EROTIC LITERATURE OF THE INDE. - ITS RELIGIOUS ROLE AND POLITIQUE. - THE KAMA-SOUTRA OR THE ART TO LOVE OF VATSYAYANA.

We saw Brahmes introducing the most realistic eroticism into the cult, into the religion and into the books ( pounds ? ) which are a part of it integral, as Pouranas, Tantras, catechisms of Saktis, etc. They had used it, well before Buddha's coming, to captivate the subject populations and reunite them in their cause in their fights against Kchattrias. The Buddhism conquered India so completely as Brahmes almost everywhere was abandoned; most had to, to live, resort to all the professions that Manou allows them _dans the times of détresse_. But they had the obstinacy and the skill of hereditary aristocracies. People essentially practical and capable of the business ( cases ? ), jurists, financiers, administrators, diplomats, at the need soldiers and generals, strong, subtle dialecticians, polemicists without scruples, elegant, ingenious poets and sometimes full of brightness and genius, they made indispensable to the princes and to the big by the services which only they knew how to return them, and gained ( won ? ) their favour by the enjoyment ( approval ? ) of their spirit and their talents and by the flexibility of their character. At the same time as they developed in the masses the vichnouvisme or rather the religion of Krishna which the Buddha had condemned, they produced many remarkable works. They ennoblissaient by big epics and popularized by written legends the gods and the heroes. Remained the only heirs of the kind ( genre ? ) Aryan in India and possessing in the language sanscrite admirable one instrument for the poetry and the philosophy [ 3 ], they renewed everything: Hymns, epic poems, systems théosophiques, code of laws. It was a real revival. Kings, friends of the ancient ( former ? ) literature, held their yard of the Academies of pleasant ( kind ? ) poets and beautiful spirits which they hardly paid dearly. We improvised verses and until madrigals and epigrams there. Among these poets, we quote Kalidaça, the author of the drama so admired of _Çakountala_. Begun before the Christian era, this literary movement continued until the Moslem conquest. This literature of Brahmes pleased much more than soporific and cloudy metaphysical of the Buddhists. The favour of the princes helped them to crush their opponents. They finished winning her ( it ? ) by having for their custom ( usage ? ) and for that of it we would call the high society and the good company and for themselves, as regards the carnal pleasures, a morality of the easiest today. Rules were drawn by Vatsyayana in Kama-Soutra_ or treated ( handled ? ) with the love (art to like ( love ? )), which is considered as the masterpiece and the code on the Material ( Subject ? ).

[ Note 3: this extraordinary movement followed closely the invention and the adoption of the writing sanscrite which ( who ? ) were of use at the same moment to the Buddhism and to the brahmanique revival, as well as the discovery of the printing office favored the development of him ( it ? ) reformation and the Renaissance.]

This book must be connected with the brahmanique revival; he ( it ? ) was written during the fight between brahmes and Buddhists, because he ( it ? ) forbids to the wives to frequent _mendiantes bouddhistes_ (we know that the religious Buddhists were beggars).

India has several other hardly spread erotic books, most later ( posterior ? ) than Kama-Soutra ._ We get ourselves easily the following ones, written there sanscrit:

1 ° _Ratira hasya _, or the Secrets of the Amur, by the poet Koka. He ( it ? ) was translated in all the dialects of India and is hardly spread under the name of Koka-Shastra _; he ( it ? ) consists of 800 verses, forming ten chapters called Pachivédas. He ( it ? ) seems later ( posterior ? ) than Kama-Soutra_ and contains the definition of four classes of women: Padmini, Chitrini, Hastini and Sankini (see the appendix of the chapter II of the title I).

He indicates days and hours to which each of these feminine types is more particularly worn in the love. The author quotes papers which he consulted and which ( who ? ) did not reach until us.

2 ° _Les Five Cupid's darts _, by Djyotiricha, big poet and big musician; 600 verses, forming five chapters among which each carries ( wears ? ) the name of a flower which forms the arrow.

3 ° _Le Torch of the Amur _, by the famous poet Djayadéva, which boasts to have written on everything.

4 ° _La Doll of the Amur _, by the poet Thamoudatta, brahmane; three chapters.

