Kama (India)

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Kāma ( Sanskrit काम, “worldly enjoyment”, “desire”) often translated unilaterally as “lust” or “sexual desire”, is considered in Hinduism to be one of the four Purusharthas , the “four goals of human life”. The other three are

  1. Artha : prosperity and success,
  2. Dharma : a life according to the social and cosmic laws,
  3. Moksha : the redemption.

Hindus do not reject worldly pursuit, lust and desire for wealth as immoral, but these are subordinate to the other two goals, Dharma and salvation. If the fulfillment of the Dharma is the most important guiding goal for daily life , Artha and Kama are also necessary for the life of stewards . But although Hindu tradition and society on the one hand recognize the legitimacy of Kama , the term also belongs to the so-called "Six Enemies" , the evils that man must overcome on the way to salvation.

Meaning in the scriptures

In the famous creation song of the Rig Veda , kama , the desire, is the source and origin of all things.

In the beginning darkness was hidden in darkness […] the One was born by the power of a hot urge. At the beginning of this came the desire for love, which was the first seed of thought

This desire was the primary instinct that maintains the phenomenal world, the force behind the cycle of rebirths ( samsara ). A verse in the Atharva Veda (AV, 9.2.) Welcomes Kama as “the firstborn of creation”. The Mahabharata (12.167) reports of a dispute about which of the goals in life is the highest. Bhisma, one of the Pandava brothers, stands up for Kama . This is man's first duty, because without desire any achievement is impossible. He sees kama as the secret of all success, whether material or spiritual.

The complexity of the term kama becomes clear in another section of the Mahabharata . The great epic lets Kamadeva , the personification of Kama , explain the many different forms in which desire dominates every person.

“It is not possible for any being to destroy me. A man who knows my power tries to overcome me by murmuring prayers; then I defeat him with the belief that I am the subjective ego in him. [...] If a person wants to overcome me through asceticism, then I appear as asceticism in his mind and thus prevent him from recognizing me. And if someone who knows wants to overcome me for the sake of redemption, I smile happily in his face. I am the immortal, whom no being can kill or destroy. "

Use in Kamashastra

Within the Kamashastra literature (textbooks on eroticism ), the Kamasutra , a textbook on physical love, probably written between AD 200 and 300, is best known. Newer works are z. B. the Ratirahasya or the Ananga Ranga .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Schreiner: The lotus opens in the moonlight. DTV, Munich, p. 144.
  2. ↑ Rigveda 10.129 de sa 
  3. ↑ Quoted from RC Zaehner: Der Hinduismus. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, p. 47.
  4. ↑ According to RC Zaehner: The Hinduism. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag (p. 121)
  5. ↑ Mahabharata, Book 14 (Aswamedha Parva), Section XIII ( [1] , engl. Page)