The Arts of Seduction

by Seema Anand

  Corals are known for bringing harmony back to a marriage by fixing the problems that arise from boredom, monotony and age in long-term relationships. Corals will regulate blood flow in the genital and abdominal regions of the body which builds up sexual energy—allowing men to hold their erections for longer and women to have more natural lubrication. This will bring back a renewed interest in sex. If applied as an ointment to the stomach of a pregnant woman it can prevent miscarriages.

  Emerald (Day—Wednesday, Planet—Mercury)

  Crushed and mixed in raw milk, to be had between 5 and 7 a.m.

  Emeralds improve blood circulation, increase virility and destroy the toxins in the body that can be an obstacle to potency. But the emerald has even greater powers in helping sexual health than the merely physical. The mineral composition of this gem is such that it energizes the mind so that you can effectively fight negativity within yourself and help you to become more understanding towards your partner.

  Emeralds should be used under strict guidance because in sexual matters they suit very few people.

  Topaz (Day—Thursday, Planet—Jupiter)

  Crush and drink with honey, ideal time between 5 and 7 a.m.

  According to myth, topaz is the ‘breath of intercourse’, Kamadeva wore a topaz on his belt buckle to make sure that his potency never decreased.

  If worn on the left arm, some believed a topaz amulet could protect the wearer from dark magic and the greed of others. In addition, this could relieve arthritic pain, improve digestion, help in weight loss and attract love. If taken in a potion, some believed it could cure an even wider range of ailments.

  The topaz comes in different colours. Each one has its uses.

  Sapphire (Day—Friday, Planet—Saturn)

  Crushed in milk and drunk between 5 and 7 a.m.

  Blue sapphires are a dangerous gem. They belong to the god Shani and like their master they have a reputation for being malicious, so watch out when using this stone. But for those of you who are friends with this gem, sapphires are the stones for all things erotic. And so potent was their effect that according to ancient sources sapphires were also crushed and served in paan during the course of seduction. They destroy all toxins, including poisonous thoughts.

  Diamond (Day—Saturday, Planet—Venus)

  Diamonds are too hard to be ground into a powder so their soot is used. Burn in a pure silver container with ghee to collect the soot and drink mixed with honey. If worn as jewellery, diamonds should be worn on the finger or the upper arm. Ideal time is between 5 and 7 a.m. on Saturdays.

  Different types of diamonds are to be worn by men and by women.

  The diamond is the favourite gem for Ayurveda practitioners. It is called the healer of healers because your condition can be treated simply by being in the vicinity of its brilliance. Diamonds can be used as general medicine for all symptoms of declining sexual health—it is a fix-all. It was also considered one of the best treatments for age-related impotence.

  But here’s the catch—it has to be the right kind of diamond. It is the most complicated of gems and the qualities, peculiarities and traits of a diamond are so varied that the combinations of what you can or can’t wear are open to hundreds of interpretations.

  Diamonds are categorized by colour—Brahman (white), Kshatriya (red), Vaishya (yellow) and Sudra (black). They are categorized by gender—male, female and neuter. Brilliant, flawless, round stones with a large surface are male diamonds, round but with some flaws are female, triangles or rectangles with flaws are neuter. There is no universally acknowledged table of flaws because what counts as a flaw in one category is not a flaw in another. Each kind of diamond has a different presiding deity—a hexagonal white diamond is Indra (the king of gods), a black one in the shape of a snake’s head is Yamaraj (the god of death), a diamond with a blood red spot in the middle is for the power of Kali and one in which the dot is turned slightly to the left is for all the Mahavidyas (the tantric goddesses of supreme knowledge).

  You have to pick the one that is specific for you otherwise it will not have the effect you want. Unlike the Western idea of ‘diamonds are a girl’s best friend’, Eastern philosophy says if the combination is wrong it can be your worst enemy.

  Crystals

  According to mythology, when the demon Vala was murdered and dismembered by the gods, his semen spilled onto the earth and became crystals. Crystals are good for all aspects of your sex life, and are especially beneficial for hormones.

