C. Ravindran Nambiar
Kerala, India
Lady Chatterley's Lover as a Tantric Testament of Love
I feel that Lady Chatterley's Lover has not yet received the critical attention it deserves. Doris Lessing writes, after "rereading the novel many years and some loves later, the great sex scenes have lost their power" (Introduction to Penguin Classic edition). Though she praises the novel here and there, the impression she gives is that it is an anti-war novel written by a "sex-obsessed writer". She adds, "so many weltering aggravating emotions were at work in this very ill man as he wrote and rewrote Lady Chatterley's Lover". It is unfortunate that the novel is seen by her in the light of "weak chest", family quarrel, "clitoral orgasm", etc. The whole novel is packed with wisdom; oriental wisdom, perhaps. Mellors and Constance simply represent the male and female energy through which the sublime enlightenment is achieved. Sex in the novel is a kind of ladder to attain purification (what Lawrence calls "chastity) and elevation, finally achieving pure consciousness (sat-chit-ananda). "I love this chastity", says Mellors. The lovers help the readers in realizing a cosmic awareness. In her search to discover the mystery behind Mellors, Connie stumbles upon "three books on India". This must be related to the scene in which Mellors is sitting with his face "motionless in physical abstraction, almost like the face of Buddha. Motionless and in the invisible flame of consciousness"." I love in a higher mystery", says Mellors at the end of the novel. He also said earlier that "I've been in India", and Lawrence adds, "if the man had been in India for four or five years, he must be more or less presentable". It should be taken as a symbolic statement. A look at the novel in the light of Tantric philosophy, with the help of Anand K. Coomaraswamy, Henrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell, and some of the great writers in India on sex and Tantrism, is the thrust of my paper.