Both the words mukti and bhukti refer to conflicting ideals in the history of Indian civilization.
Pleasure, especially sexual pleasure (kama), has a long history as one of the four legitimate life objectives (purusdrtha), alongside dharma, wealth (artha), and liberation (moksa).
- While one of the most important books of tradition, the Bhagavad-gita, is almost quiet on the topic of kama, other literatures, most notably the kamasastra, of which the Kamasutra is the most renowned work, address it methodically and thoroughly.
- This literature celebrates sexual pleasure and, while it may appear mechanistic in comparison to Sanskrit erotic poetry and even sexist to modern Western sensibilities, it demonstrates the importance and legitimacy of sexual desire in classical Indian civilization prior to the rise of Islam and the arrival of puritanical colonialism.
- Traditionally, liberation was a transcending (visvottirna) condition attained by world renouncers via asceticism and celibacy; the reversal of the body's movement outwards towards the objects of desire.
- Sanskrit literature is full of stories of sages who are tempted by beautiful women, typically sent by gods like Indra who are afraid of the power generated by their abstinence and austerity, illustrating the conflict between cultural ideals and the difficulties of transcending earthly concerns.
The importance of the householder and the renouncer were emphasized by Dumont.
- While we may debate who is a householder and if the Brahman is closer to the renouncer than Dumont's 'man-in-the-world,' the distinction does hint to an ambiguity in Indian civilization.
- Part of the tantric worldview, especially in the more intellectual interpretations, is that freedom and the world affirming value of desire are not mutually exclusive, but that desire may be utilized to transcend desire.
The distinction between desire in broader Indian civilization and tantric traditions may be observed right here.
- Pleasure, the consequence of desire (the word kama may imply both 'pleasure' and 'desire'), is a goal in itself for the kamasastra.
- In this environment, sexual pleasure serves no purpose other than to satisfy itself.
- In contrast to the ideal and value of dharma, which places a great emphasis on producing offspring, the goal of kama is pleasure for its own reason.
- Kama is barren and, in this sense, a dharma transgressor.
- The aim is pleasure rather than progeny.
Although desire is often mentioned in Tantrism, it is different from tantric usage in the kamasastric meaning, however the lines between tantric and non-tantric kama have been blurred even within the tradition.
- Sexual desire was employed to create sexual fluids, power compounds, that were to be given to the deities of the mandala, in early tantric traditions of the extreme left.
- We also see the advocation of eating bodily waste products in these extreme writings, and one thinks of extreme Buddhist Tantras like the Candamaharosana-tantra, where waste products are to be swallowed as the diet 'eaten by all the Buddhas' without 'any mild distaste.'
- Through their transgressive usage in a ritual setting, all body products are believed to possess power.
Kama is only later in tantric traditions that it is considered as a method of transition to the deity's state.
- Thus, we see a transition from appeasing fierce and erotic deities via the 'sacrifice' of sexual ingredients to the ritual practice of sexual union as the transmutation of desire, with the sensation of coition believed to mirror or recapitulate Siva and Sakti's pleasure.
- We also have the use of intercourse to create sexual fluids, which are subsequently contracted back into the male partner in the vajroli mudra, which is an often complex ritual.
In each of these ways, kama differs from kama as defined by the kamasastra.
- The left kama is not a goal in itself in tantric traditions, but rather a means to an end; desire is utilized to transcend itself, much as a thorn may be removed by a thorn, or perfection is achieved by those things that would usually cause one to slip off the path, in the image of the Kulamava-tantra.
- And because of the strong connections between sensuality and mortality, Tantrism takes sexual desire even farther away from the kamasastras.
- Tantrism, displays a "barren eroticism."
- Indeed, the left's extreme antinomian behaviors cannot be seen as pleasurable; there are other times when promiscuity may occur, such as at festivals like Holi.
The difference between kama in the Tantras and kama in erotic science is conceptually obvious, with the former being teleological (the aim being power and/or liberation) and the latter being an end in itself, although there is some blurring of the line.
- The sexual images carved on the temple walls, renowned to gawking visitors and laughing kids, are a noteworthy aspect of medieval India's beautiful temples.
