Mlecchita vikalpa

Last updated

Mlecchita Vikalpa is one of the 64 arts listed in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra, translated into English as "the art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way". [1] The list appears in Chapter 3 of Part I of Kamasutra and Mlecchita Vikalpa appears as the 44th item in the list.

Contents

Introduction

Mlecchita Vikalpa is the art of secret writing and secret communications. In The Codebreakers , a 1967 book by David Kahn about the history of cryptography, the reference to Mlecchita Vikalpa in Kamasutra is cited as proof of the prevalence of cryptographic methods in ancient India. Though Kamasutra does not have details of the methods by which people of that time practiced this particular form of art, later commentators of Kamasutra have described several methods. For example, Yasodhara in his Jayamangala commentary on Kamasutra [2] gives descriptions of methods known by the names Kautilya and Muladeviya. The ciphers described in the Jayamangala commentary are substitution ciphers: in Kautiliyam the letter substitutions are based on phonetic relations, and Muladeviya is a simplified version of Kautiliyam. There are also references to other methods for secret communications like Gudhayojya, Gudhapada and Gudhavarna. Some modern writers on cryptography have christened the ciphers alluded to in the Kamasutra as Kamasutra cipher or Vatsyayana cipher. [3]

The exact date of the composition of Kamasutra has not been fixed. It is supposed that Vatsyayana must have lived between the first and sixth centuries AD. However, the date of the Jayamangla commentary has been fixed as between the tenth and thirteenth centuries CE. [1]

Kautiliya

This is a Mlecchita named after Kautilya, the author of the ancient Indian political treatise, the Arthashastra. In this system, the short and long vowels, the anusvara and the spirants are interchanged for the consonants and the conjunct consonants. The following table shows the substitutions used in the Kautiliyam cipher. The characters not listed in the table are left unchanged. [4]

aāiīuūeaioauñśsirlu
khgghchjjhñṭhḍhthddhnphbbhmyrlv

There is a simplified form of this scheme known by the name Durbodha.

Muladeviya

Another form of secret writing mentioned in Yasodhara's commentary on Kamasutra is known by the name Muladeviya. This existed both in the spoken form and in the written form. In the written form it is called Gudhalekhya. This form of secret communications were used by kings' spies as well as traders in various geographical locations in India. Also this form of secret communications has been popular among thieves and robbers. [4] However, there were variations in the actual scheme across the various geographical areas. For example, in the erstwhile Travancore Kingdom, spread over a part of present-day Kerala State in India, it was practiced under the name Mulabhadra with some changes from the schemes described by Yashodhara.

The cipher alphabet of Muladeviya consists of the reciprocal one specified in the table below. [4] [5]

akhghctñnrly
kgpmsś

The great Indian epic Mahabharata contains an incident involving the use of this type of secret talking. [6] Duryodhana was planning to burn Pandavas alive and had made arrangements to send Pandavas to Varanavata. Vidura resorted to secret talk to warn Yudhishthira about the dangers in front of everybody present. Only Yudhishthira could understand the secret message. None others even suspected that it was a warning.

Gudhayojya

This is an elementary and trivial method for obscuring the true content of spoken messages and it is popular as a language game among children. The idea is to add some unnecessary letters chosen randomly to the beginning or to the end of every word in a sentence. For example, to obscure the sentence "will visit you tonight" one may add the letters "dis" at the beginning of every word and convey the message as "diswill disvisit disyou distonight" the real content of which may not be intelligible to the uninitiated if pronounced rapidly. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cipher</span> Algorithm for encrypting and decrypting information

In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. To encipher or encode is to convert information into cipher or code. In common parlance, "cipher" is synonymous with "code", as they are both a set of steps that encrypt a message; however, the concepts are distinct in cryptography, especially classical cryptography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptanalysis</span> Study of analyzing information systems in order to discover their hidden aspects

Cryptanalysis refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Encryption</span> Process of converting plaintext to ciphertext

In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decipher a ciphertext back to plaintext and access the original information. Encryption does not itself prevent interference but denies the intelligible content to a would-be interceptor.

<i>Kama Sutra</i> Ancient Hindu text on erotic love

The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment in life. Attributed to Vātsyāyana, the Kama Sutra is neither exclusively nor predominantly a sex manual on sex positions, but rather was written as a guide to the art of living well, the nature of love, finding a life partner, maintaining one's love life, and other aspects pertaining to pleasure-oriented faculties of human life. It is a sutra-genre text with terse aphoristic verses that have survived into the modern era with different bhāṣyas. The text is a mix of prose and anustubh-meter poetry verses. The text acknowledges the Hindu concept of Purusharthas, and lists desire, sexuality, and emotional fulfillment as one of the proper goals of life. Its chapters discuss methods for courtship, training in the arts to be socially engaging, finding a partner, flirting, maintaining power in a married life, when and how to commit adultery, sexual positions, and other topics. The majority of the book is about the philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire, what sustains it, and how and when it is good or bad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symmetric-key algorithm</span> Algorithm

Symmetric-key algorithms are algorithms for cryptography that use the same cryptographic keys for both the encryption of plaintext and the decryption of ciphertext. The keys may be identical, or there may be a simple transformation to go between the two keys. The keys, in practice, represent a shared secret between two or more parties that can be used to maintain a private information link. The requirement that both parties have access to the secret key is one of the main drawbacks of symmetric-key encryption, in comparison to public-key encryption. However, symmetric-key encryption algorithms are usually better for bulk encryption. With exception of the one-time pad they have a smaller key size, which means less storage space and faster transmission. Due to this, asymmetric-key encryption is often used to exchange the secret key for symmetric-key encryption.

