“Kāmad Brahmarṣi: Interpreting Dharma, Artha, and Kāma in Indian Ethical Thought”
By Cdr Alok Mohan
पुरुषार्था चतुर्विधा: धर्मार्थकाममोक्षश्च।
puruṣārthā catuvvidhā: dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa ca.
(“Human aims are fourfold: dharma (righteousness), artha (means/prosperity), kāma (desire/pleasure), and mokṣa (liberation).”)
Introduction:
Sages (ṛṣis, munis, brahmarṣis) function in Indic tradition as custodians and expounders of dharma and human purpose. Classical Hindu ethics organizes life around four ends—dharma, artha, kāma, and mokṣa (the puruṣārthas). Many episodes in Purāṇic and Itihāsa literature record dialogues in which kings or seekers pose concise questions and sages reply with short, normatively charged definitions; such dialogues both instruct and crystallize cultural understandings of duty and ends. The present study about कामद as one such teaching-episode and assesses it against available textual evidences and scholarship.
“Kāmad was regarded as a Brahmarṣi. When King Aṅgariṣṭha approached him with the inquiry, ‘What constitutes pure Dharma, Artha, and Kāma?,’ the sage responded with succinct definitions: ‘That which leads to the purification of the mind is Dharma; that through which the essential human purposes are fulfilled is Artha; and that desire which is directed merely toward the sustenance of the body is Kāma.’”
This paper examines the teachings of the great Sage called कामद (Kāmad) i.e a Brahmarṣi who answered King Aṅgariṣṭha’s question regarding “śuddha dharma, artha and kāma”—and places that testimony in the wider context of classical Indian soteriological and ethical thought (puruṣārthas).
A targeted survey of digitized manuscript-catalogues and printed kathā-kośa editions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries shows repeated appearances of the lexeme कामद in ritual-invocation formulas and in the titles/refrains of kathā collections (for example in multiple editions of आराधना-कथा-कोश and related “kathā-kośa” compendia where the refrain “कामदं मोक्षदं…” occurs as part of opening salutations). (Nikky Jain) Descriptive manuscript-catalogue extracts and printed compendia likewise preserve short stanzas containing the word कामद, often as an epithet associated with salvific power or as a phrase within ritual wording rather than as a clear personal-name narrative. (Jain Literature) Significantly, however, my search of these available nineteenth–twentieth–century printed and catalogued materials did not locate a stable Purāṇic or kathā-kośa attestation that unambiguously depicts a brahmarṣi named precisely “कामद” who answers King Aṅgariṣṭha’s question; instead the better–attested Purāṇic brahmarṣi कर्दम (Kardama) appears widely in canonical indices and may account for some onomastic confusion in oral or regional retellings. In sum, printed kathā-compendia and manuscript-catalogue entries confirm the circulation of the word कामद in devotional and kathā-refrains in the 19th–20th centuries, but they do not provide a clear, contextualized narrative identity for a distinct sage called “कामद” matching the precise dialogic episode recorded in; archival manuscript inspection of regional kathā redactions and unpublished library holdings would be the next step to resolve whether the name there functions as an epithet, a localized proper name, or a variant of कर्दम. “Kāmad was a brahmarṣi. King Aṅgariṣṭha asked him, ‘What are pure dharma, artha and kāma?’ The sage replied, ‘That which purifies the mind is dharma; that by which human ends are realized is artha; and desire that is only for bodily sustenance is kāma.’”
Source base and methodological remark
There is no well-attested research undertaken or canonical text specifically dedicated to the sage named Kāmad whose life and teachings could clearly be separated from the more familiar Purāṇic sages.
However what is preserved—largely through oral or vernacular traditions, such as triadic teaching attributed to Kāmad in response to King Aṅgariṣṭha’s question about śuddha dharma, artha, and kāma. According to that tradition, Kāmad defines dharma as that which purifies the mind, artha as that by which the human aims (puruṣārthas) are achieved, and kāma as desire limited to bodily sustenance. Because the name Kāmad does not surface prominently in available digital Purāṇic indices, encyclopedic or manuscript repositories, this historical figure seems to survive mainly in regional or oral renditions rather than standard textual lineages.
Thus the present research must operate partly in reconstruction and critical comparison—drawing parallels with well-documented sages such as Kardama or other brahmarṣis—while treating the quoted teaching as a legitimate window into localized interpretive streams of the puruṣārtha tradition.
Two kinds of sources were used, for carrying the research:
Primarily local testimonies i.e oral/vernacular tradition
Secondary sources for example online scholarly and popular sources concerning the doctrine of the puruṣārthas
Several accessible web sources discuss Kardama (कर्दम) — his marriage to Devahūti and his place in the Bhāgavata / Purāṇic corpus — and the general scholastic literature on the four aims of life.
Life and identity: Kāmad and possible conflations
A systematic web search for the exact name “कामद” returned very little information/stable, well-attested material.
However, multiple accessible Purāṇic narratives centre on कर्दम (Kardama / Kardam) Muni, a shadow-born (chāyaj) son of Brahmā who married Devahūti and fathered the sage Kapila; Kardama is explicitly described as a brahmarṣi in many accounts and is widely represented in ancient literature, for example Bhāgavata-related summaries and temple/folk-site notices.
Given: (a) the similarity of the names (कामद / कर्दम), (b) the prevalence of Kardama in the Purāṇic roster of brahmarṣis, and (c) the paucity of online attestations for a distinct Kāmad figure, it is plausible that the vernacular tradition preserves a localized name-form Kāmad for a better-known Purāṇic sage, or (ii) reflects a distinct but now-obscure local sage-figure whose record did not enter digital Purāṇic indices.
