liberty of expression on this theme that has so long been lacking in the Anglo-Saxon world, the publication of this art is indubitably a manifestation of the return to that very same liberty and freedom.

Kama Kala, subtitled Some Notes on the Philosophical Basis of Hindu Erotic Sculpture, was written and collected by Mulk Raj Anand, a distinguished Indian art historian, critic and editor. Hindu erotic art was expressed primarily in sculpture, because this art was religious in character; that is to say, it was sponsored by and became a part of the Indian religious temper, because it was part of the religious temple. From its very beginnings, Anand points out, this art was fascinated by the polarity of male and female, and by the metaphysical concept of bringing together these two poles. Thus, it was an art concerned with love-making as a passion in which sexuality was glorified, and always as a part of a male-female love relationship. Like the scenes in Lady Chatterly's Lover, the erotic art of classic Indian civilization was sensual, physical, lusty, and for centuries would have perfectly fitted such epithets as were favored by the moralsoverseers, as being disgusting and even prurient.

"The whole of Indian folk art is replete with sexual motifs," writes. Anand, and although the sexuality is never inhibited, although nothing is banished from the scene, although it is a sexuality that glorifies the body and depicts positional variations that have crept into modern marriage manuals under the heading of "noncoital techniques," it is a sexuality almost invariably tied up with an

amorous situation.

Desire was the call of the world. It was glorified in the poetry, it was expressed in the art, it was the philosophy of Kama: "Wish, desire, carnal gratification, lust, love and affection." The bodies of men and women

were there for each to revel in with the other; this is an essential for procreation, for fecundity, but the visage of gratification that is so apparent in the art is found when the acts performed are completely nonprocrea-

tive.

Sensuality, happiness, search for worldly gratification in a world of mysticism and unreality: this is the way the Hindu artists saw the world around them! The lips that met lips in the sculpture of the Temple of Khajuraho were expressive of a blissful and perfect joy, but not more so, nor less, than the companion art in the same temple which depicted a penis finding its way into a hand, or a mouth.

When we turn from Kama Kala to Roma Amor (the title is a palindrome, by the way), we travel from classic India to classic Rome. Roma Amor was written by Jean Marcadé, a professor of archeology at the University of Bordeaux, and the book brings together the erotic elements in Etruscan and Roman art.

Professor Marcadé presents a challenging essay on sex and magic in classic Rome. The evil eye was feared and it had to be frightened away by a powerful defense: by obscenity, by representations of the sex organs. So that people wore amulets which contained art now labeled obscene: how better could one ward off the demons and witches than by wearing these symbols that would incite fear and hopelessness? What more natural protection of life and limb than the phallus particularly when enlarged, exaggerated, or in action?

Thus, if the Indians depicted the erotic as synonymous with the amorous, the Romans showed only slight interest in affection between lovers. They were engaged in struggle, in conquest, in submission. The aggrandized phallus is not stroked gently in enjoyment, but is held like a dagger, symbolic of power, inciting to fright.

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