A chosen-plaintext attack (CPA) is an attack model for cryptanalysis which presumes that the attacker can obtain the ciphertexts for arbitrary plaintexts. The goal of the attack is to gain information that reduces the security of the encryption scheme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Playfair cipher</span> Early block substitution cipher

The Playfair cipher or Playfair square or Wheatstone–Playfair cipher is a manual symmetric encryption technique and was the first literal digram substitution cipher. The scheme was invented in 1854 by Charles Wheatstone, but bears the name of Lord Playfair for promoting its use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ciphertext</span> Encrypted information

In cryptography, ciphertext or cyphertext is the result of encryption performed on plaintext using an algorithm, called a cipher. Ciphertext is also known as encrypted or encoded information because it contains a form of the original plaintext that is unreadable by a human or computer without the proper cipher to decrypt it. This process prevents the loss of sensitive information via hacking. Decryption, the inverse of encryption, is the process of turning ciphertext into readable plaintext. Ciphertext is not to be confused with codetext because the latter is a result of a code, not a cipher.

A null cipher, also known as concealment cipher, is an ancient form of encryption where the plaintext is mixed with a large amount of non-cipher material. Today it is regarded as a simple form of steganography, which can be used to hide ciphertext.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Books on cryptography</span>

Books on cryptography have been published sporadically and with highly variable quality for a long time. This is despite the tempting, though superficial, paradox that secrecy is of the essence in sending confidential messages — see Kerckhoffs' principle.

Major Friedrich Wilhelm Kasiski was a German infantry officer, cryptographer and archeologist. Kasiski was born in Schlochau, Kingdom of Prussia.

Cryptography, the use of codes and ciphers to protect secrets, began thousands of years ago. Until recent decades, it has been the story of what might be called classical cryptography — that is, of methods of encryption that use pen and paper, or perhaps simple mechanical aids. In the early 20th century, the invention of complex mechanical and electromechanical machines, such as the Enigma rotor machine, provided more sophisticated and efficient means of encryption; and the subsequent introduction of electronics and computing has allowed elaborate schemes of still greater complexity, most of which are entirely unsuited to pen and paper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Kahn (writer)</span> American historian and writer (1930–2024)

David Kahn was an American historian, journalist, and writer. He wrote extensively on the history of cryptography and military intelligence.

In Indian literature, Kāma-shastra refers to the tradition of works on Kāma: Desire. It therefore has a practical orientation, similar to that of Arthashastra, the tradition of texts on politics and government. Just as the latter instructs kings and ministers about government, Kāmashastra aims to instruct the townsman (nāgarika) in the way to attain enjoyment and fulfillment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Code (cryptography)</span> Method used to encrypt a message

In cryptology, a code is a method used to encrypt a message that operates at the level of meaning; that is, words or phrases are converted into something else. A code might transform "change" into "CVGDK" or "cocktail lounge". The U.S. National Security Agency defined a code as "A substitution cryptosystem in which the plaintext elements are primarily words, phrases, or sentences, and the code equivalents typically consist of letters or digits in otherwise meaningless combinations of identical length." A codebook is needed to encrypt, and decrypt the phrases or words.

In the history of cryptography, a grille cipher was a technique for encrypting a plaintext by writing it onto a sheet of paper through a pierced sheet. The earliest known description is due to Jacopo Silvestri in 1526. His proposal was for a rectangular stencil allowing single letters, syllables, or words to be written, then later read, through its various apertures. The written fragments of the plaintext could be further disguised by filling the gaps between the fragments with anodyne words or letters. This variant is also an example of steganography, as are many of the grille ciphers.

With the rise of easily-intercepted wireless telegraphy, codes and ciphers were used extensively in World War I. The decoding by British Naval intelligence of the Zimmermann telegram helped bring the United States into the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptography</span> Practice and study of secure communication techniques

Cryptography, or cryptology, is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, information security, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, physics, and others. Core concepts related to information security are also central to cryptography. Practical applications of cryptography include electronic commerce, chip-based payment cards, digital currencies, computer passwords, and military communications.

Mūlabhadra (മൂലഭദ്ര) aka Mūlabhadri was a secret method of communication employed by the royal spies of the erstwhile Travancore Kingdom during the medieval period. The scheme was also colloquially referred to as Mūlapatra. It was essentially a cryptographic scheme involving a partial transposition of the letters of the Malayalam alphabet. The scheme had been extensively used by King Marthanda Varma (1706–1758) of Travancore Kingdom and his spies both for oral and written communication of messages. It was a fixed one-time unchangeable code in as much as it did not employ any key in its implementation in contrast to modern methods of substitution ciphers involving the utilisation of a key for generating a system of codes.

References

  1. 1 2 Translators: Richard Burton, Bhagavanlal Indrajit, Shivaram Parashuram Bhide (January 18, 2009). The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, Introduction and Concluding Remarks). The Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 3 December 2015.{{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. David Kahn (December 1996). The Codebreakers. Simon and Schuster. p. 74. ISBN   9781439103555 . Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  3. Simon Singh. "The Black Chamber" . Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Anil Baran Ganguly (1979). Fine Arts of Ancient India. Abhinav Publications. pp. 1678–170. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  5. Friedrich L Brauer (2007). Decrypted Secrets: Methods and Maxims of Cryptology. Springer. p. 47. ISBN   978-3-540-24502-5.
  6. Anil Baran Ganguly (1979). Fine Arts in Ancient India. Abhinav Publications. p. 169. Retrieved 26 November 2015.