The sage’s teachings: recorded his reply in three short definitions; a literal translation into English:
धर्म (dharma): “That by which the mind (chit) becomes pure.”
अर्थ (artha): “That by which the puruṣārtha (purushartha) is achieved.” (i.e., that which facilitates the attainment of human aims / life-goals.)
काम (kāma): “The desire that is only for bodily maintenance.” (i.e., desire limited to mere physical subsistence or sensual ends.)
This triadic gloss is terse and deliberately evaluative: dharma is psychospiritual purification; artha is instrumental to purposive achievement; kāma is reduced (negatively) to mere bodily gratification. Notably, kāma is treated narrowly (as “only bodily maintenance desire”), which contrasts with some classical treatments that allow a more positive, aesthetic or social dimension to kāma (e.g., love, aesthetic enjoyment), but consonant with ascetic and bhakti-oriented critiques that restrict sensual desire as lower desire or instrumental.
Comparative reading with the classical puruṣārtha literature
Convergences
The three-term focus (dharma–artha–kāma) fits cleanly into the classical puruṣārtha framework (dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa). Academic surveys summarize the four aims as righteousness, material/prosperous means, desire/pleasure, and liberation; the sage’s definitions can be read as an ethical hierarchy in which dharma conditions the mind and thereby the rightful pursuit of the other ends.
The emphasis on internal purification (“jis se cit kī śuddhi ho”) as the hallmark of dharma resonates with many bhakti and Vedāntic accounts that prioritize mental purification as the precondition for correct action and knowledge. Classical texts from the Upaniṣads, Gītā and later Bhakti literature repeatedly stress inner purity as the locus of dharma.
Divergences and distinctive emphases
Narrowing of kāma. The definition of kāma as merely “desire for bodily maintenance” is more negative and restricted than many classical expositions (which include artistic, erotic, and social pleasures under kāma). This narrower definition reflects either (a) an ascetic interpretive tendency in the vernacular tradition that recorded the episode, or (b) a dialogical move by the sage to differentiate higher purposive aims (dharma and artha) from base sensual fixation. Several medieval and modern interpreters likewise insist on controlling kāma to prevent it from thwarting dharma or mokṣa.
Artha as instrumental to puruṣārtha attainment. Defining artha as “that by which puruṣārtha is achieved” places artha in service of purpose rather than as an autonomous good. This instrumental framing aligns with classical normative literature (Manu, Arthashastra, later commentators) that recommends wealth and means be harnessed for duty and social order rather than pursued for their own sake. The parallelism with classical doctrine supports the view that the reported aphorism is a vernacular distillation of high-canonical ideas.
Philosophical and normative analysis
Three interpretive observations:
Priority of the inner over the outer. By making dharma a function of mental purity, the aphorism collapses external ritual or social norms into inner moral condition—an interpretation sympathetic to Upaniṣadic and bhakti currents that privilege interiority.
Instrumentality and teleology. Treating artha instrumentally emphasizes teleology: means (wealth, resources) have value insofar as they enable purposive human aims. This ethical teleology prevents a mere materialist reading of artha.
Critical stance toward desire. The constricted definition of kāma signals a cautionary stance: desire aimed only at bodily subsistence or pleasure risks being unredeeming. Within the puruṣārtha system such a stance defends a moral hierarchy where desire is regulated by dharma and subordinated to higher spiritual ends.
Together these three points make the aphorism a concise pedagogy: purify the mind (dharma), use resources to realize human ends (artha), and be wary of desire that remains stuck at bodily levels (kāma).
Reception, textual context, and possible traditions behind the aphorism
Dialogic genre. The king–sage question is a common pedagogic device in Purāṇic compilations and regional kathā-literature (kathā-kośa).
Onomastic variance. The absence of a stable, well-indexed corpus-entry for कामद on the web suggests either (a) the sage is a local/vernacular figure preserved in oral tradition but not in major Purāṇic redactions accessible online, or (b) the name is a variant (or slip) for कर्दम / Kardama, who is an established brahmarṣi in Purāṇic registries. The latter hypothesis is plausible because name-variants and phonetic shifts (k ↔ m, insertion/omission of consonants) are common in oral transmission and later print. Related web-materials on Kardama show he is widely represented as a Brahmā-born sage in Purāṇic summaries and devotional retellings.
Conclusion
The short three-fold definition attributed to the sage कामद—(1) dharma: mental purification; (2) artha: instrument for achieving human aims; (3) kāma: desire limited to bodily maintenance—is a compact vernacular synthesis of long-standing Purāṇic and ethical teachings about the puruṣārthas.
Research recommendations. To clarify the onomastic question and historicity of “Kāmad,” a next step would be
(a) consulting printed Kathā-Kośa volumes (19th–20th c. Hindi/Prakrit compilations)
(b) examining regional Purāṇic redactions in manuscript catalogs.
(c) interviewing local tradition-keepers/oral culture.
References:
Hamare Poorvaj By Dr L D Mohan
Hindi Katha Koṣa (digitized text; contains kathā-style dialogues mentioning king–sage dialogues). (Internet Archive)
Web summaries and Purāṇic retellings on Kardama (कर्दम) Rishi (devotional and encyclopedic webpages summarizing Bhāgavata accounts). (Wikipedia)