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KAMA, or KAMADEVA

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 645 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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See also:

KAMA, or KAMADEVA , in See also:Hindu See also:mythology, the See also:god of love. He is variously stated to have been the See also:child of Brahma or Dharma (virtue). In the Rig Veda, Kama (See also:desire) is described as the first See also:movement that arose in the One after it had come into See also:life through the See also:power of fervour or See also:abstraction. In the Atharva-Veda Kama does not mean sexual desire, but rather the yearning after the See also:good of all created things. Later Kama is simply the Hindu See also:Cupid. While attempting to lure See also:Siva to See also:sin, he was destroyed by a fiery glance of the goddess' third See also:eye. Thus in Hindu See also:poetry Kama is known as Ananga, the " bodiless god." Kama's wife Kati (voluptuousness) mourned him so greatly that Siva relented, and he was reborn as the child of See also:Krishna and Rukmini. The babe was called Pradyumna (Cupid). He is represented armed with a See also:bow of See also:sugar-See also:cane; it is strung with bees, and its five arrows are tipped with See also:flowers which overcome the five senses. A See also:fish adorns his See also:flag, and he rides a See also:parrot or See also:sparrow, emblematic of lubricity.

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