  Crystals are known as ‘catalysts’ because you can mix the crystal with almost anything and it will enhance the power of the other substance as well. There are many types of crystals and each one has its own function but the best are the colourless ones because they most closely contain the properties of Vala’s semen. Crystals are not as concentrated as some of the other gems so they need to be used over a longer period of time to be truly effective. But by the same token, they are also not dangerous and do not have any negative effects.

  Hessonite and cat’s eyes are respectively Rahu and Ketu, the North and South nodes of the moon. They are best mixed in honey and ingested between 5 and 7 a.m.

  The story of these two gems as well as of their planetary masters is steeped in violence. Rahu and Ketu are the two halves of a demon who tried to drink the forbidden nectar of immortality and was punished by being chopped into two. He is destined to live in eternal dismemberment. Cat’s eyes were created from the shrieks of terror of another dismemberment (that of the demon Vala) and hessonite came from his fingernails as they were ripped out and thrown into the ocean.

  Despite the violence associated with their origins, crystals are unusually benevolent.

  They are said to safeguard you from scandal and from losing your reputation. And cat’s eyes are also good for healing anal fissures and treating vaginal discharges.

  These are just a handful of the gems and stones that our ancient texts have written about and, regardless of their purity or value or rarity, each one has its own power that you can tap into.

  My Advice

  When the Kama Sutra speaks of gemmology as one of the sixty-four essential skills, it is not quite as simple as knowing the names of precious stones or when to wear them or what kind you can afford to buy.

  The efficacy of gems depends on their purity, but after all what is purity? All gems are mined from under the ground or found in water and they take on the properties of the elements that they come in contact with. So things like dust, dents, scratch lines, etc. may come from the earth while the glossiness and smoothness may be because the stone has been sitting in moving water for a very long time—so if you are more in need of the earth element then the ‘impurities’ are better for you.

  Most gems are minerals, but some, like pearls and corals, for instance, are of animal origin and have a different molecular make-up.

  To understand the benefits of gems and how to use each one for the correct circumstances meant having a pretty good understanding of mineralogy, zoology, botany and geology.

  For instance, did you know that rubies are picked for their weight while diamonds are best picked for their lightness—the most expensive diamonds should be able to float on water.

  With the emerald, hold it on the palm of your hand and face the sun. If the gem is genuine, its light will reflect towards you.

  Place a sapphire in a bowl of milk—the milk should take on a bluish tinge from the lustre of the gem.

  Hold a ruby between the thumb and forefinger—if the light reflects upwards it is a brilliant quality gem, a downward reflection means medium quality and sideways is inferior.

  When a cat’s eye is placed on a mirror, the reflection shows a series of plumb lines forming around it—two or three lines mean it is a brilliant stone, five or six lines for a medium stone, broken lines denote a poor quality stone.

  But most importantly one must be sensible about gems.

  The ancients may have believed that ingesting a gem was very effective
in treating ailments but we now know better. Under no circumstances should you try and ingest them. No one knows what quality of gemstone you have, what its mineral composition is and what it is likely to do to you.

  Wear them, enjoy them, be seduced by them—in good health.

  Shringhar

  Kamadeva had set out to distract Shiva, to break his meditation and turn his thoughts towards love. Kama had asked all his companions to go with him—Vasant (spring), Megha (the heavily laden rain clouds that epitomize romance and desire, irresistible to all lovers), Sugandha (the perfumed breeze), the Gandharvas (the heavenly musicians) and others.

  Truth be told Kamadeva was petrified—he was setting out to wilfully destroy Shiva’s meditation and Shiva was not known for his understanding nature or sweetness of temperament. The great god had warned everyone that he did not want to be approached and no one else had dared go against his will—not even Vishnu.

  But then again the God of Love was also a little bit arrogant. After all, he had never failed before, no one had ever been able to resist his magic till now.

