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Literary Review
Reinventing pleasure
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In the tradition of reinvention and use of homegrown knowledge and traditions comes a new translation of Kamasutra by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar. A review by KALA KRISHNAN RAMESH, who also talks to Kakar.
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OUR times have been witness to the continued reinvention and use of "old" homegrown knowledge in the quest for better, happier, more balanced versions of ourselves and the lives we lead. We have been turning to gurus, to god men and women, to Ayurveda, yoga, astrology and more in this attempt, usually receiving instruction to banish negativity and excess and learn to look beyond ourselves and see that whole of which we are a part. Located here, kama, which we commonly translate as desire, is considered to be "negative", and, along with other negativities such as anger and greed, the cause of our miseries. But kama has another context — positive, bigger and happier — where it is given lofty status as one of the three main goals of human life, in company with artha (wealth) and dharma (religion). Artha, dharma and kama each had a full-blown science or shastra devoted to it and the three were held to be of equal importance. Indeed legend has it that kamashastra was the topic of the debate between Adi Shankaracharya and the wife of Mandanna Mishra during the former's journey across India, vanquishing its best scholars in debate and thus winning them over as disciples.
It is this kama that is the subject matter of Vastsyayana's Kamasutra, now in a tremendously readable (not any the less scholarly for that) English translation by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar.
The translation's readability comes as much from the clarity of the translated text, its original features — analysing how the woman is not always the object in the original text; exploring the genders perspective (women, homosexual, lesbian, persons of the "third nature") and keeping the commentary separate from the text — as from the general tone of light heartedness, oftentimes breaking into the most unexpectedly droll turns of phrase.
Doniger and Kakar have used the Sanskrit commentary of Yashodhara Indrapada (13th Century of this era) and the Hindi of Devadatta Shastri, published in 1964. They put together the text to translate (there being no critical edition of the Kamasutra) using the printed versions of Shastri and that of Sri Damodar Lal Goswami (1912).
This translation provides a fair amount of technical detail, in order to make the text readable — thus some pronouns have had to be expanded with a noun, sometimes taken from the text, some pronouns have had to be given referents; where a passage assumes a word carried over from the previous, they have been repeated. This and other details may sound minor, but the text and notes provide ample illustration of how these can be crucial in indicating gender, conveying the flavour of the text, in avoiding the moralistic tone and more.
The introduction also does a guided tour of the available translations and their merits and flaws, which is as entertaining as it is educative. Here we read of the gaffes in the (1883) translation of Sir Richard Burton (who "did for the Kamasutra what Max Muller did for the Rig Veda"). These run from mistranslating words — apacara as misconduct where it should be infidelity; in wrong word usage, such as putting the word "not" where none exists in the original text that reads, "... she scolds him with abusive language... " to the more serious faux pas of using the words lingam and yoni which Vatsyayana refrains throughout from doing.
Doniger and Kakar's translation has a glossary and index in addition to a detailed bibliography and end and footnotes as well as a 68-page introduction.
The introduction is a delight. It is not only thorough, but is filled with little gems like this footnote: "We are indebted to Sarah Engel for producing, as her project in the Radcliff Institute's summer publishing programme, a virtual publication of a mythical translation of the Kamasutra translation by Wendy Donigher, the blurbs of which were so persuasive that they inspired the production of this actual volume."
The introduction has virtually everything we want to know about the Kamasutra. Apart from the likely date of composition (sometime in the third century of the common era); the author (Vatsyayana Mallanaga); the genre (a shastra, both descriptive and prescriptive, occasionally proscriptive) and the commentaries, it also looks at other translations and at some length into the genders and psychology and culture in the Kamasutra. These sections are the most interesting parts of the introduction.
The first — the genders part — looks at such aspects as whether the ideal reader of the (original) text could be a woman, whether parts of the text reflect women's voices and whether both men and women are subjects in the Kamasutra.
Though the text takes on an official male voice (of Vatsyayana) and presents methods that deny that women's words truly represent their feelings and "inculcate what we now recognise as the rape mentality," it also "... often quotes women in direct speech, expressing views that men are advised to take seriously... surprisingly sympathetic to women." The Kamasutra expresses points of view clearly favourable to women, particularly in comparison with other texts of the time, like the Manu Smriti. But there is a word of caution here against going overboard: "Yet we must admit that we find these voices, carryings meanings that have value for us, only by transcending, if not completely disregarding the original context."
