The Kama Sutra has now been explained. But if one is unable to achieve the desired end by the methods suggested in it, the confidential prescriptions which follow may be used.
(1–2)
What makes one attractive are appearance, quality, age and liberality. A paste of rosebay, wild ginger and plum leaves can make one seductive. So can a salve for the eyes made by grinding these same herbs, putting the powder on a wick and burning it with myrobalan oil in a human skull. Also, a body lotion made by boiling hogweed, fleabane, silk cotton and red amaranth flowers with the leaves of the blue lotus in oil, or a garland strung with these flowers and leaves.
(3–7)
Licking a paste of honey and ghee mixed with a powder of dried red and blue lotus and rose chestnut makes a person attractive. The same ingredients can be combined with rosebay, plum and bay leaf to make an ointment for application on the body. The eye of a peacock or a hyena, put inside a locket of gold and worn on the right hand, also renders one attractive. So too does an ornament made with a jujube berry or a conch shell and used in the same way. Other similar methods from the Atharva Veda may also be followed.
(8–11)
Here is a method for increasing the desirability and good fortune of the master of a servant girl. When she has attained puberty, with his knowledge of methods and systems he keeps her away from other men for just one year. The charm of a girl thus secluded will make many people want ardently to have her, leading to their mutual rivalry. The master then bestows her on the man who gives the most among them.
(12)
An elite courtesan, too, guards her own daughter who has attained the prime of youth. She then invites young men similar to her child in skills, disposition and beauty, and tells them that whoever gives such and such specific things can have her daughter’s hand. The girl also, acting as if her mother does not know it, encourages the interest of these rich sons of gentlemen. She arranges to meet them here and there, while taking art lessons, in music schools and at the homes of mendicant women. And the mother then gives her hand to the man who can provide whatever has been asked for. If she is unable to get as much as she expected, she may even supplement it with a part of her own money, declaring that it was given by that man for her daughter’s hand or that she gave him her virginity. Alternatively, the courtesan gets them united secretly, as if without her knowledge, and then informs the courts that she has just learnt of it.
(13–19)
Elite courtesans also let the daughter go if she is of adequate age and beauty, her virginity has been lost to a girl friend or a servant and she has fully grasped the Kama Sutra and is well grounded in its methods through practice. These are eastern customs. For one year she stays faithful to the man who has taken her hand, and after that does what she pleases. But, if invited by him even after the year is over, she comes to him for the night though she may forsake some profit thereby. This is the practice a courtesan follows in marriage to enhance her attractiveness and good fortune. The same is the case with a girl who makes her living on the stage; but she is given to one who can promote her artistic career. This concludes the section on making oneself attractive.
(20–24)
Sex with a woman when the penis is smeared with honey mixed with a powder of thorn apple, black pepper and long pepper will bewitch her into one’s power. Using a powder made of wind-blown leaves, flowers left on a corpse and peacock bones has the same effect. So does a bath after putting on a powder of the remains of a kite which has died of natural causes, mixed with honey and gooseberries.
(25–27)
Cut bulbs of milkwort into pieces, dip them in a mixture of crushed red arsenic and sulphur, dry seven times, then powder them. Smeared on the penis with honey when having sex, this also bewitches the woman into one’s power. Burnt at night, this powder makes the moon appear golden if it is looked at through the smoke. The same powder, when mixed with monkey shit and sprinkled over a virgin girl, ensures that she is not given to another man.
(28–30)
Coat bulbs of orris root with mango oil and place them for six months inside the hollowed-out trunk of a sissu hardwood tree. Taken out after that period and used as an ointment, this preparation, which is called ‘dear to the gods’, is said to bewitch women into one’s power also. Another ointment, called ‘dear to the demi-gods’, is made by similarly placing thin pieces of catechu wood inside a hollowed-out tree for six months, where they acquire the fragrance of its flowers. Its use is said to have the same effect. A mixture of saffron and rosebay dressed with mango oil and kept for six months inside the hollowed-out trunk of an acacia tree makes an ointment called ‘dear to the serpent-gods’, which is said to have the same effect.
