ORATORY OF SERENITY
Dreams dwelling dry
On the brink of despair
Can be dazzlingly damp
Sprouting in all splendour
With blooming bowers
Blossoming flowers
Smiles stunningly sheeny
With glistening grandeur
Savour serenity’s flavour
Favouring many a lover
Leaping in strides of joy
With oratory of silence
Tremendous tapestry
Is woven into chemistry
Of two entwined bodies
Love glances in mystery
With a fresh leaf of history
Love’s scintillating story
Treasures mirth’s memory
Couple in the sexual asana of Phanabhritpasha. Nepal, Bhaktapur, ca. 1700
This sxual position, "The Knot of the Hooded One," was described in the "Ratiratnapradipika," written by Prauadha Deva Raya (maharaja of Vijayanagara): "When your lover passes her arms under her raised thighs and twines her fingers together behind your neck, pulling your face down to be kissed." [The Karnata Empire, with its capital at Vijayanagara (modern Hampi,Karnataka, India, was established in 1336 by Harihara Raya I (1336-1356) and his brother Bukka Raya I (1356-1377). Bukka's successor, Harihara Raya II (1377-1401),continued his military campaigns through southern India, taking control of coastal Andhra between Nellore and Kalinga and conquering the Addanki and Srisailam areas as well as most of the territory between the peninsula to the south of the Krishna river and l ports including Goa, Chaul, and Dabhol. After his death Deva Raya I (1406-1422) defeated his brothers Virupaksha Raya (1401-1405) and Bukka Raya II (1405-1406), allied with Warangal to partition the Reddi kingdom of Kondavidu, and defeated an invasion by the sultan Firoz Shah, forcing him to cede the southern and eastern districts of his kingdom. By the end of his reign he ruled territory up to the Krishna and Tungabhadra river and was followed by his sons Ramachandra Raya (1422) and Vira Vijaya Bukka Raya (1422–1424). Deva Raya II (1424–1446) conqured all of southern India, including Kondavidu, defeated the ruler of Quilon and others, and extending his empire from Odisha to Malabar and from Ceylon to Gulbarga. His successors, Mallikarjuna Raya (1446–1465), Virupaksha Raya II (1465–1485), and Praudha Deva Raya (1485), however, were nonentities. Praudha Deva Raya, the last of the Sangama Dynasty, did manage to compose an erotic classic in his short reign before he driven out of his capital by his able commander Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya. The kingdom thereafter declined in signigicance, though it lasted until 1646.]
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