The section on psychology and culture in the Kamasutra, drafted by Kakar, has the gentle clarity that characterises his writing. He writes: "The Kamasutra's most valuable insight... is that pleasure needs to be cultivated, that in the realm of sex, nature requires culture." The Kamasutra may be viewed as a "psychological war of independence" waged as much to "rescue erotic pleasure from the crude purposefulness of sexual desire" as to "find a haven for the erotic from the ferocity of unchecked sexual desire." Kakar suggests that the later project would find many supporters, for "in today's post-moral world, the danger to erotic pleasure is less from the icy frost of morality than from the fierce heat of instinctual desire."
The introduction comes to a close with thoughts about how sections of the Kamasutra still ring true today and how some things never change!
The seven books of the Kamasutra — General Observations, Sex, Virgins, Wives, Other men's Wives, Courtesans and Erotic Esoterica — appear not only in full translation, but with the commentary of Yashodhara appended as well as foot and end notes and references. The numbers according to the older 64-section scheme are given in brackets though not used.
If at the end of this, one wants to ferret out flaws in Doniger and Kakar's version of the Kamasutra, two things come to mind. One is that the introduction is so absorbing that what follows may well seem a mite anti-climactic, and difficult to read!
The second would be that the illustrations do not project the understanding that "... the feeling-tone of the Kamasutra's eroticism is primarily one of lightness." For, they are rather pale and indistinct, the effect, one assumes, of bad reproduction, rather than inappropriate choice.
However, there is enough suspense, sex, and laugher in the introduction to make up for this; this translation certainly makes the Kamasutra come alive as a book on "the art of living."
SUDHIR KAKAR answers some questions on the Kamasutra translation:
How did Wendy Doniger and you get together on the Kamasutra translation? What were some of the highlights of working with Doniger?
I HAD worked with Wendy earlier. In 1992 we taught a seminar on Mysticism at the University of Chicago, where I was a visiting professor for one term each year from 1989 to 1992. We have been friends for a long time and when she told me that she was teaching the Kamasutra to her Sanskrit class, the idea of a new translation was born. It was a wonderful experience working with her, especially since I have always admired her prodigious erudition and sparkling wit.
What did you personally get out of studying the Kamasutra?
Personally, the study of the Kamasutra opened for me a window on our heritage, an ancient Hindu heritage very different from the one conveyed in most philosophical, historical and religious discourse. It gave glimpses of the social, cultural and yes, erotic life of a people who were energetic, life affirming, tolerant and surprisingly far in advance of their times as far as equality of women — at least in the sexual realm — was concerned. It made me proud of our ancestors and held out the hope that their ideal of a balance between Eros and spirituality may indeed once again become our own.
You say in the introduction that its "most valuable insight is that pleasure needs to be cultivated, that in the realm of sex, nature requires culture." Could such a viewpoint persuade people to choose a saner alternative than the sanitising out of the sexual that the saffron brigade advocates?
Yes, I think the Kamasutra is relevant to concerns around erotic life, both in India and the West. These concerns are different. In India, it is still largely the rescue of erotic pleasure from the confirming morality of fertility and reproduction, from the icy frost that threatens it from, what I hope, are the fringe elements of Hindu culture. In Europe and the U.S., where sexual excess and the so-called perversions have become the normal fare of television channels, video films and Internet sites, Kamasutra's project is the rescue of the erotic from the clutches of raw sexuality. Eros, that divine creation of human beings, is always in danger from both the moral and the instinctual.
The subject matter of your most recent writing is fascinating — Vatsyayana in Ascetic of Desire, Sri Ramakrishna in Ecstasy and now Kamasutra. It seems almost as if you are saying that sex and religion is what it's all about. How much of a role has your profession, your work with patients played in this choice of subject?
Twenty-five years of listening to the most intimate wishes and fears of my patients has certainly played a role in the choice of the subject because all this time you are not only listening to others but also yourself. What I am perhaps saying is that ecstasy, or the search for ecstasy, is "what it is all about". Sexual love and religion are the means, the two most favoured paths to the fulfilment of a universal wish.
What is the attraction of fiction? It seems that more people, (particularly those in theory) are turning to fiction.
The attraction of fiction is not to give dramatic and narrative form to ideas, as a few people have wrongly speculated about my novels. It is to let my characters lead me to ideas I didn't know I had and which may be contrary to what I consciously believe. Scholarly work fixes, solidifies the writer's identity; fiction melts it, a very different if somewhat frightening pleasure.
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