NEW DELHI: These days condoms are a source of unending worry for Madhya Pradesh PWD minister Vijayvargiya and his political friends in the state. Especially, if they come with a vibrating ring. Then, he feels, the condom metamorphoses into a sex toy. "And sex toys," says the minister, "can have serious repercussions on the Indian way of life."

Celebrated historical texts suggest otherwise. Vatsyayana’s 4th century AD compilation Kama Sutra, the world’s oldest tome on sex and its pleasures, is peppered with so many details of sex toys that one begins to wonder if it was a small-scale industry in ancient India.

The section titled Aupanishadika (occult practices) talks about various kinds of apadravya (apparatus) used for sexual intercourse. These dildos or sex aids were made of wooden, rubber, gold, silver, copper, ivory, even horn. At one place, the Kama sutra also says that when men have no sex partner, they satisfy themselves "with dolls."

The book provides graphic details of the shapes and sizes of the sex toys ranging from a rounded stick to a curved stick in the shape of a mortar, from an object shaped like a flower bud to elephant’s trunk. The text even talks about artificial sex organs made of "hollowed out pumpkins" and "bamboos moistened with oil and ointment."

The MP minister seems to be arguing against sex as pleasure. "The government should promote family planning and not something that is meant to give your partner pleasure," he says. By this logic even dotted or flavoured condoms should not be promoted by government.

The minister’s worries on the social effect of such toys seem to be misplaced. Several Indian texts show that sexual love was both art and sport in the ancient period.

Set in Benaras, Damodargupta’s 8th century AD long poem Kuttanimata (The advice of a courtesan) devotes a number of pages on how to win hearts and bodies of young men.

Ram Nath Jha, who teaches in Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, JNU, says that even ancient philosophical treatises such as Swaminarayan Bhashya’s comments on Sankhyakarika (12 century AD) and Mathara Vritti (between 6th-8 century AD), a major text in Sankhya philosophy talk of sex as a pleasure provider.

Jha quotes from Bhashya: Upatisthate vishayopabhogartham tadupastham anandagrahanalingam bhavati (The sex organ produces pleasure through experiencing objects; therefore, it is a sign of the atma). Jha says people have stopped reading original texts.

"Which is why they talk like this," he says. However, Kumkum Roy, who teaches ancient India in JNU, offers a different twist to the debate. She admits that means of enhancing sexual pleasures are discussed in ancient Indian texts. "But," she points out, "the notion of sexual pleasure in these texts was not universal. They were primarily meant for men belonging to dominant elite groups."