  And he was right. He had, in the end, succeeded in breaking Shiva’s meditation but he had paid for it with his life. Furious at being disturbed, the great god had turned the cosmic rage of his third eye on him and Kamadeva had disintegrated into a little heap of ash right where he stood.

  But what of all his companions—springtime, rain clouds, scented breeze, the bees, parrots, fish—who had gone with him? They had all made a run for it, trying desperately to hide themselves where Shiva’s fire could not hurt them. And what better place than in the delightful and charming personae of women everywhere.

  The bees that made up the string of Kamadeva’s bow camouflaged themselves as the curly black lustrous hair of a woman. The lotus shoots that had once formed the bow found their hiding place in her slim, tender arms. The luminous full moon merged into her face and her two eyes became the hiding place for the fish that are Kamadeva’s victory banner. The ‘sandalwood-scented breeze’—Kamadeva’s most irresistible companion—could be found in her breath while the red spring flowers nestled into her lower lip. His victory conch (that beautiful, slender, long, ivory-coloured shell) headed for her neck while his earthenware pots disguised themselves as her full breasts and the wheels of his chariot as her ample buttocks.

  Her beautiful, swirling navel welcomed the half-opened lotus bud that Kamadeva wore behind his ear, her two thighs, robust and plump, housed the Love God’s victory pillars which were made from the trunks of the banana tree, the moonbeams settled into her fingers, the thousand-petalled lotus blossomed into her feet and so on, till everything had found a hiding place.

  So Kamadeva was dead but all of his tools of seduction and romance were alive and functioning, and they had taken on a physical form as well—they were the manifestations of Shringhar Rasa.

  But here the story twists again.

  A heartbroken Rati (Kamadeva’s wife) decides to kill herself. With him gone, there is no reason for her to continue living. The gods, however, strike a deal with her. They will eventually restore him to life and return him to her—love, seduction, desire cannot be killed off—how will the world survive without him? But meanwhile she must agree to continue his work. It will be her duty to regulate spring and the southern sandalwood scented breezes, to manage the fragrance of the flowers and the mystique of the moon, to lead that whole army of bees and parrots and fish and flowers so that they can continue to raise desire, so that ascetics can continue to break their oaths of celibacy, so that lovers can continue to rule supreme.

  Rati agreed. She took over the armies of love and desire, the seasons and reasons of sensuality, the techniques and arts of seduction, all the living symbols of her beloved husband’s work. And she set about creating the manuals of love.

  They say that Rati created the Solah Shringhar. Solah means sixteen and the word ‘shringhar’ means ornamentation.

  Her first job was to organize the rank and file of Kamadeva’s companions who were now hiding in every woman. Each aspect of the woman was already a living symbol of seduction, a little facet of the magic of the love god, shringhar was simply Rati’s way of teaching women how to enhance and animate each of these aspects to create the right mood.

  Rati’s shringhar was more than just make-up—it was how the woman brought alive her beauty, it was how she expressed her feelings and what emotions she aroused in her lover. Each adornment had a reason.

  Lips

  The lips are the first doorway to pleasure, holding all the secrets of heaven, like two parallel waves of the river of delight that meet at the corners of the mouth to create whirlpools of such mysterious depths that a lover could not help but drown in them.

  The upper lip was the bow of Kamadeva and the lower lip was the hiding place of the red bandhuk flowers. The bandhuk is a bright red flower that blossoms at midday and, unlike other flowers, it stays open all night, closing early the following morning—much as the lips of the beloved which blossom all night under the touch of the lover.

  The gently undulating upper lip was the symbol of modesty while the full red lower lip was the image of sensuality and sexuality.

  The embrace on the upper lip was of a private nature—which means that you did not leave tooth marks or swellings on the upper lip while kissing. The lower lip, on the other hand, was to be adorned with bite marks—red and slightly swollen. A lower lip was the public expression of your passion and a lip that didn’t carry the marks of passion was unadorned and lacking in beauty. The very centre of the lower lip was repeatedly bitten with the tooth to create a little indentation, it was a mark of a highly passionate nature and an essential ornament. Lips were coloured red with the help of paan and vermilion which were then rubbed with wax to make sure the colour didn’t come off.

