By: Veera Vaishnava
September 06, 2004

Introduction

In the generation of vice, Hindus much like their counterparts indeed have a pantheon much different to original Hindu pantheon. They have gods of money, power, carnality,  selfishness,  addiction,  materialism,  commercialism,  wantonness,  greed,  gluttony, snobbery, prejudice, bigotry, false righteousness, pride, relativism, hopelessness, cruelty, thoughtlessness, self abuse, indifference, superiority, exclusiveness, carelessness, “me-first ness,” unsatisfied desires,  disobedience, arrogance, laziness, intemperance, rationalization and many more. Their determination seems to be the destruction of social institutions as we know it, and apparently their “Moksha” – salvation. The means are following their jaundiced and distorted view of the Hindu world and ethos. In this essay, let’s briefly examine such instance of distorted view of Kamasutra and potential effect and long term impact on social institution(s).

Many Hindus these days apart from appeasing their said regular gods often invoke and appease their god of gods - The God of Rationalization. The acts which are basically moral failures, have to be justified as the rebuke of conscience is pretty difficult to live with. To completely erase the conscience, they appeal to and invoke the god of gods - Zeus [a]. The hope for Zeus's children in the Generation Vice is, if Zeus is properly propitiated he will somehow make heretofore forbidden desires and acts permissible. They then advance the reality of the desires over the reality of the moral order to which the desires should be subordinated and surrendered to. In their minds they replace the reality of moral order with something more congenial to the activity they are excusing. This is not a mere “rebellious phase” that one might go through, but a deliberate, wanton, and systematic effort to undermine, dismantle and destroy Hindus’ cultural edifice. The assertion and theme they choose to live by is that bad is good, and live to “live it up”.

Having a distorted view of sexuality and the social structure and practices either in the west, or the present day India (or of the social system in ancient India), these devotees of the god of rationalization are hell bent on sacrificing any decency, decorum and civility in either public discourse or in their private lives at the altar of their Zeus. In fact, they want ordinarily lesser mortals with the original pantheon to acquiesce, acknowledge and accept their deviant behavior.  The first dictum of their rule(s) is to make such thinking and actions respectable and transform it into a highly moral act. If it were not a highly moral act, it cannot be legitimately advanced into the civil level. The crutches for above said people are "liberalism and progressiveness", the main scripture is "Kamasutra", fellow travelers and apologists are the so called liberals and progressive thinking “Marxists, pseudo secularists and so-called erudite scholars from the west – The Intellectual Mafia”. 

The intellectual mafia along with their flock is aiming at cultural conquest in the short term, and in the long term inflicts fatal damage to Vedic/Hindu ideals of a social institution - marriage and family - by making Kamasutra look like Hustler and Penthouse of the 13th century. Let us examine briefly what Kamasutra is and its importance in a healthy relationship between opposite sexes and also what the rest of Kamasutra is about.

The Kamasutra

Kama is delight of body, mind, and soul in exquisite sensation. It awaken eyes, nose, tongue, ears, and skin, and between sense and sensed, the essence of Kama will flower. Kama Sutra can thus be translated as "Aphorisms on Pleasure."  Like any other Sutra, this cannot be understood without proper commentary or interpretation.

The Kamasutra is a treasury of information and a tutorial about sexuality in ancient India. No other existing text, literary or scientific, comes even close to it in revealing the sexual attitudes of our ancestors. The Kamasutra tells us about the place of pleasure in the ancient scheme of things, especially vis-à-vis morality. It tells us what the ancients thought about the sexuality of women, marriage, homosexuality, adultery, and prostitutes - male and female. Our ancestors were obviously mature enough to follow, and discuss such texts in public without transforming into a pornographic visual/textual medium.

Kamasutra is not an original text. It is the oldest existing treatise of erotic love in India. It was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of the classical period. Its authorship is attributed to Mallanaga Vatsyayana. According some sources, the ten thousand chapters of the Kamasutra were announced by Prajapati - a deity regarded as the god of creation. Mahadeva compiled the ten thousand chapters which in turn were compressed into five hundred chapters by Shvetaketu, son of Uddalaka and a teacher of philosophy. The Kamasutra was transcribed by Vatsyayana in the form of Sutras written in Sanskrit. Sutras are directives or short, maxims in prose, which are difficult to understand without a commentary. The treatises of Shvetaketu on which the Kamasutra is based, have been lost forever. It also heavily draws from works of other authors who preceded him. They are Babhravya, Suvarnanabha, Ghotakamukha, Gonardiya, Gonikaputra, Dattaka and Kuchumara. None of these works exist now, save Kamasutra of Vatsyayana [1].

Apart from serving as a sex therapy guide, Kamasutra contains instructions for making messages unreadable - one of the earliest books on rudimentary encryption. It is also the first text to advocate “birth control” for prostitutes. Only about one fifth of Kamasutra (of whatever is left of Original form) is devoted to sexual positions. The rest of it gives guidance on how to be a good citizen and insights into men and women in relationships, and can be considered as a 13^th century work akin to works such as [2].

There is much more to Kamasutra that came out of Vedic India than plain vanilla sex. The word Kama refers to the pursuit of love or pleasure and not just sex. It is also said the three of the four purusharthas Dharma, Artha and Kama are of equal importance in the life of a human being. However the priorities attached to and pursuit of each follows the following order - Dharma being more valuable than Artha, and Artha being preferred to Kama. In order to attain a fulfilled and meaningful life, the pursuit of one goal should not hamper the pursuit of the others.

