Composed by the eleventh-century Kashmiri polymath Ksmendra, Samayamatrka is an illuminating text to reflect upon the interaction between secular and religious life in medieval India. Constructed as a brothel story, with a sinister bawd as model of success, the text is a satirical meditation upon religious hypocrisy and more generally upon human bent to pleasure. Tantric religion is the main target of the work’s rhetoric of irony. Yet, there is still a lack of understanding of this presence in the light of the work’s tone and style. This article argues that in the act of parodying Tantra as a cult of pleasure, Ksmendra puts into question the religious establishment, underscoring the difficulties to follow a truly pious life in a world characterized by delusion and desire. Seen in this light, the text seems to advocate an ethical stance, wherein satire bears a ludic, non-sectarian, and at times even universal significance.
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La titularidad de los derechos patrimoniales de esta obra pertenece a Asian Institute of Torino. Su uso se rige por una licencia Creative Commons BY 4.0 Internacional, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.es, fecha de asignación de la licencia 2021-06-30, para un uso diferente consultar al responsable jurídico del repositorio por medio del correo electrónico repositorio@crim.unam.mx