers. Alamka
_ ras (ornaments), though other terms like ces: :ta (gesture,
call these modes alamka
_ races: :ta (gesture/behavior from love) are also known, and
behavior) or s:rnga
enumerate as many as 28 of them in some treatisesthough a stable core of about
20 seems to persist through the literature.69 Padmasr uses hava as a general term to
refer to some sixteen dispositions, but also uses it in a more restricted sense, as one
_ ra authors use the term in this latter
among the sixteen havas. All other alamka
acceptation. Otherwise, the list presented in the Nagarasarvasva seems to correspond most closely to that of the Na:tyasastra, and also to the Sahityadarpan: a.70
There are, however, a few differences which make Padmasr unique, and perhaps
indicate his reliance on other as yet unknown sources. Bharata and other authors
_ ras (=Padmasrs havas),
take bhava, hava and hela to be the first three alamka

66

KS 1.3.15 comm.
_ samastaih: gun: air asanketavida
_
_ hi kantam
_ / pramlananirmalyam ivkalakalapais ca yutam
m
otsr: janti gun: adhika nagarikas tarun: yah: // NS 5.15.2; see also 11.111.2. A common theme in later
anthologies contrasts the sophisticated ways of desirable women to the untutored approaches of country
suitors. See, for example, Suktimuktaval 87.6.

67

68

NS 5.3.

69

See Na:tyasastra 22.8ff; Rasakalika 40ff; Na:tyadarpan: a 4.28ff; Dasarupaka 2.30 ff; Sahityadarpan: a 3.93ff. At one point (NS 13.4) Padmasr equates hava with an action (ces: :ta) born of the
_ rabhavaja).
bhava of erotic love (sr: nga
70

NS 13.313.4.

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D. Ali

defining them as increments of one and the same phenomenon: bhava is a state
either in the sense of an inner feeling of love usually with some sort of physical
dimension; hava is bhava when the latter becomes first apparent; and hela is its full
_
_ ras, to
manifestation. These are often considered to be body-born (angaja)
alamka
be distinguished from the others, often called natural (svabhavaja) and/or
spontaneous (ayatnaja)but there is no unequivocal consensus on this point
_ rasastra authors. The crucial point is thus a continuity in the expeamong alamka
_ rasastra
rience and manifestation of physical and behavioral states in the alamka
tradition. In the Nagarasarvasva, however, bhava is excluded from the list of
sixteen havas, instead forming its basis. Padmasr begins with the position that
bhava can be pure, impure or mixed, and that pure bhavas may be further subdivided into mild, intense or very intense. And it is from these pure bhavas, of
_ ra) that the behaviors
varying intensities, particularly the bhava of erotic love (sr: nga
(ces: :ta) known as havas are born.71 Padmasr conceives of bhava, in other words, as
a precondition for the emergence of the havas. The separation of bhava from the
expression of the havas would seem to open the possibility of a strong distinction
between a prior causative physical state (bhava) and a subsequent behavioral
consequent, but Padmasr is not forthcoming on this point.72
Padmasr provides each hava with a short definition and follows it with an
illustrationtypically a brief description of a womans behavior or appearance,
sometimes in a dramatic scenario, and often followed by a brief comment. Here are
Padmasrs verses on viks: epa and vikr: ta.
The occurrence of various changes in a woman, like her clothing becoming
disheveled, is called viks: epa by the great sages, from Kapila onwards.
For instanceshe tightens her coiffure half-way, wrongly places an incomplete head mark, applies black collyrium to only one eye, ties her jewel girdle,
sounding with bells, on her chest, drapes a half-pearl necklace on her arms,
and bears a trace of betel juice at the edge of her lower lip.
When a woman, in such a state of viks: epa, holds up her thigh garment with
effort, it steals the heart.
When doe-eyed women say certain things to lovers, even knowing they
shouldnt be said, it is called vikr: ta.

