Man should study the Kama Sutra and the arts and sciences subordinate thereto, in addition to the study of the arts and sciences contained in Dharma and Artha. […]
The following are the arts to be studied, together with the Kama Sutra:
- Singing
- Playing on musical instruments
- Dancing
- Union of dancing, singing, and playing instrumental music
- Writing and drawing
- Tattooing
- Arraying and adorning an idol with rice and flowers
- Spreading and arranging beds or couches of flowers, or flowers upon the ground
- Colouring the teeth, garments, hair, nails and bodies, i.e. staining, dyeing, colouring and painting the same
- Fixing stained glass into a floor
- The art of making beds, and spreading out carpets and cushions for reclining
- Playing on musical glasses filled with water
- Storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns and reservoirs
- Picture making, trimming and decorating
- Stringing of rosaries, necklaces, garlands and wreaths
- Binding of turbans and chaplets, and making crests and top-knots of flowers
- Scenic representations, stage playing
- Art of making ear ornaments
- Art of preparing perfumes and odours
- Proper disposition of jewels and decorations, and adornment in dress
- Magic or sorcery
- Quickness of hand or manual skill
- Culinary art, i.e. cooking and cookery
- Making lemonades, sherbets, acidulated drinks, and spirituous extracts with proper flavour and colour
- Tailor’s work and sewing
- Making parrots, flowers, tufts, tassels, bunches, bosses, knobs, etc., out of yarn or thread
- Solution of riddles, enigmas, covert speeches, verbal puzzles and enigmatical questions
- A game, which consisted in repeating verses, and as one person finished, another person had to commence at once, repeating another verse, beginning with the same letter with which the last speaker’s verse ended, whoever failed to repeat was considered to have lost, and to be subject to pay a forfeit or stake of some kind
- The art of mimicry or imitation
- Reading, including chanting and intoning
- Study of sentences difficult to pronounce. It is played as a game chiefly by women, and children and consists of a difficult sentence being given, and when repeated quickly, the words are often transposed or badly pronounced
- Practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff and bow and arrow
- Drawing inferences, reasoning or inferring
- Carpentry, or the work of a carpenter
- Architecture, or the art of building
- Knowledge about gold and silver coins, and jewels and gems
- Chemistry and mineralogy
- Colouring jewels, gems arid bends
- Knowledge of mines and quarries
- Gardening; knowledge of treating the diseases of trees arid plants, of nourishing them, and determining their ages
- Art of cock fighting, quail fighting and ram fighting
- Art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak
- Art of applying perfumed ointments to the body, and of dressing the hair with unguents and perfumes and braiding it
- The art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way
- The art of speaking by changing the forms of words. It is of various kinds. Some speak by changing the beginning and end of words, others by adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a word, and so on
- Knowledge of language and of the vernacular dialects
- Art of making flower carriages
- Art of framing mystical diagrams, of addressing spells and charms, and binding armlets
- Mental exercises, such as completing stanzas or verses on receiving a part of them; or supplying one, two or three lines when the remaining lines are given indiscriminately from different verses, so as to make the whole an entire verse with regard to its meaning; or arranging the words of a verse written irregularly by separating the vowels from the consonants, or leaving them out altogether; or putting into verse or prose sentences represented by signs or symbols. There are many other such exercises.
- Composing poems
- Knowledge of dictionaries and vocabularies
- Knowledge of ways of changing and disguising the appearance of persons
- Knowledge of the art of changing the appearance of tilings, such as making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as fine and good
- Various ways of gambling
- Art of obtaining possession of the property of others by means of mantras or incantations
- Skill in youthful sports
- Knowledge of the rules of society, and of how to pay respect and compliments to others
- Knowledge of the art of war, of arms, of armies, etc.
- Knowledge of gymnastics
- Art of knowing the character of a man from his features
- Knowledge of scanning or constructing verses
- Arithmetical recreations
- Making artificial flowers
- Making figures and images in clay
A public woman, endowed with a good disposition, beauty and other winning qualities, and also versed in the above arts, obtains the name of a Garrika, or public woman of high quality, and receives a seat of honour in an assemblage of men. She is, moreover, always respected by the king, and praised by learned men, and her favour being sought for by all, she becomes an object of universal regard. The daughter of a king too as well as the daughter of a minister, being learned in the above arts, can make their husbands favourable to them, even though these may have thousands of other wives besides themselves. And in the same manner, if a wife becomes separated from her husband, and falls into distress, she can support herself easily, even in a foreign country, by means of her knowledge of these arts. Even the bare knowledge of them gives attractiveness to a woman, though the practice of them may be only possible or otherwise according to the circumstances of each case.
A man who is versed in these arts, who is loquacious and acquainted with the arts of gallantry, gains very soon the hearts of women, even though he is only acquainted with them for a short time.
Aus der ersten Übersetzung 1884 von Richard Burton (bzw. F.F. Arbuthnot), vom Sanskrit ins Englische. Ohne Illustrationen. Nummerierung von mir hinzugefügt. Das originale कामसूत्र entstand im 3. Jahrhundert n.Chr.
Die fett gedruckten Punkte kann ich – mit etwas gutem Willen. Ich habe mal ein paar Jahre lang Bogen geschossen und kann – ungern – einen Knopf annähen, das reicht aber nicht für 25 und 32. Nummer 45 klingt nach beliebtem Kinderspiel, das ich aber nie gelernt habe.
Wenn das jetzt noch auf deutsch wäre, wäre es noch besser…
Wie meinen Sie das mir Köpfe annähen?! Köpfe von ECHTEN MENSCHEN?!
Oh!
Hab mich verlesen…
Ich kann weder Köpfe noch Knöpfe annähen…
Das mit den anzunähenden Köpfen ist aber ein schönes Bild… gruslig vielleicht, aber schön…
Ja…
Wenigstens ist es mir noch aufgefallen, dass ich mich verlesen habe.
Further reading zu Richard Burton:
Ilija Trojanow, Der Weltensammler, München und Wien, 2006 (Roman)
ders. Nomade auf vier Kontinenten – Auf den Spuren von Sir Richard Francis Burton (biographische Montage, Collage, Reportage).
Beides großartig zu lesen.
Nr. 45 könnte das hier meinen:
http://www.labbe.de/zzzebra/index.asp?themaid=472&titelid=1615
Die Aufzählung der 64 Künste betrifft die Partybeschäftigung von reichen Städtern und ihren Entertainerinnen, den Ganikas (die Griechen nannten die Damen Hetären). In der indischen Gesellschaft dieser Zeit war dieser Beruf für Frauen die einzige Möglichkeit, ein selbstbestimmtes Leben mit eigenem Einkommen zu führen, allerdings auf Kosten ihres guten Rufes. Sie waren Stars. Deshalb ist die Mehrzahl der Künste eher dem weiblichen Arbeitsteilungsspektrum zuzuordnen.
Natürlich ist für Männer auch etwas dabei, Vatsyayana erwähnt, dass die Kenntnis dieser Künste für die schnelle Anmache fremder Frauen von Vorteil ist.
Literarisch gesehen finde ich das Kamasutra, das der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zugerechnet wird, absolut öde, weil es aus endlosen Aufzählungen besteht, aus denen eigentlich nur Soziologen und Historiker etwas lesen können, und selbst die sind sich nicht einig, ob das Werk ernst gemeint ist oder maßlos übertreibt.
Das stimmt natürlich alles. Aber zumindest die Burton-Übersetzung (nur die kenne ich) besteht nicht aus Listen, und ich lese das vor allem aus historischem Interesse.
Und zu Nr 45 passt auch dieser Ringelnatz: