Lord of Desire… Lost in time..
(Kamadeva and Rati with Cane Bow)
India has been a laboratory in terms of experimentations to find out the Truth… the purpose of life, the way to attain happiness…
Long before Shaivism(worship of Shiva as the Supreme God) and Vaishnavism (worship of Vishnu as the supreme God) took over the Indian society, there was the worship of Elements of Nature.. Wind, Fire, Earth… even trees…
And at one moment in history, now long-lost in the womb of time, Desire was worshipped in India, as the Supreme God.
Kama, the God of desire (even lust, passion and sexual attraction), was considered to be the first God who was born when the ‘sacred egg’ desired Creation.
First was Nothingness. And out of nothingness came desire. And out of desire the whole creation.
In that essence, Kama was the Supreme Lord that came into being who proved to be instrumental in the creation of this Universe as we see it now.
It is also Kama, or desire or sexual feeling, that brings forth life. It is Kama, or sex, which affords us a peek into that perfect Bliss at the time of sexual release…
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Now we hardly have any Kama temples left in India. Perhaps there is one in Assam. And in Kerala we still have a very ancient tradition wherein on a particular day of the year, virgin women take a bath together in some pond and then worship Lord kama for the perfect mate.
Kama, the lord of Desire, with his consort Rati, the Goddess of Sex, are for me more nearer to the so-called pagan worship of Fertility.
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The abolition of the worship of Kama, that was once spread widely in India, and had the sanction of religious texts of lore, came about with the rise in theological debates that sought beyond the now and present to find out the Truth about why and where we came from, and what was the ultimate purpose of life. The debate gave rise to the idea that this world which we perceive with our senses was the greatest hurdle in the path of finding out the Truth. The world was disregarded as Samsara, a play of senses that leads to the ultimate bondage and suffering. Sensual pleasures were looked upon with disdain. Spiritual-seeking became a game of escaping this world and its many attractions.
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In a Shaiva story, Lord Kama seeks to save the Universe by aiming his bow on Shiva, the ultimate Ascetic and has to pay the most dearest price for it. Shiva, in wrath, burns Kama’s body down to ashes. Since that day, the shaivate say Kama became known as Anangha, the one without a body…
Imagine the body of the God of Sensuality, sex and Love being burnt into ashes…
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I have long searched the Internet to find out if there are any translations of , or even mention of ancient texts, that belong to the period when Kama was worshipped as the Supreme God…
All I found was a ritual of Worship of Kama and Rati deciphered from an ancient text…
And be it a ritual, it is still a living piece of the due respect that Hindus still need to accord to that one powerful energy that is a sign of life and keeps the cosmos alive- Desire…