71

NS 13.113.4.
_
Indeed, Simhabhu
palas fourteenth-century Rasarn: avasudhakara (1.3221.323) considers all of these
behaviors consequents (anubhavas), but nevertheless lists bhava amongst them! Abhinavaguptas
commentary on the Na:tyasastra (22.6 comm.) distinguishes between the use of bhava in Chap. 22 on the
_ ras as a purely physical state and bhava in chapters seven and eight as a pervasive internal state.
alamka

72

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Padmasrs Nagarasarvasva and the World of Medieval Kamasastra

57

As inWhats this thing on your neck? Darling, its an anklet! This band
used to be an ornament for someones foot. Such words, uttered by a doeeyed woman who knows better but ignores that they should not be said, is
vikr: ta, and increases ones interest.73
Such descriptions are remarkable, and bear testatment to the complex interrelation
_ rasastra. Here, rather remarkably, the Nagarasarvasva
of kama and alamka
apparently takes conventions generated within the field of literary theory as
descriptions of social realityat least as it imagines social reality to be.74 This is to
say that the purpose of Padmasrs discussion of the havas is not, like that of
_ rasastra, to set the conventions in the composition and appreciation of
alamka
poetry and drama, but for the real-life delectation of feminine charms on the part
of the male subject. We would seem to have here, in other words, an explicit
example of literary sensibilities shaping attitudes to courtship. This suggests several
points. First it hints at the existence of a much closer relationship between
_ rasastra and kamasastra than has been assumed, at least during the time of
alamka
the Nagarasarvasva. Nor was this a complete anomaly, as indicated by passages
from later works like the Pancasayaka and Kamasamuha. Moreover, and perhaps
more importantly, this indicates that not only was Padmasr clearly aware of the
_ rasastra tradition, but he was able to productively and creatively engage
alamka
_ rasastra styleby following his
with its categories. He even writes in the alamka
definitions by exemplars (dr: s: :tanta). This engagement is further underscored by the
fact that it is the section on the havas in the Nagarasarvasva that is most often cited
in later literary commentators. Raghavabhat:ta, the fifteenth-century commentator on
Kalidasas Abhijnanasakuntala, for example, cites Padmasrs definition of vilasa,
_
while the Sarngadharapaddhati
and Sahityadarpan: a simply borrow his definitions
without any remark.75

Concluding Remarks
Scholars studying the development of kamasastra, to the extent that the history of
the genre has been considered, have generally stressed two related but somewhat
antithetical trends in the evolution of the field after Vatsyayana. First, the broad,
humanistic and morally permissive vision of the early science, as embodied in the
73

_ : :thulavesamayo vikaro vividhah: striyah: j tam amananti viks: epam

_ munayah: kapiladayah: k
visams
_ baddhamuktam
_ tilakam asakalam
_ nyastavr: ttam
_ ca dhatte dr: s: :tav ekatra
tadyatha, dhammillam
_ ratnakancm j amsotks
_
_ : m
kalanjanam urasi ran: atkinkin
: iptarddhahara kramukarasakalamat_ padarases: adharanta kantaviks: epam ity adyayi harati mano yatnaruddhoruvasah: k avacyanam
_ jnanepi yadi bhas: an: am j nayakes: u mr: gaks: n: am
_ vikr: tam
_ tat prakrtitam k tadyatha kan: :the
rthanam
_ tatpadabhus: an: am ayam
_ valayas tadanm j ity adyavacyam
ka es: a tava vallabha nupuroyam
_ tanoti k
abhibhavya vaco mr: gaks: ya jnanepi tatvikr: tam utsukatam
NS 13.2113.24. In the latter two verses we have replaced the editors rendition with alternative readings
followed by the commentator.
74
_ rasastra in its use of the theory of the eight nayikas (see footnote
The PS also borrows from alamka
22 above).
75
_
Raghavabhat::ta on Abhijnanasakuntala 1.7; 2.23 and Sahityadarpan: a 3.101. The Sarngadha
rapaddhati (31523188) incorporates the entire chapter on the havas from the Nagarasarvasva.