(31–33)
The bone of a camel, soaked in marigold juice and burnt, makes a collyrium which can be kept in a pipe. Applied with a pencil also of camel bone, this is said to be good for the eyes and to bewitch women into one’s power. Collyrium for the eyes can be made in the same way from the bones of hawks, vultures and peacocks.
(34–35)
A man becomes as strong as a bull by drinking milk mixed with garlic, pepper and licorice and sweetened with sugar. Drinking milk boiled with the testicles of a ram and a goat and mixed with sugar is also a recipe for bull-like strength. Drinking it with milky yam root, dates and horse-eye beans has the same effect. So does milk drunk with seeds of long pepper and roots of sugar cane and milky yam.
(36–39)
Teachers have said that after eating to one’s fill a porridge made of water chestnuts, lotus root and wild figs ground with dates and jujube and cooked with milk, sugar and ghee over a slow fire, one can make love with women endlessly. They say that a pudding made with the milk of a cow with a mature calf and lentil husk washed in milk and softened in hot ghee, when eaten with honey and clarified butter, also has the same effect. They further say that a man, having eaten to his fill cakes made of milky yam root, horse-eye beans, sugar, honey and clarified butter, can also make love with countless women.
(40–42)
The same result is obtained with rice grains soaked in the liquid of a sparrow’s egg, cooked with milk and sprinkled with honey and clarified butter. Also, by eating to one’s fill a pudding of unskinned sesame seeds soaked in sparrow’s egg liquid, the fruit of water chestnut, lotus root and horse-eye bean, and powdered wheat and lentil, cooked with milk, sugar and clarified butter.
(43–44)
Teachers have said that two small measures each of clarified butter, honey, sugar and licorice, and larger measures of mead and milk, form a nectar of six elements, strong and tasty, which enhances virility and lengthens life. They also say that a concoction of molasses with asparagus and the dog-tooth plant, and a paste of long pepper and honey, when cooked in cow’s milk and goat’s ghee, makes a strong and tasty dish which enhances virility and lengthens life if taken every day in early winter. Further, that asparagus, dog-tooth and crushed lotus fruit, boiled in four times as much water to their natural consistency, make a strong and tasty dish which enhances virility and lengthens life when taken on early winter mornings. The same result, they say, is obtained by taking two measures of equal parts combined of dog-tooth and barley powder on waking up every morning.
(45–48)
Methods which conduce to pleasure
may be understood and learnt
from the Ayurveda and
the Veda, other books of knowledge,
and from people one can trust.
But doubtful methods, do not use:
those which may the body harm
and those which involve killing creatures,
or the use of impure things.
Methods followed by good people,
which the brahmins recommend,
and all those who wish one well:
use, but with austerity.
(49–51)
A man unable to satisfy a woman with intense sexual impulses needs to use some method. At the start of making love, caress the opening between her legs with the hand. Enter when it has become wet and she is excited. This will revive her passion. Oral sex revives passion in a man with dull sexual impluses, one who is old, fat or fatigued with love-making.
(1–3)
Or use artificial devices. These, according to the followers of Babhravya, are made of gold, silver, copper, iron, ivory and buffalo horn. Those of tin and lead are soft, have cooling properties and provide better friction. According to Vatsyayana they can also be of wood, if that is preferred.
(4–7)
The inner side of the device should have the circumference of the penis. Its outer surface should be dimpled to make it rough. Two of these ring devices joined together are called a couple, and three or more, up to the length of the penis, are known as a crest. A beaded string wrapped around the penis according to its dimensions is a single crest. Another contrivance is called the armour or the little net. It is of the same dimensions as the penis, has openings at both ends and is fastened to the hips, with substantial hard cups for the testicles. In the absence of these, a squash, a lotus stalk or a bamboo section, well soaked in a decoction of oil and fastened to the hips, can also be used; or a string of smooth wooden pellets or gooseberry kernels. All these are discardable devices.