There is no shame or wrong in talking about sex or artistically representing it on temple walls, paintings, or writing about it, to teach and educate people about human sexuality. Healthy and wealthy minds and souls will then contribute to a vibrant society that is highly productive and there is nothing perverse in it, except for perverse minds.  This is exactly what Kamasutra teaches.

Hindu divinities always come in pairs. They represent the ideal concept of man and woman working together as lovers, as mates, as partners in marriage, in love, in sex and in all aspects of our human life. Unlike Christianity or Judaism or Islam, Hinduism has never been concerned with "suppression of sensuous pleasure" or normal human sexuality. Body and spirit are always considered to be an integral of the whole personhood, and never separated w prejudice in favor of the spirit as was the case with western Calvinistic and Victorian moral values. It is said in Kama Sutra that “rather than attempting to try and control the desires of the body by willpower, the Hindu aims at the self -realization through the whole being, mind, body and intellect”.

However for Zeus's children in the Generation Vice, Vedic India's inhabitants, and tolerant, liberal, progressive Hindus do not read the original and entire Kamasutra but get fixated and obsess over 20% of it and consider quoting Kamasutra gives one license to indulge in any kind of erratic behavior. They rationalize every carnal desire they act upon on the selective understanding of Kamasutra that too written by so-called scholars such as Wendy Doniger [3]. They contend that since our ancestors were really over sexed, there is nothing abominable or morally wrong in following the foot steps of their convenient and new found ancestors of their liking.  Generation Vice instead of following the advice in the very text they refer to when rationalizing, resort to depraved, lewd and licentious behavior.

The teachings of Kamasutra if properly followed will show one how to try and be content with one partner. However, Zeus tells the Gen Vice to sleep around and have as many partners as possible.

The short and effective method to realize godliness of Zeus for Gen Vice seems to be aping the west and copying the depraved behavior and debauchery couching their acts in progressive and liberal covers and labels.

Social Institution(s)

A simple definition of a “social institution” is a cultural value structure encompassing all values - positive, negative, or neutral - which relates to the social interaction of one particular normative segment of a culture. (Refer [4] for a rigorous definition)

Typically there are five social institutions in any culture; (1) Educational, (2) Political, (3) Religious, (4) Economical, and (5) Marriage and the Family.

These systems of values, are inextricably intertwined and their combination forms an interrelated system where change in any one institution results in corresponding and sometimes irreversible change and adjustment in all the other institutions. A symbiotic and systematic interaction - bonds the entire system and makes sure all the institutions are integrally involved. The institutions in western culture have been influenced powerfully by the Judeo- Christian values, particularly those values relate to females (Calvinistic and Victorian moral values), while ours is the eternal Vedic/Hindu ideals and underpinnings.

The institution of marriage and the family (re)structures the social mechanism through which replacements for society are groomed and reared. These replacements that are thus created are shaped so as to fit the social structure, with the goal of perpetuating the group. It is through this mechanism that the social values, norms (i.e., behavioral expectations), culture, thought patterns, language usage, social roles and responsibilities, and patterns of inter-genderal (i.e., sexual) and intra-gendral relations are transmitted, and absorbed by the new entrants.

Conclusion

Indian/Hindu society is changing rapidly and dramatically. The impact of modern media, especially television and Bollywood, is revolutionizing the relationship between the sexes. Women are demanding a much greater role for themselves - which in and of itself is a welcome sign - In both love and work. However on the flip side, sexual permissiveness and addiction to drugs and alcohol are all on the rise. The power balance between the generations has shifted. The young are no longer respectful of the aged. The social landscape is in a state of flux. Everything that is wrong with the Western culture has penetrated deeply into the urban areas and being openly adopted with open arms. Religion and religious values, and spirituality are in a process of decline while westerners are seeing the folly in their ways and adopting Sanathana dharma and Hindu way of life.

Turning a blind eye to all consequences, changes around them, the children of Zeus want to and insist on abuse and distortion Hindu culture, stemming from their lack of understanding and knowledge, to justify their insane acts and behavior and will eventually turn out to be social misfits.

For far too long the invading marauders and foreigners have debased, degraded Hindu icons, culture, literature, arts to instill an inferiority complex and then tried to supplant and replace them with their ideologies. The invaders are gone, but they discovered far too willing and complaint Hindus and Indians to continue their dirty work, in Intellectual Mafia and in Gen Vice.

Is Generation Vice bent upon destroying the social institution of marriage and family in the name of liberalism and progressiveness? Life (and lifestyle) after all is about the choices one makes, for individuals and for society at large. Should Gen Vice choose to stick with their lifestyle, so be it, but do not drag Kamasutra to justify your actions and lifestyle.

Veera Vaishnava

References

a. Zeus is used rather loosely in this article, the appropriate concept that captures the context is “Western Hedonism”, but it is beyond the scope of this article. The author is grateful to Sandhya Jain in pointing out the nuance.

1. http://www.gautamindia.com/archive/GautamindNov/sexuality.htm

2. Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006016848X/102-1717575-3684105?v=glance

3. Essential Kamasutra by Wendy Doniger - www.insight-books.com/TSX2/1591790654.html

4. http://www.politics.tcd.ie/kbenoit/cpi/institutions.html