Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'squandering sperm' is a concept that, in the Indian male, often
develops into an obsession and even goes on to blossom into a full-
blown mental illness. Throughout history, ascetics who 'raise the
seed upward' through celibacy and meditation have been deeply
revered. But, as the distinguished psychoanalyst and scholar Sudhir
Kakar points out in his fascinating study of Indian sexuality,
Intimate
Relations
, there is an area where celibacy, in its 'ultimate if ironic
refinement,' becomes tantric sex, 'where the aspirant is trained and
enjoined to perform the sexual act itself without desire and the
'spilling of the seed,' thus divorcing the sexual impulse from human
physiology and any conscious or unconscious representation of it.'
Dr. Kakar terms such a ritual of sex 'unbelievably passionless,'
explaining that it is thought to stir up the semen and evoke 'energetic
forces that can be rechannelled upwards.' He also points out that
Mahatma Gandhi, who was rumoured to test his celibacy in old
age by sleeping with one or even two young naked women, was just
the tail-end of a tradition that goes back many centuries. On one
hand, Gandhi could resemble Chaitanya, the fifteenth-century
founder of the Vaishnavite (Vishnu-worshipping) sect to which
Gandhi belonged, and who once banished a devotee distracted by a
woman, saying, 'I can never again look upon the face of an ascetic
who associates with women. The senses are hard to control, and
seek to fix themselves on worldly things. Even the wooden image
of a woman has the power to steal the mind of a sage.' On the other
hand, however, Gandhi could also resemble Ramananda,
Chaitanya's devotee and constant companion, who 'used to take
two beautiful young temple prostitutes into a lonely garden where
he would oil their bodies, bathe, and dress them while himself
remaining 'unaffected'.'
Not only is this sex-within-celibacy deeply embedded in the
Indian psyche, but the concept of celibacy itself is, curiously, both
lauded and derided. Even the
Kama Sutra
, that often graphically
illustrated hard-core manual of seduction and copulation, portrays
the truly skilful lover as anything but a hot-blooded ladies' man.
Instead, his talents come from being above passion, his sensuousness
from having mastered the senses through austerities and meditation.
As in Eden, the woman and her devious ways challenge the man to
