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The Interdisciplinary Corpus of Kamasastra in 'Vidya Sundar' Pala and 'Chaushathi-Rati Bandha'

Presenter:

· Naba Gopal Roy Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Tokyo, Japan)

Timeslot:

07/27 | 15:50-16:10 UTC+2/CEST

Abstract

The Kamasutra of Vatsyayana and many other similar texts were written in India and the tradition filtered down to Bengali and Oriya literature as well. Sexual activity was there very much, such as ‘Vidya Sundar’ pala and ‘Chaushathi-Rati Bandha’ Translation and Transcription from Palm-Leaf of those texts similarly done previously. The main aim of this paper is to see how translation intercedes in the emplacement of cultures. For my purpose, I shall take up an illustrated poetical composition of unknown/unpublished and also published palm-leaf manuscript called ‘Chaushathi-Rati Bandha’ by the Odia poet Gopala Bhanja, and his translations/adaptations in particular that text regularized by a set of erotica theme and factors like erotica-literature in the form of vernacular or local “Kamasutra” in connection with the approach of Bengali tradition of ‘Vidya Sundar’ pala. In medieval Bengali-Odia literature, there was a hidden tradition of erotica on the basis of Kamasutra. I shall endeavor to explain that those palas long illustrated and non-illustrated poem were patterned after the composition of Vātsyāyana’s Kāmasūtra, and some relevant later works of other vernacular Kāma-sūtras. However, my curiosity is not so much with retracing conventions of similarities and differences between the two texts so as to agree on the question to evoke the classical Indian heritage or to attempt poetical innovations through the use of Kamasutra of Vastyana’s sources. As a medieval poet working in the besides two states on political regime but in a specific erotica matrix were engaged in the formation of regional cultural identity through the subjects of an ancient legacy.