With all the controversy over Richard Gere's infamous kiss of Shilpa Shetty, who would imagine that the first public record of the kiss is found, where else, in India.
According to Texas A&M University anthropologist Vaughn Bryant, "References to kissing did not appear until 1500 BC when historians found four major texts in Vedic Sanskrit literature of India that suggested an early form of kissing. There are hreferences to the custom of rubbing and pressing noses together. This practice, it is recorded, was a sign of affection, especially between lovers.
"This is not kissing as we know it today, but we believe it may have been its earliest beginning. About 500 to 1,000 years later, the epic Mahabharata, contained hreferences suggesting that affection between people was expressed by lip kissing. Later, the Kama Sutra, a classic text on erotica, contained many examples of erotic kissing and kissing techniques." | |
