Indian Love Poems [Hardcover]

According to the Kama Sutra,the erotic handbook written two thousand years ago, when the wheel of ecstasy is in motion “there is no textbook at all, and no order.”Indian Love Poemsis a unique gathering of poems from across more than two and a half millennia that attempts to catalog the disordered ecstasies of love, ranging from the Kama Sutra and earlier works up to present-day India and the poets of the Indian diaspora.

Indian Love Poemsfeatures works from the classical languages of Sanskrit and Tamil and such later languages as Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Bengali, and English. Emerging from many Indian cultures and eras, the poems collected here reflect a variety of erotic and spiritual passions, and celebrate the powerful role of desire–both male and female–in the intricate dance of existence. From the twelfth-century female poet Mahadeviyakka to the twentieth-century Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore to such contemporary poets as Kamala Das and Vikram Seth, this glittering tapestry of lyric voices beautifully and sensually evokes the transfiguring force of love.Foreword

WAITING
FromSubhashitavali of Vallabhadeva
My Love

VATSYAYANA FromKamasutra
Four Embraces

MILAIPPERUNKANTAN FromKuruntokai
What He Said

ALLUR NANMULLAI FromKuruntokai
What She Said

ORERURAVANAR FromKuruntokai
What He Said

KALIDASA FromMeghadutam
The Loom of Time

ANONYMOUS
A Small Request

SRINATHA
Love Letter

JAGANATHA FromBhamini Vilasa
A Word of Warning

CHANDIDAS
‘I have blackened my golden skin’

ANURADHA MAHAPATRA
God

MAMULANAR FromKuruntokai
What She Said

CHANDIDAS
‘I throw ashes at all laws’

KAPILAR FromAinkurunuru
What Her Friend Said

TEVAKULATTAR FromKuruntokai
What ShlĂ&