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D. Ali

Kamasutra, was thought to be eclipsed in medieval times by a science whose

horizons were more dominated by magic and superstition, constrained by social
morality, and increasingly confined to conjugality. Second, and relatedly, the
holistic vision of the science itself as found in Vatsyayanas text is increasingly
deemed to shrink as external knowledges and paradigms impinge upon it. While
there may be partial truth to some of these claims, the overall picture presented is
problematic at a number of levels. The historical problem may rather be divided into
two related but distinct issues: first, the content or worldview of kamasastra, and
second, the organization of knowledge relating to kama.
As to the vision and content of kamasastra, part of the problem lies with the
original conceptualization of the science as embodied in the Kamasutra. The view
of this text as a holistic and humanistic treatment of human sexuality devoid of
morality is surely somewhat misplaced. Recent scholarship, (as well as Desmonds
essay in this volume), has argued that the Kamasutra operates with its own moral
constraintswhat might usefully be called an ethics of pleasure. From this perspective, Desmond rightly focuses on the question of subjectivity. While the
subject of kamasastra gradually changed over time, the texts studied here retain a
strong courtly basis, even as they show an increasing interest in procreative sex. The
very title of Padmasrs work, referring to the courtier/townsman (nagara) clearly
invokes a continuity with the worldview of the Kamasutra. This emphasis continued later as wellthe Smaradpika defines the nagaraka as having six qualities:
possessing urbane ornaments, wisdom, purity, eminence, skill at singing, and being
intent upon clever conversation.76 That courtly modes and paradigms continued to
inform the kamasastra tradition is evident not only from the material culture of
later kamasastra but also the persistent presence of ideas and categories from
_ rasastra in texts like the Nagarsarvasva, Pancasayaka, Smaradpika and
alamka
_ rasastric
Kamasamuha. For Padmasrs part, he clearly demonstrates that alamka
notions of feminine beauty were deemed practically useful for the world of social
reality envisioned through his text.
Such continuities must be juxtaposed to significant conceptual changes in the
field. The human body, particularly the female body, becomes a more complex and
variable entity, traversed by intricate webs of pleasure channels, subject to the
cycles of the moon, and bearing the marks and signs of the futureall of which tend
to make the sexual body as a vast template for collective and individual interpretation and manipulation through manual, medicinal and mantric para-technologies
that exceeded the procedures of traditional courtship and romance. While such a
change may be consistent with the growth of tantric, astronomical, and medical
ideas prevalent in elite and courtly contexts, a growing emphasis on conjugality and
procreation also characterizes later kamasastra, gradually in texts like the Ratirahasya and Nagarasarvasva, and more so in texts composed after 1500. These
concerns, largely absent in the Kamasutra, may point to the traditional anxieties of
dharmasastric injunction regarding the maintenance of social boundaries, the
reproduction of the patriarchal household, and the regulation of sexual norms in the
76

_ ca gayanah: j narmagos: :thpravis: :tas ca s: ad: gun: o nagaro

agramyaman: d: anah: prajnah: sucih: srmams
matah: k SmD 173.

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Padmasrs Nagarasarvasva and the World of Medieval Kamasastra

59

conjugal context, but it should be kept in mind that the conjugal and reproductive
themes of later kamasastra were neither totalizing nor ubiquitous, and existed
alongside extensive discourses in the genre which assumed the traditional independent nayikas or elided social context altogether. To date we have no textured
social history of domesticity in medieval India against which we can make sense of
these imbrications.
Finally, a word about the organization of knowledge in later kamasastra. Despite
the frequent acknowledgment of Vatsyayana, later kamasastras rarely replicate the
thematic structure of the Kamasutras with its seven-part organization into sections
_
on general topics (sadharan: a), sex (samprayoga),
maidens (kanya), wives
(bharya) other mens wives (paradarika), courtesans (vesya) and esoterica (aupanis: adika). The material is ordered in what would seem, at least from Vatsyayanas perspective, a largely inconsistent and haphazard fashion from treatise to
treatise. Other than the Nagarasarvasva, which contains a series of chapters on
topics broadly related to themes covered in the opening book of the Kamasutra on
the lifestyle of the nagaraka, the great majority of later treatises like the Ratirahasya, Pancasayaka, and Smaradpika dispense with Vatsyayanas section on
general topics altogether, beginning instead with the enumeration of male and female types, the foundation of the book on sex in the Kamasutra. Likewise, few
later kamasastra texts contain much material on courtesans.77 The overwhelming
thematic emphasis in these treatises seems to be on sex itself, beginning with the
discussion of types of lovers, but carrying on into the enumeration of styles and
types of kissing, biting, scratching, embracing and nail-marking, sexual positions,
and the like, with occasional chapters on wives, and often very substantial sections
throughout on para-technologies (esoterica). It is here that many of the new doctrines of the body discussed in this essay are to be found.
Overall, the impression one might glean from these developments is that of an
attenuated vision and concern within the later texts of the genre. This, however,
would be a hasty conclusion, for the topic of sex itself saw the introduction of
numerous new ideas and practices which effectively opened the genre outwards.
Innovation was very much the result of interactions with a wide variety of independent but allied knowledges, including perfumery, gemology, sign theory, poetics, astronomy, physiognomy, medicine, tantra and particularly para-technologies
of various kinds which cut across them all. Many of these fields had seen tremendous expansion during the latter half of the first millennium CE, exemplified in
some cases by their full or partial disaggregation from the earlier knowledge formations in which they had been embedded, to become independent and autonomous
sastras.78 A number of these had been included among the 64 supporting knowl_
edges (angavidya
) or arts (kala) recommended to the nagaraka in the Kamasutra. In the first generation of surviving kamasastras after Vatsyayana, the
apparent contraction of topical concern is counterbalanced by vast skein of con77

