Kama (kāma)

Kama covers desire in its full range, from sexual love to appetite and ambition, and is the third of the four aims of life. The epic is unusually frank about it: Shantanu's longing for Satyavati costs his son a throne and a family, Pandu's hunt ends in a curse born of a couple's pleasure, and Yayati exchanges his old age for his son's youth only to conclude that desire is never exhausted by indulging it. Kama is not condemned, but it is repeatedly shown to be the thing that levers otherwise admirable men off the path.