Bhartihari's solemn dilemma

Ancient India, we are endlessly told, was very open to sexuality and its representations – the Kamasutra and this orgy from the temples of Khajuraho are oft cited. Given that Indians are more conservative now (I know, it's a broad generalization), I’ve always wondered what happened in the intermediate historical period that changed attitudes. William Dalrymple’s recent essay in NYRB gives a few insights, but it principally discusses expressions of sexuality in south India – in the Pallava and Chola eras – and in the Tantric tradition.

There are some serious thoughts in the essay and I encourage you to read it. But if you want something in the lighter vein, don't by any means miss this bit that pertains to a dilemma that a 3rd century poet, Bhartihari, faced: Should one adopt a life of austerity and asceticism, or give in to the temptations of unabashed physical lust? Bhartihari seems to have pondered the question very seriously as Dalrymple illustrates:

Classical India developed a refined and tutored sophistication about the finer points of sexuality, famously so in the Kamasutra, the principal work on love in Sanskrit literature. It has never been equaled; yet there has always been a strong tension in Hinduism between the ascetic and the sensual. The poet Bhartrihari, who probably lived in the third century AD, around the time of the composition of the Kamasutra, oscillated no less than seven times between the rigors of the monastic life and the abandon of the sensualist. "There are two paths," he wrote. "The sages' religious-devotion, which is lovely because it overflows with the nectarous waters of the knowledge of truth," and "the lusty undertaking of touching with one's palm that hidden part in the firm laps of lovely-limbed women, loving women with great expanses of breasts and thighs."

"Tell us decisively which we ought to attend upon," he asks in the Shringarashataka. "The sloping sides of wilderness mountains? Or the buttocks of women abounding in passion?"

Any answers?