The Seduction of Shiva Tales of Life and Love

Tales of love for all times. The god Shiva is utterly seduced by Mohini, the enchanting female form assumed by Vishnu during the churning of the ocean for nectar. A barber employs wit and wile and rumours of witchcraft to win his wife back from the lustful attentions of their king. The celestial nymph Urvashi curses the Pandava prince Arjuna when he rejects her sexual advances. A woman caught in adultery befools her elders with a religious ritual. A man with a disagreeable missing wife insists nevertheless that she be recovered by his ruler who has a similar problem. Refined, colloquial, romantic, cynical and satirical by turns, these stories of erotic love, elegantly translated from the Sanskrit classics, make a sustained argument for the secular ends of life - of desire tempered with discrimination and pleasure with restraint. Translated from the Sanskrit by A.N.D. Haksar