The Kama Sutra (Sanskrit: ????????

About this sound pronunciation (helpinfo), Kam

asutra) is an ancient Indian Hindu[1][2] text written by Vatsyayana. It is widel
y considered to be the standard work on human sexual behaviour in Sanskrit liter
ature.
A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse.[3] It
is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses. "Kama" which is
one of the four goals of Hindu life, means desire including sexual desire the la
tter being the subject of the textbook, and "sutra" literally means a thread or
line that holds things together, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism (
or line, rule, formula), or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manu
al.
Contrary to western popular perception, the Kama Sutra is not exclusively a sex
manual; it presents itself as a guide to a virtuous and gracious living that dis
cusses the nature of love, family life and other aspects pertaining to pleasure
oriented faculties of human life.[4][5] Kama Sutra, in parts of the world, is pr
esumed or depicted as a synonym for creative sexual positions; in reality, only
20% of Kama Sutra is about sexual positions. The majority of the book, notes Jac
ob Levy,[6] is about the philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire, wh
at sustains it, how and when it is good or bad.[7]
The Kama Sutra is the oldest and most notable of a group of texts known generica
lly as Kama Shastra (Sanskrit: Kama Sastra).[8]
Historians attribute Kamasutra to be composed between 400 BCE and 200 CE.[9] Joh
n Keay says that the Kama Sutra is a compendium that was collected into its pres
ent form in the 2nd century CE.[10]
Contents [hide]
1 Content
2 Pleasure and spirituality
3 Translations
4 See also
5 In popular culture
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links
Content
Artistic depiction of a sex position. Although Kama Sutra did not originally hav
e illustrative images, part 2 of the work describes different sex positions.
In the preface of Kama Sutra, Vatsyayana cites the work of previous authors base
d on which he compiled his own Kama Sutra. He states that the seven parts of his
work were an abridgment of longer works by Dattaka (first part), Suvarnanabha (
second part), Ghotakamukha (third part), Gonardiya (fourth part), Gonikaputra (f
ifth part), Charayana (sixth part), and Kuchumara (seventh part). Vatsyayana's K
ama Sutra has 1250 verses, distributed in 36 chapters, which are further organis
ed into seven parts.[11] According to both the Burton and Doniger[12] translatio
ns, the contents of the book are structured into seven parts like the following:
1. General remarks
five chapters on contents of the book, three aims and priorities of life, the ac
quisition of knowledge, conduct of the well-bred townsman, reflections on interm
ediaries who assist the lover in his enterprises.
2. Amorous advances/sexual union
ten chapters on stimulation of desire, types of embraces, caressing and kisses,
marking with nails, biting and marking with teeth, on copulation (positions), sl
apping by hand and corresponding moaning, virile behaviour in women, superior co
ition and oral sex, preludes and conclusions to the game of love. It describes 6
4 types of sexual acts.
3. Acquiring a wife
five chapters on forms of marriage, relaxing the girl, obtaining the girl, manag
ing alone, union by marriage.
4. Duties and privileges of the wife
two chapters on conduct of the only wife and conduct of the chief wife and other
wives.
5. Other men's wives
six chapters on behaviour of woman and man, how to get acquainted, examination o
f sentiments, the task of go-between, the king's pleasures, behaviour in the wom
en's quarters.
6. About courtesans
six chapters on advice of the assistants on the choice of lovers, looking for a
steady lover, ways of making money, renewing friendship with a former lover, occ
asional profits, profits and losses.
7. Occult practices
two chapters on improving physical attractions, arousing a weakened sexual power
.
Pleasure and spirituality
A sexual pose from Mukteswar Temple in Bhubaneswar, Odisha
A Sexual Encounter
Poolside Lovemaking
Some Indian philosophies follow the "four main goals of life",[13][14] known as
the purusharthas:[15]
Dharma: Virtuous living.
Artha: (Material) prosperity.
Kama: Desire
Moksha: Liberation.
Dharma, Artha and Kama are aims of everyday life, while Moksha is release from t
he cycle of death and rebirth. The Kama Sutra (Burton translation) says:
Dharma is better than Artha, and Artha is better than Kama. But Artha should alw
ays be first practised by the king for the livelihood of men is to be obtained f
rom it only. Again, Kama being the occupation of public women, they should prefe
r it to the other two, and these are exceptions to the general rule.
Kama Sutra 1.2.14[16]
Of the first three, virtue is the highest goal, a secure life the second and ple
asure the least important. When motives conflict, the higher ideal is to be foll
owed. Thus, in making money virtue must not be compromised, but earning a living
should take precedence over pleasure, but there are exceptions.
In childhood, Vatsyayana says, a person should learn how to make a living; youth
is the time for pleasure, and as years pass one should concentrate on living vi
rtuously and hope to escape the cycle of rebirth.[17] The Kama Sutra acknowledge
s that the senses can be dangerous: 'Just as a horse in full gallop, blinded by
the energy of his own speed, pays no attention to any post or hole or ditch on t
he path, so two lovers, blinded by passion, in the friction of sexual battle, ar
e caught up in their fierce energy and pay no attention to danger' (2.7.33).
