Tirumantiram by Thirumular is an ancient Tamil poetic work. Some have claimed it was written around 200 BCE, or even earlier. However, scholarly work places it in the 9th or 10th century CE.

It is the tenth of the twelve volumes of the Tirumurai, the key texts of Shaiva Siddhanta. The title means “Holy incantation”.

 Availability

Tirumantiram by Thirumular is available as a Full text

 Excerpts

19 PARIYANGA YOGA

825: Pleasures of Sex Union Will Abide If Breath Control is Properly Practiced

Anointing her body with unguents diverse

Bedecking her tresses with flowers fragrant
Do you enjoy the damsel in passion’s union;
If you but know how to shoot
Prana breath through the Spinal Cavity
Your enjoyment never ceases.

826: If Breath is Controlled Delicious Enjoyment For Partners in Sex Union Results

When they seek enjoyment
The breath stands still;
The full breasted damsel and the goodly man
Stand in union exalted;
As liquid silver and gold
Their passion’s emissions
In rapture commingles.

827: Duration of Enjoyment Lengthens If Breath is Controlled

In the copulatory yoga that is practised
By the hero and the heroine
Upward they drive the coach of breath
That has its wheels in regions right and left;
There they collect the waters of the heaven
And never the organs tiring know.

828 Restraint of Semen Flow Through Breath Control

This the meaning of that union;
When in the sex act semen flows
The yogi lets it not;
But checks it
And attains within;
And a Master he then becomes.

829 Effect of Restraint of Semen Flow

He becomes master of Jnana all
He becomes master of enjoyment all
He becomes master of himself
He becomes master of senses five.
This is Pariyanga Yoga

830: Sex Union Through the Pariyanga Lasts Five Ghatikas and is Bliss

This is Pariyanga Yoga
That lasts five ghatikas;
Beyond in the sixth
The damsel sleeps in the arms of lover
In union blissful
That fills the heart
And passes description.

831: Successful Practitioners Alone Can Resort to Pariyanga Yoga

Unless it be,
He had in success practised
The Pariyanga yoga
Of five ghatika length
No yogi shall
A woman embrace.

… 835: Pariyanga Yogi is Exalted

The Yogi who is in ecstatic joy
Unexcited performs this yoga with woman
Becomes radiant like the sun,
An acknowledged master in directions ten,
And of Ganas of groups eighteen.

… 837 Pariyanga Yoga is Yogic Wisdom That Retains the Semen

They who perfect wisdom
And embrace woman in wisdom’s beauty
Will know grief none,
Though by woman’s side he be;
The liquid silver remains unspent

838 Freedom From Sexual Union is Attained by Pariyanga Yoga

This body that melts like wax over fire
(By sexual union)
Will no more indulge in it,
When wisdom dawns;
To those who have attained Wisdom of Void
The liquid silver no exit knows.
And flows not into the vagina of woman.

… 879: Sun’s Kala in Sex Union

In the mingling of male semen and woman’s fluid
Emits [is expelled] Sun’s Kala,
If Sun’s Kala is low, semen ejects quick;
When mind and body balanced stand
Never will they let semen flow.

… 1249: Siva-Sakti Union is for Creation

The Lord of peaked matted locks
And Holy Feet,
He conjoins in Maya;
He the Pure One
That holds Ganga on His head
He shares Sakti in Love;
Him, the Great Sakti in bodily union embraced
That all creation in union to arise
She, the Supreme source of Sex-Energy.

For another discussion of Tamil thinking about controlled intercourse, visit Sexuality, Celibacy and Tantra by Marshall Govindan (2014). It looks at ideas that are slightly later than those in Tirumantiram.