  The ‘whirlpools’ or dimples at the corners of the mouth were also essential adornments and were enhanced with small moles, especially on the left corner of the mouth. A kiss had to begin at the left corner of the mouth and come to the centre.

  Scented breath

  Next was the scented breath of the nayika (the beautiful woman), where the perfumed spring breezes had camouflaged themselves—they became the ‘lovelorn sigh’. A frequently recurring theme in medieval poetry is the nayika sighing, and so exquisitely fragrant is her breath that flowers blossom out of season, throwing the birds and bees into confusion—is it spring already? As tools of seduction go, the sigh was one of the most important adornments of the woman—when done right it made her lips pout and her breasts rise and fall, her neck curved sideways to show off the delicate profile and the shoulder bones, her waist arched upwards and her eyes took on a dreamy faraway look. In miniature painting it was depicted as the woman stretching her linked hands over her head.

  The Kama Sutra says sighs could be ‘soundless’ or ‘with sound’, like a moan. But the most important thing with the sigh was that it had to be expelled on a fluttery breath through the indentation in the centre of the lower lip, making the cleft quiver just a little—that little flutter was meant to be the most erotic of symbols.

  Fragrant breath was a very big deal. There was an inordinate amount of attention paid to the perfuming of the mouth. Tender mango shoots, camphor and cloves were eaten to sweeten the breath. The mouth was freshened with betel and brushed with twigs that had been soaked in sweet-smelling mixtures. Drinking water was scented and men would even keep perfumed concoctions near the bed to combat foul smells that can build up in the woman’s mouth at night.

  Fragrancing the mouth was done in honour of the goddess of speech—the ability to play with words made you more desirable.

  Eyes

  The fish from Kamadeva’s victory banner had fled to the eyes of the beauty.

  In paintings and poetry, the eyes of the nayika are always described as fish-shaped, starting at the nose and extending all the way to the hairline where they end in a sharp point. The eyes were shaped with kohl but, according to Rati, the
ir real adornment was the sidelong glances that were thrown from the corners of the eyes. There was a whole vocabulary of glances that the eyes had to be able to convey—a very detailed vocabulary.

  Rati says that the eyes must be as proficient as a dance teacher if they are to make the lover dance to their tune.

  Eyebrows

  Two of the five arrows of Kamadeva sought refuge in the beauty’s eyebrows.

  The eyebrows are said to be the cooling spirits of dawn and dusk descended to frame the burning glances of the beautiful woman. Like the eyes, the brows too have a language of their own but it is a language most feared by lovers because unlike the eyes the eyebrows are warriors—two arched eyebrows indicate disbelief, one arched brow for sarcasm, meeting together in the middle for anger.

  The eyebrows were ornamented with tamala leaves cut out in different shapes—often pairs of birds or other animals, so that when placed together they looked as though they were embracing. Cutting shapes was one of the sixty-four skills of the Kama Sutra.

  Breasts

  The beautiful rounded breasts of the nayika are the earthenware pots of Kamadeva—full, heavy and golden, like the baked earth from which they were made. They are adorned with colours, designs and perfumes to enhance their beauty.

  When we talk of tattooing and body art in Solah Shringhar we generally assume it means henna patterns on the hands and the feet. But in the time of the Kama Sutra it was literally body art—designs and patterns painted on different parts of the body (breasts, cheeks and forehead) in order to enhance them.

  The painting and colouring of breasts was a fine art and had their own code. On moonlit nights they were coloured with white sandalwood paste which reflected the pale glow of the moonlight and made them appear fairer. On darker nights they were rubbed with a saffron and oil mixture to create a reddish glow. There were different pigments for daytime, for summer, for winter etc.