Also the Buddha preached a Kama Sutra, which is located in the Atthakavagga (sut
ra number 1). This Kama Sutra, however, is of a very different nature as it warn
s against the dangers that come with the search for pleasures of the senses.
Many in the Western world wrongly consider the Kama Sutra to be a manual for tan
tric sex.[citation needed] While sexual practices do exist within the very wide
tradition of Hindu Tantra, the Kama Sutra is not a Tantric text, and does not to
uch upon any of the sexual rites associated with some forms of Tantric practice.
Translations
Lamairesse - Kama Sutra.djvu
The most widely known English translation of the Kama Sutra was privately printe
d in 1883. It is usually attributed to renowned orientalist and author Sir Richa
rd Francis Burton, but the chief work was done by the Indian archaeologist Bhagw
an Lal Indraji, under the guidance of Burton's friend, the Indian civil servant
Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, and with the assistance of a student, Shivaram Par
shuram Bhide.[18] Burton acted as publisher, while also furnishing the edition w
ith footnotes whose tone ranges from the jocular to the scholarly. Burton says t
he following in its introduction:
It may be interesting to some persons to learn how it came about that Vatsyayana
was first brought to light and translated into the English language. It happene
d thus. While translating with the pundits the 'Anunga Runga, or the stage of lo
ve', reference was frequently found to be made to one Vatsya. The sage Vatsya wa
s of this opinion, or of that opinion. The sage Vatsya said this, and so on. Nat
urally questions were asked who the sage was, and the pundits replied that Vatsy
a was the author of the standard work on love in Sanscrit[sic] literature, that
no Sanscrit library was complete without his work, and that it was most difficul
t now to obtain in its entire state. The copy of the manuscript obtained in Bomb
ay was defective, and so the pundits wrote to Benares, Calcutta and Jaipur for c
opies of the manuscript from Sanscrit libraries in those places. Copies having b
een obtained, they were then compared with each other, and with the aid of a Com
mentary called 'Jayamanglia' a revised copy of the entire manuscript was prepare
d, and from this copy the English translation was made. The following is the cer
tificate of the chief pundit:
"The accompanying manuscript is corrected by me after comparing four different c
opies of the work. I had the assistance of a Commentary called 'Jayamangla' for
correcting the portion in the first five parts, but found great difficulty in co
rrecting the remaining portion, because, with the exception of one copy thereof
which was tolerably correct, all the other copies I had were far too incorrect.
However, I took that portion as correct in which the majority of the copies agre
ed with each other."
In the introduction to her own translation, Wendy Doniger, professor of the hist
ory of religions at the University of Chicago, writes that Burton "managed to ge
t a rough approximation of the text published in English in 1883, nasty bits and
all". The philologist and Sanskritist Professor Chlodwig Werba, of the Institut
e of Indology at the University of Vienna, regards the 1883 translation as being
second only in accuracy to the academic German-Latin text published by Richard
Schmidt in 1897.[19]
A noteworthy translation by Indra Sinha was published in 1980. In the early 1990
s its chapter on sexual positions began circulating on the internet as an indepe
ndent text and today is often assumed to be the whole of the Kama Sutra.[20]
Alain Danilou contributed a noteworthy translation called The Complete Kama Sutra
in 1994.[21] This translation, originally into French, and thence into English,
featured the original text attributed to Vatsyayana, along with a medieval and
a modern commentary. Unlike the 1883 version, Danilou's new translation preserves
the numbered verse divisions of the original, and does not incorporate notes in
the text. He includes English translations of two important commentaries:
The Jayamangala commentary, written in Sanskrit by Yashodhara during the Middle
Ages, as page footnotes.
A modern commentary in Hindi by Devadatta Shastri, as endnotes.
Danilou[22] translated all Sanskrit words into English (but uses the word "brahmi
n"). He leaves references to the sexual organs as in the original: persistent us
age of the words "lingam" and "yoni" to refer to them in older translations of t
he Kama Sutra is not the usage in the original Sanskrit; he argues that "to a mo
dern Hindu 'lingam' and 'yoni' mean specifically the sexual organs of the god Sh
iva and his wife, and using those words to refer to humans' sexual organs would
seem irreligious." The view that lingam means only "sexual organs" is disputed b
y academics such as S. N. Balagangadhara.[23]
An English translation by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar, an Indian psychoanalys
t and senior fellow at Center for Study of World Religions at Harvard University
, was published by Oxford University Press in 2002. Doniger contributed the Sans
krit expertise while Kakar provided a psychoanalytic interpretation of the text.
