Love, Guidedly Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sensual pleasure

In Sanskrit, 'kama' means sensual, or sensual pleasure, in all its forms (i.e. taste, touch, sight, smell and sound). 'Sutra' means held together (literally, by a thread or string, but the word is also used in the metaphorical sense). The English word 'suture' comes from 'sutra'.

Kama is one of the four purusharthas, or life goals, of the Indian philosophies. The other three are dharma (virtuous living), artha (material wealth), and moksha (liberation at the end of the life cycle).

Answer: Sir Richard Francis Burton

Sir Richard Francis Burton was a bit of a 19th century Renaissance man. He was a writer, poet, soldier, ethnologist and diplomat, among other pursuits. He is credited as being responsible for the 1883 English translation of the "Kama Sutra", though most of the work was actually done by the Indian archaeologist Bhagvanlal Indraji and a student of his. Burton was more like the publisher of the work, and added an introduction, footnotes and annotations.

A more recent English translation, which is slowly becoming the standard text for English-speaking scholars, was published by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar in 2002.

In 1980, the Indian-English writer Indra Sinha compiled a translation of just the sections on sexual union, which was published and circulated on the Internet in the '90s, aiding the widespread belief that the "Kama Sutra" is simply a sex manual.

Answer: Daily

Part I is the Introduction and contains five chapters. Chapter IV deals with daily life, after the citizen has become learned and gained some wealth. The chapter contains some awfully specific instructions on becoming a homeowner and how the house should be decorated.

It also contains a detailed guide to personal grooming, including advising the citizen to wash his teeth daily, bathe daily, anoint his body with oil every other day, shave his head and face every four days, and shave other parts of the body every five-ten days.

The chapter goes on to describe some daily (and some slightly odd) activities of a citizen, including teaching birds to speak after breakfast, spending the afternoon conversing with friends, taking a midday nap, then singing in the evening.

Answer: False

In Part I, Chapter V ("About the Kinds of Women Resorted to by Citizens, and Of Friends and Messengers"), it says that men should, in general, marry virgins within their own caste and produce many children. Engaging in relationships with women in higher castes, as well as with impure women, is generally frowned upon. Consorting with women of lower castes is permissible, but only for the sake of fun, not for marriage.

There are some exceptions noted, however, in that some people thought it okay to associate with women of higher castes if those women were 'public' women not fit for marriage, or if the man had something else to gain from the woman, such as riches or an introduction to other powerful people she may know.

It was also permissible for a man to have an affair with a married woman if that woman's husband had had an affair with the first man's wife.

Answer: Four

"On the Different Kinds of Love" is one part of Chapter I of Part II, the part of the "Kama Sutra" that looks more specifically at loving relationships and sexual union. There are four kinds of love described in this section. The first is "Love acquired by continual habit" - love that results from doing something repeatedly. So, for example, a man may come to love a woman if he is around her a lot for a period of time.

The text likens this to how men come to love gambling or hunting - they do it a few times until they really enjoy it.

The second kind of love is "Love resulting from the imagination", which "comes entirely from ideas", and this differs from the first kind of love, in that you come to love something or someone you don't encounter habitually.

For example, you suddenly decide to try kissing a different part of the body, and find you love it. The third kind of love is "Love resulting from belief" - this is simply the belief or knowing of love that is mutual between two people, e.g. you just glance at your beloved and know you love her.

The final kind is "Love resulting from the perception of external objects". Under this category, you might, for example, love someone or something because your parents told you you should.

Answer: Yes

From Chapter I of Part III, "On Marriage": "A man should fix his affections upon a girl who is of good family, whose parents are alive, and who is three or more years younger than himself. She should be born of a highly respectable family, possessed of wealth, well-connected, and with many relations and friends.

She should also be beautiful, of a good disposition, with lucky marks on her body, and with good hair, nails, teeth, ears, eyes and breasts, neither more nor less than they ought to be, and no one of them entirely wanting, and not troubled with a sickly body." This chapter also provides a long list of qualities to avoid in a potential wife, including: one with an ill-sounding name, one who has crooked thighs, one who has a bald head, and one who has an older sister.

The text also says that a man should not marry a girl who is crying or sleeping when he goes to her house to ask her to be his wife.

Answer: Fire

Chapter V starts with describing the procedure of a courtship, which involves a female messenger going between a man and a woman and saying good things about one to the other, to get them to like each other and be interested in a relationship. The chapter then goes on to say, once the girl has been won over, that the man should get fire from the house of a Brahman, spread Kusha grass on the ground, and marry the girl according to religious law. According to the text, "a marriage solemnly contracted in the presence of fire cannot afterwards be set aside".

Answer: Her parents

Chapter I of Part IV is entitled "On the Manner of Living of a Virtuous Woman, and Of Her Behaviour During the Absence of Her Husband". In this chapter, the text says "The wife should always avoid the company of female beggars, female Buddhist mendicants, unchaste and roguish women, female fortune tellers and witches". It doesn't really say why, but presumably a virtuous woman should not associate with shady and/or socially undesirable characters.

This chapter also explains that a wife should always keep a clean house, should prepare meals according to her husband's likes and dislikes, and should not "blame him excessively" for any misconduct on his part, though she is allowed to be "a little displeased". When her husband is away, she must go about her household duties, wear plain, unadorned clothing, and take care of his possessions that he likes best.

Answer: All of these are reasons

Chapter II of Part IV deals with multiple wives and harems. The beginning of the chapter gives a short list of reasons why a man would marry again while his wife is still alive. In addition to the reasons listed here, it also says that a man may take another wife if his wife is crazy or ill-tempered, or simply due to his own wantonness.

The text says that the elder wife should welcome a new wife into her home, and treat the new wife as superior to herself. The elder wife should act as a sister to the new wife, and give help and advice, as well as treat the new woman's children as her own. If there are more than two wives in the household, the first wife should still act as the elder sister, but may also behave in such a way that she could once again become the husband's favourite wife.

Answer: The bone of a peacock, covered in gold

This is explained in Chapter I of Part VII, "On Personal Adornment; On Subjugating the Hearts of Others; and On Tonic Medicines". The chapter says "good looks, good qualities, youth and liberality" are the key to attracting others, but when men and women lack these things, they must find artificial alternatives.

The peacock bone, or alternatively a hyena bone, covered in gold is one suggestion in the "Kama Sutra".