Kamadeva
Hindu god of love
Kamadeva (Sanskrit: कामदेव, IAST: Kāmadeva), also known as Kama, Manmatha, and Madana is the Hindu god of love, attraction, pleasure and beauty, as well as the personification of the concept of kāma. He is depicted as a handsome young man decked with ornaments and flowers, armed with a bow of sugarcane and shooting arrows of flowers. He is often portrayed alongside his consort and female counterpart, Rati.
Kamadeva's origins are traced to the verses of the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda, although he is better known from the stories of the Puranas. The Atharva Veda regards Kamadeva as a powerful god, the wielder of the creative power of the universe, also describing him to have been "born at first, him neither the gods nor the fathers ever equaled".
In the Puranas, Kamadeva is generally mentioned as a manasaputra (mind-born son) of the creator god Brahma. His most popular myth is his incineration by the god Shiva's third eye and rebirth on earth as Pradyumna, the eldest son of Krishna and his chief consort Rukmini.
Etymology and other names
The name Kama-deva (IAST: kāma-deva) can be translated as 'god of love'. Deva means heavenly or divine and refers to a deity in Hinduism. Kama (IAST: kāma) means "passion" or "longing", especially as in sensual or passionate love.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kamadeva” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.