Courtesans remain a favourite theme in court poetry.

78

_
Notable once again is the diversity of subjects included in a relatively early text like the Br: hatsamhita
which while continuing to form part of encyclopedic genres, also becomes disaggregated into a host of
independent sastric knowledges.

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D. Ali

nections around courtship and the body which lead outward to the ever more
developed sciences of elite life.

Appendix I: Authorities Mentioned in Seleted Kamasastra Texts

Kamasutra
Auddalaki Svetaketu (1.1.9; 2.1.19; 2.1.31; 5.4.31; 6.6.34)
Nandin (1.1.8)
Babhravya (1.1.10; 1.3.17?;1.5.33; 2.1.34 ; 2.1.41; 2.2.5; 2.2.22; 2.6.21; 2.10.49;
3.2.3; 4.2.40; 5.4.32; 5.4.41; 5.6.47; 6.6.35; 7.2.6; 7.2.56)
5)
Dattaka (1.1.11; 6.2.55; 6.3.44)
4)
Carayan: a (1.1.12; 1.4.20; 1.5.22)
9)
Suvarn: anabha (1.1.13; 1.5.23; 2.2.23; 2.4.6; 2.5.34; 2.6.22; 2.8.7)
6)
Ghot:akamukha (1.1.14; 1.5.24; 3.1.3; 3.1.10; 3.2.17; 3.3.4; 3.4.29)
7)
Gonardya (1.1.15; 1.5.25; 4.1.4; 4.1.21; 4.2.36; 4.2.42)
8)
Gon: ikaputra (1.1.16; 1.5.5; 1.5.34; 5.1.4; 5.4.9; 5.4.33; 5.4.42; 5.6.45;)
10) Kucumara (1.1.17)
1)
2)
3)

Nagarasarvasva
1) Mahesvara (1.5; 1.9; 16.6; 16.15; 17.8 )
2) Vatsyayana (37.15)
3) Lokesvara on perfumes (4.2)
5) Siddhaikavra (38.16)
6) Kut::tanmata (37.16)
_
7) Kamatantra of Sankara
(38.16)
8) munndra, munayah: (multiple)
Ratirahasya
1)
Vatsyayana (1.9, 3.18, 11.18)
1)
Nandikesvara (2.5, 14.1)
2)
Gon: putraka (2.5)
3)
Munndra/Muninatha (multiple)
4)
Karn: suta (4.21)
5)
Muladeva (5.22)
6)
Gun: apataka (4.3, 4.7, 4.25)
7)
Nagarjuna (15.18)
8)
Sabdarn: avam (14.1)
9)
Haramekhala (14.1)
10) Ud: d: sa (14.1)
11) Hundred Yogavals (14.1)
_ s (14.1)
12) 3 vaidyakasamhita
13) various types of saivagama (14.1)
14) mun: ayah: (mulitple)

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Padmasrs Nagarasarvasva and the World of Medieval Kamasastra

61

Pancasayaka
1)
Manmathatantra of Isvara (1.3)
2)
Vatsyayana (1.3)
3)
Gon: putraka (1.3)
4)
Muladeva (1.3)
5)
Ba bhravyava kya mr: ta (1.3)
6)
Nandsvara (1.3)
7)
Rantideva (1.3; 3.36; 3.42)
8)
Ks: emendra (1.3)
9)
Bhojaraja (3.6)
10) Mahesa (4.56)
11) Candramauli (5.2)
12) munndra, kavndra, (multiple)

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