These sculptures have been seen as epitomizing 'tantric art,' but considering that 'tantric eroticism' is a different kind of 'tantric eroticism,' do these sculptures have any connection to tantric civilization, and if so, what might it be?
- This is a tough issue to answer, and many theories have been proposed, including that they are protective against demonic forces, that they mirror what happens in the skies, and that they are pictures of tantric ritual activities.
- Erotic sculpture is a frequent element of medieval and subsequent temples, and may still be seen on temples in the South, but little survives in the North, owing to temple destruction.
- The sculptures, according to Fred Hardy, are designed to keep demons away from the pristine sanctuary, serving as mirrors to reflect the demons' obscenity back on themselves.
- This idea was originally conveyed to him by locals in the temple's surroundings.
- This is a very reasonable theory, given that the world was filled with supernatural forces, both good and bad, and the temple was thought to be a pure dwelling of the god.
Indeed, the pantheons of deities that constitute the outside wall (avarana) of the primary deity's authority, especially the guardians of the directions and the guardians of the entrances, may be seen on temple façade.
- This atmosphere of mystical protection lends itself nicely to erotic art.
- However, no source supports this claim, and at least one text, the Silpa-prakasa, connects such sculptures to the kamasastra .
Furthermore, many of these sculptures exude tremendous elegance and beauty, and one would anticipate the grotesque to serve in this capacity rather than the beautiful.
- White, on the other hand, has claimed that there is a link between Tantrism and sexual temple sculpture's coital couples (maithunas), pointing out that there are remains of Yogini temples strewn throughout central India where Kaula rituals were conducted in the royal palaces.
- White claims that the maithunas on the walls of early temples most likely represent tantric rites since they seem to follow a pattern, using the Bheraghat Yogini temple in Orissa as an example.
Such representations survived for a brief period (White estimates little more than two hundred years), after which the maithuna motif was decontextualized from its ceremonial setting.
- To put it another way, erotic portrayals move from tantric sexuality representations, which indicate to the transcendence of sex as activity for its own purpose, to pictures of sex more in line with kamasastra.
- Whether these representations are connected to transgressive tantric practice or to kamasastra, it is unlikely that they are linked to 'fertility cults' in any manner other than a broad and generic sense.
This was obviously the case by the time of the Silpaprakasa, a book on temple building written between the ninth and twelfth centuries in Orissa by a tantric practitioner named Ramacandra Kulacara.
- The construction of a temple is described in this literature as portions of the deity's body, the deity being the foundational god Mahapurusa.
- It's worth noting that the book explicitly connects the temple to the concept of desire and the science of erotics, the kamasastra.
- According to the scripture, desire (kama) is the basis of the world, from which all things are created, and via desire, everything is reabsorbed into primordial matter (mulabhuta).
- Creation would be an illusion without Siva and Sakti.
There would be no life, birth, or death without the activity of desire (kamakriya).' 66 This is consistent with a prominent motif in Sanskrit literature, which places desire as the most essential purpose of existence.
Furthermore, the text connects maithuna couples to the kamasastra, stating that there should be no portrayals of sexual union (samghama) but only depictions of love play, since the kamasastra contains many different kinds of love play.
The reality of temple sculpture, on the other hand, contradicts this advice, since there are many instances of completely coital depictions on temple walls, including scenarios involving multiple performers.
- The 'orgy' sceneries on the slopes of Khajuraho or Konarak are against dharma standards, but they are not at odds with kamasastra, and some texts even include instances of 'orgiastic' devotion.
- What's more, maithuna couples are thus explicitly connected to the kamasastra, a major change in moving eroticism to an artistic setting.
- Eroticism is shorn of its ferocity and connection to death found in early tantric appeasing and taboo breaking with the erotic sculptures on temple walls.
- The portrayal of the body on temple walls is a representation of the body in a text-based idealized sensuality; an eroticism that revels in the flesh while pointing beyond it to a heavenly transcendence.
- The depiction of the flesh here is divinized and textualized in a manner that goes beyond transgression or protection.
Indeed, as other goddesses on temple facades are manifestations, such representations refer to the sexualized body as a manifestation of the deity: the temple is the deity's body and is not devoid of sexuality.