(8–13)
It is said that a man cannot have real sexual union unless the penis has been pierced. Among the people of the south, the penis is pierced in childhood, just like the ears. A young man has it cut with an instrument and stands in water as long as the bleeding continues. To keep the opening clean he has continual sexual intercourse that very night. Then it is cleansed every other day with a decoction and enlarged by the insertion of reed and quince-wood pins of gradually increasing size. Cleansed with a mixture of licorice and honey, it is further enlarged with pins of lead and smeared with the oil of the marking nut. This is the method of perforating the penis. A variety of devices of different kinds can be placed in the opening thus made. These are the ‘round’, the ‘round on one side’, the ‘little mortar’, the ‘little flower’, the ‘thorny’, the ‘heron’s bone’, the ‘little elephant trunk’, the ‘eight rings’, the ‘bumblebee’, the ‘water chestnut’ and others in keeping with the method and the act. This concludes our sixty-second subject, the revival of passion.
(14–24)
Place the bristles of certain insects which are born from trees on the penis and message it with oil. Done for ten nights and then repeated, this will make the penis swell. Then lie face downwards on a string cot and let the penis hang down through it. This process should be concluded gradually, relieving any pain with cold salves. The swelling lasts for life. Libertines call it ‘bristle-born’.
(25–27)
Massage with the juices of ground cherry, jungle yam, watermelon, aubergine, castor and heliotrope and with buffalo butter, one at a time, gives the penis an enlargement which lasts a month. Massage with a concoction of these cooked in oil gives it for six months. So does massage or moistening with aubergine juice and oil cooked on a slow fire together with pomegranate and snake gourd seeds and red camphor. These and other methods may be learnt from trustworthy people. This concludes the subject of enlargement.
(28–31)
Sprinkle a mixture of powdered milkweed thorns, hogweed, monkey’s shit and root of glory lily on a woman. She will not want sex with anyone else. In the same way, a man’s passion disappears if he sleeps with a woman whose vagina has been smeared with a powder of rue, globe amaranth, marigold, iron, yellow amaranth and laburnum in a concoction of thickened rose apple juice. It also vanishes if he sleeps with a woman who has bathed in buffalo buttermilk mixed with bovine bile and a powder of mint and yellow amaranth.
(32–34)
A pomade or a garland made of the flowers of wild jasmine, hog plum and rose apple causes bad luck in the pursuit of love. An ointment of the root called the koel’s eye will contract an elephant woman’s vagina for one night. That of a doe woman will be widened by applying a powder of pink and blue lotus, wild jasmine and fragrant sal mixed with honey. Gooseberries soaked in a solution of milkweed, camphor and globe amaranth make the hair white. Bathing it in a mixture of henna, wild quince, frangipani, butterfly grass and the root of the smoothleaf tree turns it black again. The same combination, well cooked in oil, makes it turn black gradually. Lips reddened with lac turn white when moistened seven times with the sweat from the testicles of a white horse, but henna and the others already mentioned will restore their colour.
(35–42)
Coat a bamboo flute with a paste of mint, wild ginger, rosebay, plum, deodar and prickly pear. When it is played, any woman who hears the sound will fall under the player’s power. Eating or drinking anything mixed with the fruit of the thorn apple makes one go mad, but that person can be revived with old jaggery. Smear the hand with the shit of a peacock which has fed on yellow and red arsenic. Whatever is then touched will not be visible to others.
(43–46)
Water mixed with the ash of charcoal and grass turns the colour of milk. Iron pots become coppery when rubbed with a paste of yellow myrobalan, hog plum and the balloon vine. A lamp lit in balloon vine oil with a wick of cloth and sloughed snake skin will make long pieces of wood at its side look like serpents. And drinking the milk of a white cow which has a white calf gives fame and lengthens life, as do the blessings of respected brahmins.
(47–51)