KAMA, or KAMADEVA  , in Hindu mythology, the god of love . He is variously stated to have been the child of Brahma or Dharma (virtue) . In the Rig Veda, Kama (desire) is described as the first movement that arose in the One after it had come into life through the power of fervour or abstraction . In the Atharva-Veda Kama does not mean sexual desire, but rather the yearning after the good of all created things . Later Kama is simply the Hindu Cupid . While attempting to lure Siva to sin, he was destroyed by a fiery glance of the goddess' third eye . Thus in Hindu poetry Kama is known as Ananga, the " bodiless god." Kama's wife Kati (voluptuousness) mourned him so greatly that Siva relented, and he was reborn as the child of Krishna and Rukmini . The babe was called Pradyumna (Cupid) . He is represented armed with a bow of sugar-cane; it is strung with bees, and its five arrows are tipped with flowers which overcome the five senses . A fish adorns his flag, and he rides a parrot or sparrow, emblematic of lubricity .