Passion, And Love In Vidyakara's Eyre

Attitudes towards sexuality, erotic passion, and love in Vidyakara’s Treasury are both multi-faceted and complex in terms of the subtext and emotions underlying each of these ideas and sensations. This nuanced perception can clearly be seen in poems 568 and 630, each of which takes a unique stance on the relationship between love and sex, and yet do not directly contradict each other. In poem 568, the narrator is a shy, modest woman whose shame in expressing her sexuality is overcome by her erotic desire for her partner. The poem describes how when the male took off her clothes, “unable to guard [her] bosom with [her] slender arms, [she] clung to his very chest for garment.” (568) However, as the man reaches below her hips, she was saved from

In many ways, this poem explores the opposite side of the sexuality and eroticism from poem 568 by depicting what sex looks like when absent of love and emotional connection. The woman described has a tarnished dress with flowers disheveled in her hair and a torpid eye (630). Moreover, her breast is marked with nail tracks, which is a commonly used evidence of sexual activity in many poems in this work. Notably missing from this description, however, is any sign of the modesty or shyness that was prominent in the female’s depiction in poem 568. According to the poem, she has been reduced to this condition by “the poison she has taken, body pressed to body, from the many men who love her.” (630) It is implied that the physical act of sex without a sentimental subtext will lead women to ruin, just as it is also implied in poem 568. The woman in this poem, likely a harlot, has been physically and emotionally damaged by her sexual relationships, which is a side of sexuality that is rarely explored in Vidyakara’s Treasury and yet the message of this poem falls in line with the values of modesty and humility when it comes to one’s sexual affairs which are pervasive throughout many of the

The feminine ideals of modesty and shame when expressing sexuality are upheld in the positive depiction of the woman in poem 568 as well as the negative depiction of the harlot in poem 630. Furthermore, poem 568 has an added religious context in which the woman feels sexually liberated to enjoy erotic pleasure due to the god of love, but this is only possible because her sexual relationship with her partner was under the auspices of love. In poem 630, this was certainly not the case with the many sexual relations the woman described had with the men who loved her. By juxtaposing these two poems, we are able to thereby obtain a greater understanding of the Indian perception love, pleasure, and religion and how they all fit together in determining