A poetic meditation on the lost divinity of desire.
He came with flowers, not fire.
His arrows bloomed, not bled.
But we saw sin in his scent, and
we burned him with silence.
Why?
Before we reduce Kamadeva to lust, let us remember who he truly is.
He is not just the “God of Desire.”
He is Madan-the one who intoxicates the soul.
He is Manmatha-the churner of hearts and minds.
He is Kusumeshu-the one whose bow is made of flowers.
He is Pradyumna-reborn love and divine radiance.
Then why is he remembered only for lust?
Why is the word Kama-which once meant love, longing, affection, and sacred passion-now reduced to sex?
Kama represents connection, attraction, beauty, and the very force that moves creation.
Yet what do we do?
We silence him.
We mock him.
We make him a shameful whisper.
Why?
Why do we glorify war gods and demonize the god of love?
Why do we celebrate destruction and hide desire?
Who decided erotic energy was impure while violence became divine?
Why do we fear softness?
Why do we punish longing?
Across mythologies, one divine force appears again and again—not as a warrior, not as a ruler, but as the spark of longing that makes even the gods tremble. In India, this force is Kama, the god of life itself.
He is the cosmic initiator, the awakener of stillness. He held no weapon that harmed.
His bow was sugarcane, strung with bees.
His arrows were tipped with five flowers:
Ashoka (awakening),
Mango blossom (intoxication),
Jasmine (yearning),
Blue lily (dreams),
Lotus (purity in passion).
He rode a parrot, Suka, the bird of speech, beauty, and love’s message.
Spring followed him. Gentle breeze. The scent of blooming. He was softness itself. He was creation through attraction- not violence.
“In the beginning there was desire (Kama), which was the first seed of mind; sages having meditated in their hearts have discovered by their wisdom the connection of the existent with the non-existent.”-Rig Veda 10.129.4
As the Rig Veda declares, Kama was the primordial force, the first movement of will and mind. So how did this cosmic principle become reduced in later mythology to merely a god of sensual desire?
Kama was the whisper before sound.
Before the Vedas were chanted, before the gods had names- he was already there.
Not indulgence, but the will to connect.
Not lust, but the first vibration of consciousness.
Then why is his name absent in the cosmic hierarchy of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva?
Then at least, for a sake of memory,
Where is his temple?
Where is his epic?
Where is his Mahapurana?
Where are his chants? His honors?
According to Hindu philosophy, If Kama was once one of the four sacred goals of life alongside Dharma, Artha, and Moksha, why has he now become synonymous with sin?
Why does the god who gave birth to movement itself get reduced to a passing mention or a cautionary tale?
Was this not betrayal?
Collective forgetting? or
A spiritual amnesia?
And yet, when Shiva meditated, when Parvati waited, when the cosmos stood still… who did the gods call upon?
Not a warrior.
Not a sage.
Only Kama.
Not for pleasure, but for duty-to restore cosmic balance.
He stepped forward with the courage of the soft-hearted. He dared to stir Shiva’s trance. He offered himself- not for personal gain, but for all of existence. He obeyed the silent vote of gods and acted.
And his reward?
Annihilation.
Shiva opened his third eye, and Kama was reduced to ash.
Not scolded.
Not banished.
Destroyed.
A martyr of longing.
Chosen by divine consensus.
Burned for obedience.
Why?
Why did Shiva, the yogi of wisdom, fail to see Kama’s pure intent?
Was it an accident of anger, or was it something deeper?
Were the other gods, too, afraid of what Kama truly represented?
And, when Kama was burned to ash, the world gasped, but Rati broke, the better half of Kama.
Rati broke not with scream, but with silence, she did not curse, she did not collapse.
She stood, a widow not by fate, but by divine fury.
She walked to the destroyer himself, why? She asked
“Why destroy the one who dare to wake you, when you knew his fire was not lust, not temptation, but for divine purpose?
Kama’s arrow was meant to resurrect love, not shatter penance. He was no enemy, he was the whisper of Shakthi, returning to call you home”.
And Shiva?
He looked at Rati, not just a wife, but a women scorned by Gods and man.
Rati, a hidden and forgotten sister of sati
Two outcasted sisters of Prajapathi Daksha for their; Sati for karma, and Rati for janma [Birth].
Sathi- who burned in sacrifice
Rathi- who lived in social exile
Her mother Sandhya a shadow of morality.
Her own birth a myth tucked under Daksha’s shame.
Shiva saw Rati not just as a grieving lover, but as another women Daksha could not control, and suddenly her pain looked like Sati’s voice resurrected.
And when Shiva gave Kama his life back, but without a body, Kama became Ananga—the bodiless.
Shiva gave back desire without form, just as love without logic, why?
For Rati, and for Sati, the two women Daksha tried to erase.
Ananga- Was that mercy, or was it censorship?
Not restored. Contained.
Perhaps Kama was never truly destroyed.
He became something more powerful.
Once, when he had form, desire had limits. It was accountable, sacred, and aligned with beauty and balance.
But now? Desire is everywhere and distorted.
Disembodied desire does not love.
It consumes…
In a world that sells sex but shames touch, sexual exploitation behind closed doors, abuse of children, women, men and anyone who cannot speak, and cages love yet markets longing, what did we expect?
Even the parrot, Kama’s companion, the bird of love has been locked in cages, and the echoes of Kama’s last whisper have been silenced.
Kama, the god of innocence, did not fall. He was buried.
Buried under power plays, religious control, colonial morality and Modern hypocrisy.
But he has emerged, not as a victim, but as an irreversible force.
No longer visible.
No longer confined.
He exists everywhere as the consequence of what we ignored, silenced, and erased.
It is time we remember, Kama was not lust.
Kama was life and Kama is life.
