Conjugal Love in India: Ratisastra and Ratiramana.

• Author: Gerow, Edwin
• Position: Book Review

Conjugal Love in India: Ratisastra and Ratiramana. Edited and translated by KENNETH G. ZYSK. Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, vol. 1. Leiden: BRILL, 2002. Pp. xiv + 319.

Zysk here offers a "critical" edition and translation of two late medieval Indian "erotic" texts, as titled above. They are the oldest in a tradition that Zysk wants to distinguish from the very much older one going back to the Kamasutra/Kamasastra of Vatsyayana. "Critical" and "erotic" both in quotes, because, as for the former, no manuscripts were found (hence used) in the preparation of this edition: instead, several printed versions were collated; as for the latter, Zysk is of the opinion that "erotic" stricto sensu should apply only to the older tradition based on Kama--the "Eros" of Hindu mythology--and not to that expounding the notion of rati 'conjugal love'. Here we meet with some simplifications that deserve notice.

Without offering any textual evidence in support (and one could come up with many citations in contradiction), Zysk asserts (preface, p. ix) that "three kinds of love find expression in Sanskrit. One is kama, which means 'pleasure', specifically 'erotic pleasure', and refers to prurient and base sensual pleasure especially of men ..." Passing over srngara, which is "ideal" and has only literary overtones, we arrive at the third, "rati, which ... in its technical meaning is 'the love that occurs between a man and a woman in a brahminically approved relationship'." This third type of "love," not surprisingly, aims at "furtherance of the status quo." A sort of Kamadeva without those dangerous transgressive fangs/flowers.

Hence, "conjugal" in the title, which, as far as I can determine, is Zysk's contribution. Out of this rather bald typology, for which one would really like to see some citational evidence, Zysk concludes that the older "erotic" tradition was male-oriented, and, of course, made light of such matters as lawfully wedded wives (or, on occasion, women), whereas the newer "ratifocused" tradition was remarkably female-oriented, and dealt not...