Kamadeva

The God of Love

Domain: Love, Desire & Beauty
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Element: Light
Relics of Power: Bow of Sugarcane

Speak with Kamadeva

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

See PRO Get the app

The People

People

Hindu peoples

Region

Indian subcontinent

Period

c. 1500 BC – present

The Hindu deities have been worshipped for over three thousand years across the Indian subcontinent, from the Vedic hymns to the living Hinduism of today. Billions of devotees dedicate to them temples, festivals such as Diwali and Holi, and daily rituals in the home. It is one of the largest religious traditions still practiced in the world.

Diwali lights up India with oil lamps in honor of Lakshmi, and Holi celebrates spring with clouds of colored powder. At the Kumbh Mela, the largest pilgrimage on Earth, tens of millions bathe in the sacred rivers, and daily puja brings flowers, incense, and food to the altars.

At a glance

Kamadeva is the Hindu deity of erotic desire, sensory attraction, and the creative passion that animates life. Emerging initially in the Rigveda as the primordial cosmic seed of the collective mind, he developed in the epics and Puranas into the divine archer who carries a sugarcane bow strung with honeybees and quivers with five blossom-tipped arrows. Famously dramatized in Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava, he was burned to ashes by the fiery gaze of Shiva's third eye when attempting to stir romantic desire in the ascetic for Parvati, only to be resurrected as the bodiless, omnipresent spirit Ananga.

5 min read · Reviewed on September 28, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The flower bow, the parrot, the string of bees and the flower

Family

Parents

Brahma (mind-born, manasaputra)Dharma (according to epic tradition)

Kamadeva

Unions

Rati

Children

Pradyumna

Genealogy according to Rigveda 10.129.4; Atharvaveda 9.2; Mahabharata, Adi Parva 1.60.31; Kumarasambhava de Kalidasa 3-5; Matsya Purana 3-4; Shiva Purana, Rudra Samhita 2.18-19

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Anonymous, Rigveda Samhita (Mandala X, Sukta 129). translation: Ralph T. H. Griffith, The Hymns of the Rigveda, E. J. Lazarus and Co., Benares, 1896. read
Anonymous, Atharva-Veda Samhita (Book IX, Hymn 2: Hymn to Kama). translation: Maurice Bloomfield, Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (SBE 42), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1897. read
Kalidasa, Kumarasambhava (Cantos III to V). translation: Moreshwar Ramchandra Kale, The Kumarasambhava of Kalidasa, Standard Book Agency, Bombay, 1923. read
Vyasa (attributed), Matsya Purana (Chapters III and IV). translation: Srisa Chandra Vasu, The Sacred Books of the Hindus (Vol. 17), Panini Office, Bhuvaneshwari Asrama, Allahabad, 1916.

Studies

Lee Siegel, Sacred and Profane Dimensions of Love in Indian Traditions. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1978.
David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988.
Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śiva. Oxford University Press, London, 1973.
Devdutt Pattanaik, The Book of Ram. Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2009. open

Name and epithets

The Sanskrit noun Kāmadeva combines kāma (yearning, affection, or sensual attraction) and deva (deity or luminous being).

In the ancient sources

Rigveda, c. 1500–1200 BCE. Earliest canonical reference describing desire (kama) as the primal primal seed conceived within the cosmic intellect. Atharvaveda, c. 1200–1000 BCE.

The myths

The Primordial Volition in the Vedic Creation Hymns. In the enigmatic cosmogonic verses of the Rigveda's Nasadiya Sukta, prior to the differentiation of darkness and light or heaven and earth, existence was unformed voi…

Worship and archaeology

In classical India, the veneration of Kamadeva found expression through urban civic pageants such as the Madanamahotsava or Vasantotsava, vividly recorded in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra and Emperor Harsha's drama Ratnavali.

How the god was depicted

Sanskrit architectural treatises such as the Manasara depict Kamadeva as a handsome youth of radiant emerald or golden hue, adorned with gem-encrusted diadems and pearl necklaces.

What scholars debate

From Vedic Cosmogonic Force to Courtly Personification. Philologists and historians including Sukumari Bhattacharji trace the evolution of Kama from an abstract cosmic power of creation in the Vedic Samhitas to an anthr…

After antiquity

Kamadeva remains an evocative motif in South Asian literary and performance traditions. In classical Bharatanatyam and Kathak dance repertoire, numerous compositions (padams and varnams) explore the pangs inflicted by h…

Did you know?

The five floral arrows of Kamadeva traditionally symbolize five sensory states of love: attraction, emotional agitation, yearning, infatuation, and consummation.

Codex relic

Bow of Sugarcane. The sugarcane bow strung with bees and tipped with flower arrows that awaken passion in whoever is struck.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

The legends, the myth, the cult and relics are part of the full Codex. You can open 1 full entry for free every day; to open all 500 deities with no limits and no ads, subscribe to Codex PRO.

See Codex PRO Get it on Google Play