The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana: Translated From the Sanscrit in Seven Parts With Preface, Introduction and Concluding RemarksVatsyayana
Philosophy
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana: Translated From the Sanscrit in Seven Parts With Preface, Introduction and Concluding Remarks
Vatsyayana
Love; Sex
A female, therefore, should learn the Kama Shastra, or at least a part
of it, by studying its practice from some confidential friend. She
should study alone in private the sixty-four practices that form a part
of the Kama Shastra. Her teacher should be one of the following persons,
viz., the daughter of a nurse brought up with her and already
married,[12] or a female friend who can be trusted in everything, or the
sister of her mother (_i.e._, her aunt), or an old female servant, or a
female beggar who may have formerly lived in the family, or her own
sister, who can always be trusted.
The following are the arts to be studied, together with the Kama
Sutra:--
1. Singing.
2. Playing on musical instruments.
3. Dancing.
4. Union of dancing, singing, and playing instrumental music.
5. Writing and drawing.
6. Tattooing.
7. Arraying and adorning an idol with rice and flowers.
8. Spreading and arraying beds or couches of flowers, or flowers upon
the ground.
9. Colouring the teeth, garments, hair, nails, and bodies, _i.e._,
staining, dyeing, colouring and painting the same.
10. Fixing stained glass into a floor.
11. The art of making beds, and spreading out carpets and cushions for
reclining.
12. Playing on musical glasses filled with water.
13. Storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns and
reservoirs.
14. Picture making, trimming and decorating.
15. Stringing of rosaries, necklaces, garlands and wreaths.
16. Binding of turbans and chaplets, and making crests and top-knots of
flowers.
17. Scenic representations. Stage playing.
18. Art of making ear ornaments.
19. Art of preparing perfumes and odours.
20. Proper disposition of jewels and decorations, and adornment in
dress.
21. Magic or sorcery.
22. Quickness of hand or manual skill.
23. Culinary art, _i.e._, cooking and cookery.
24. Making lemonades, sherbets, acidulated drinks, and spirituous
extracts with proper flavour and colour.
25. Tailor's work and sewing.
26. Making parrots, flowers, tufts, tassels, bunches, bosses, knobs,
&c., out of yarn or thread.
27. Solution of riddles, enigmas, covert speeches, verbal puzzles and
enigmatical questions.
28. A game, which consisted in repeating verses, and as one person
finished, another person had to commence at once, repeating another
verse, beginning with the same letter with which the last speaker's
verse ended, whoever failed to repeat was considered to have lost, and
to be subject to pay a forfeit or stake of some kind.
29. The art of mimicry or imitation.
30. Reading, including chanting and intoning.
31. Study of sentences difficult to pronounce. It is played as a game
chiefly by women and children, and consists of a difficult sentence
being given, and when repeated quickly, the words are often transposed
or badly pronounced.
32. Practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff, and bow and arrow.
33. Drawing inferences, reasoning or inferring.
34. Carpentry, or the work of a carpenter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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