5 ° _L'Anourga Anourga Rounga _, or the Theater of the Amur, called still: _Le Vessel on the Ocean of the Amur _, consisted by the poet Koullianmoull, towards the end of the XVth century. He ( it ? ) treats ( handles ? ) thirty three different subjects and gives 130 receipts or prescriptions _ad hoc_. Here are the main clauses:

1re Recipe to hasten the cramp of the woman;

2nd to delay that of the man;

3rd The aphrodisiac;

4th Means to shrink the yoni, to perfume it;

7th The art to depilate the body and the genitals;

8th Recipe to facilitate the monthly drainage of the woman;

9th to prevent the bleedings;

10th to cleanse and clean up the matrix;

11th to assure ( insure ? ) the enfantement and protect the pregnancy;

12th to prevent ( warn ? ) abortions;

13th to return the easy childbirth ( delivery ? ) and the quick liberation;

14th to limit the number of the children;

21th to make enlarge ( grow ? ) bosoms;

22nd to strengthen them and raise ( find ? ) them;

23rd, 24th, 25th to perfume the body; remove the strong smell of the perspiration; anoint the body after the bath;

26th to Perfume the breath, to remove the stench;

27th to provoke, charm, fascinate, subject the women and the men ( people ? );

28th Means to gain ( win ? ) and keep ( preserve ? ) the heart of her husband;

29th magic Eye drops to assure ( insure ? ) the love and the friendship;

30th Means to triumph over a rival;

31th Leak out and the other means to captivate;

32nd Incense to fascinate, fumigations inciting the génésique;

33rd Verse magic which ( who ? ) fascinate.

Etc. etc.

It is evident that this book teems with errors; in all probability, he says nothing which is acquired in the modern science.

_L'Art Art d' Aimer _, of Vatsyayana, distinguishes himself from all these papers by his ( her ? ) exclusively didactic character and his ( her ? ) shape. Each of its parts ( parties ? ) forms a catechism: catechism of the sexual relations under all the forms and the fleurtage for both sexes; catechism of the wives and the harem; of the seduction and the brokerage of love; and finally catechism of the courtesans. It is a precious historic document, because he ( it ? ) introduces us in a most intimate way to the customs of the Indian high society of time (approximately 2,000 years ago) and in the advices of pleasure and duplicity of Brahmes.

The curiosity which awakens the collection ( fund ? ) would be enough can be not to make support ( bear ? ) the aridity of the shape, if the reader was strictly limited to the lessons of Vatsyayana; to avoid this stumbling block we put following each of them, in an appendix in the chapter which contains her ( it ? ), equivalents or correspondents of the payenne morality who are in the poets, the only doctors in customs of the payenne antiquity; we also quoted some Indian poets and two fragments concerning the Chinese. We completed every appendix by the Iranian morality, is the Christian morality borrowed ( taken ? ) in it _Théologie morale_ of the father Gury, by restricting itself to a small number of goods ( articles ? ) accompanied sometimes with physiological information.

This link ( coming together ? ) of the different texts relating respectively to every subject, allows the reader to be made a relative very exact idea of three morality on every treated ( handled ? ) point.

The one that our reason prefers is obviously the Iranian morality socially the most advisable, the source of the purest pleasures and, by this very fact, maybe the biggest, because the heart enters it for a strong part.

The morality of the Paganism seduces us by its ease, by the art and the poetry which ( who ? ) accompany him ( it ? ); but, on second thought, we are struck by a superiority of _l'Art Art d' Aimer_ de Vatsyayana on that of the Latin poets. These sing only the sensual delight, the selfish pleasure, and often the unrefined dissoluteness of a youth been used to the brutality of camps. Vatsyayana gives for purpose to the efforts of the man the satisfaction of the woman. It is already, independently even of the reproduction, an altruistic point of view compared with the one in which took place the hard children of Romulus, such as depicted them to us Catulle, Tibulle and Juvénal. We know that this last one begins his ( her;its ? ) satyr on the women of his ( her;its ? ) time with the advice ( council ? ) to take a good-looking rather than a wife for whom it would be necessary to get tired sides. The philopédie ([Greek: philopaidia]) was more in honor in Rome than the marriage; she ( it ? ) was unknown in brahmanique India; Vatsyayana does not even mention it.

Another favors Indians on Romans, it was the outside propriety in reports ( connections ? ) between both sexes. The good castes of India ever knew nothing which ( who ? ) looks like the Roman orgy under the Caesars and the cynicism of Caligula.

In the antiquity, a loving intrigue was not a love affair. No more at the Indians than at Romans, we find in the love what we call the tenderness; it is the quite modern feeling there and that gives to our poets élégiaques, such as Parny, André Chénier, etc., a charm which do not have Latin. Progimlet is the only one who approaches the modern delicacy.

But the Roman hardness met itself to the gallantry. The young people Romans mistreated their mistresses ( teachers ? ). To the circus, we represented mythological scenes where the murder, the feigned, but very real point, got involved in the sometimes bestial love, and where often represented Tibère and Néron.

On the contrary, India obeys this rule: « do not strike a woman, even with a flower. »

We shall remind finally that, in India, the love is in the service of the religion, whereas in Rome the religion (the cult of Venus for example) was in the service of the love as the politics ( policy ? ).

The eroticism plays a big role in all the religious holidays ( name-days ? ) of the Hindus, it is for them the main charm there.

Such are the contrasts that our work highlights and they are not without interest for the science of the religions.