[24]
See also
History of sex in India
Kamashastra
Khajuraho Group of Monuments
Lazzat Un Nisa
List of Indian inventions and discoveries
Song of Songs
The Jewel in The Lotus
The Perfumed Garden
Vatsyayana cipher
Mlecchita vikalpa
In popular culture
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
Tales of the Kama Sutra: The Perfumed Garden
Tales of the Kama Sutra 2: Monsoon
Kamasutra 3D
Kamasutra Nights
References
Jump up ^ Doniger, Wendy (2003). Kamasutra Oxford World's Classics. Oxford Unive
rsity Press. p. i. ISBN 978-0-19-283982-4. The Kamasutra is the oldest extant Hi
ndu textbook of erotic love. It was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language
of ancient India, probably in North India and probably sometime in the third cen
tury
Jump up ^ Coltrane, Scott (1998). Gender and families. Rowman & Littlefield. p.
36. ISBN 978-0-8039-9036-4.
Jump up ^ Common misconceptions about Kama Sutra. "The Kama Sutra is neither exc
lusively a sex manual nor, as also commonly used art, a sacred or religious work
. It is certainly not a tantric text. In opening with a discussion of the three
aims of ancient Hindu life dharma, artha and kama Vatsyayana's purpose is to set
kama, or enjoyment of the senses, in context. Thus dharma or virtuous living is
the highest aim, artha, the amassing of wealth is next, and kama is the least o
f three." Indra Sinha.
Jump up ^ Carroll, Janell (2009). Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity. Cengage Le
arning. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-495-60274-3.
Jump up ^ Devi, Chandi (2008). From Om to Orgasm: The Tantra Primer for Living i
n Bliss. AuthorHouse. p. 288. ISBN 978-1-4343-4960-6.
Jump up ^ Jacob Levy (2010), Kama sense marketing, iUniverse, ISBN 978-144019556
3, see Introduction
Jump up ^ Alain Danilou, The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Tra
nslation of the Classic Indian Text, ISBN 978-0892815258.
Jump up ^ For Kama Sutra as the most notable of the kama shastra literature see:
Flood (1996), p. 65.
Jump up ^ Sengupta, J. (2006). Refractions of Desire, Feminist Perspectives in t
he Novels of Toni Morrison, Michle Roberts, and Anita Desai. Atlantic Publishers
& Distributors. p. 21. ISBN 9788126906291. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
Jump up ^ John Keay (2010). India: A History: from the Earliest Civilisations to
the Boom of the Twenty-first Century. Grove Press. pp. 81 103.
Jump up ^ book, see index pages by Wendy Doniger, also translation by Burton
Jump up ^ Date checked: 29 March 2007 Burton and Doniger
Jump up ^ For the Dharma Sastras as discussing the "four main goals of life" (dh
arma, artha, kama, and moksha) see: Hopkins, p. 78.
Jump up ^ For dharma, artha, and kama as "brahmanic householder values" see: Flo
od (1996), p. 17.
Jump up ^ For definition of the term ?????-???? (puru?a-artha) as "any of the fo
ur principal objects of human life, i.e. ???? (dharma), ???? (artha), ??? (kama)
, and ????? (mok?a)" see: Apte, p. 626, middle column, compound #1.
Jump up ^ Quotation from the translation by Richard Burton taken from [1]. Text
accessed 3 April 2007.
Jump up ^ Book I, Chapter ii, Lines 2-4 Vatsyayana Kamasutram Electronic Sanskri
t edition: Titus Texts, University of Frankfurt balye vidyagraha?adin arthan, ka
ma? ca yauvane, sthavire dharma? mok?a? ca
Jump up ^ McConnachie (2007), pp. 123 125.
Jump up ^ McConnachie (2007), p. 233.
Jump up ^ Sinha, p. 33.
Jump up ^ The Complete Kama Sutra by Alain Danilou.
Jump up ^ Stated in the translation's preface
Jump up ^ Balagangadhara, S. N. (2007). Antonio De Nicholas, Krishnan Ramaswamy,
Aditi Banerjee, eds. Invading the Sacred. Rupa & Co. pp. 431 433. ISBN 978-81-291
-1182-1.
Jump up ^ McConnachie (2007), p. 232.
Bibliography
Apte, Vaman Shivram (1965). The Practical Sanskrit Dictionary (fourth revised &
enlarged ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. ISBN 81-208-0567-4.
Avari, Burjor (2007). India: The Ancient Past. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415
-35616-9.
Danilou, Alain (1993). The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Trans
lation of the Classic Indian Text. Inner Traditions. ISBN 0-89281-525-6.
Doniger, Wendy; Sudhir Kakar (2002). Kamasutra. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford
University Press. ISBN 0-19-283982-9.
Flood, Gavin (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge Universit
y Press. ISBN 0-521-43878-0.
Flood, Gavin, ed. (2003). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Malden, MA: Black
well Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-4051-3251-5.
Hopkins, Thomas J. (1971). The Hindu Religious Tradition. Cambridge: Dickenson P
ublishing Company, Inc.
Keay, John (2000). India: A History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3797-0.
McConnachie, James (2007). The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra. London:
Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-84354-373-2.
Sinha, Indra (1999). The Cybergypsies. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-600-34158-5.