n the preface of Kama Sutra, Vatsyayana cites the work of previous authors based 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 (fifth part), Charayana (sixth part), and Kuchumara (seventh
part). Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra has 1250 verses, distributed in 36 chapters, which are further
organized into seven parts.[11] According to both the Burton andDoniger[12] translations, 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 acquisition
of knowledge, conduct of the well-bred townsman, reflections on intermediaries 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), slapping by hand and
corresponding moaning, virile behavior in women, superior coition and oral sex, preludes and
conclusions to the game of love. It describes 64 types of sexual acts.
3. Acquiring a wife
five chapters on forms of marriage, relaxing the girl, obtaining the girl, managing 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 behavior of woman and man, how to get acquainted, examination of
sentiments, the task of go-between, the king's pleasures, behavior in the women'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, occasional profits, profits
and losses.
7. Occult practices
two chapters on improving physical attractions, arousing a weakened sexual power.
Pleasure and spirituality
A sexual pose fromMukteswar Temple inBhubaneswar, Odisha
A Sexual Encounter
Poolside Lovemaking
Some Indian philosophies follow the "four main goals of life",[13][14] known as the purusharthas:[15]
1. Dharma: Virtuous living.
2. Artha: (Material) prosperity.
3. Kama: Desire
4. Moksha: Liberation.
Dharma, Artha and Kama are aims of everyday life, while Moksha is release from the 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 always be first
practised by the king for the livelihood of men is to be obtained from it only. Again, Kama being the
occupation of public women, they should prefer 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 pleasure the least
important. When motives conflict, the higher ideal is to be followed. Thus, in making money
virtue must not be compromised, but earning a living should take precedence over pleasure, but
there are exceptions.
In childhood, Vtsyyana 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 virtuously and hope to escape the
cycle of rebirth.[17] The Kama Sutra acknowledges 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 the path, so two lovers, blinded by passion, in the friction of sexual battle, are 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 (sutra number
1). This Kama Sutra, however, is of a very different nature as it warns 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 tantric 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 touch upon any of the sexual rites associated with some
forms of Tantric practice.
Translations
The most widely known English translation of the Kama Sutra was privately printed in 1883. It is
usually attributed to renowned orientalist and author Sir Richard Francis Burton, but the chief
work was done by the Indian archaeologist Bhagwan Lal Indraji, under the guidance of Burton's
friend, the Indian civil servantForster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, and with the assistance of a student,
Shivaram Parshuram Bhide.[18] Burton acted as publisher, while also furnishing the edition with
footnotes whose tone ranges from the jocular to the scholarly. Burton says the 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 happened thus. While
translating with the pundits the 'Anunga Runga, or the stage of love', reference was
frequently found to be made to one Vatsya. The sage Vatsya was of this opinion, or of
that opinion. The sage Vatsya said this, and so on. Naturally questions were asked who
the sage was, and the pundits replied that Vatsya 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 difficult now to obtain in its entire state. The copy of the manuscript
obtained in Bombay was defective, and so the pundits wrote to Benares, Calcutta
and Jaipur for copies of the manuscript from Sanscrit libraries in those places. Copies
having been obtained, they were then compared with each other, and with the aid of a
Commentary called 'Jayamanglia' a revised copy of the entire manuscript was prepared,
and from this copy the English translation was made. The following is the certificate of
the chief pundit:
"The accompanying manuscript is corrected by me after comparing four different copies
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 correcting 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 agreed with each other."
In the introduction to her own translation, Wendy Doniger, professor of the history of religions at
the University of Chicago, writes that Burton "managed to get a rough approximation of the text
published in English in 1883, nasty bits and all". The philologist and Sanskritist Professor
Chlodwig Werba, of the Institute 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 1990s its chapter on
sexual positions began circulating on the internet as an independent 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, Alain 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 "brahmin"). He leaves
references to the sexual organs as in the original: persistent usage of the words "lingam" and
"yoni" to refer to them in older translations of the Kama Sutra is not the usage in the original
Sanskrit; he argues that "to a modern Hindu 'lingam' and 'yoni' mean specifically the sexual
organs of the god Shiva 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 by
academics like S. N. Balagangadhara.[23]
An English translation by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar, an Indian psychoanalyst and senior
fellow at Center for Study of World Religions at Harvard University, was published by Oxford
University Press in 2002. Doniger contributed the Sanskrit 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
References
Notes
1.
Jump up^ Doniger, Wendy (2003). Kamasutra Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University
Press. p. i. ISBN 978-0-19-283982-4. The Kamasutra is the oldest extant Hindu 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 century
2.
Jump up^ Coltrane, Scott (1998). Gender and families. Rowman & Littlefield.
p. 36. ISBN 978-0-8039-9036-4.
3.
Jump up^ Common misconceptions about Kama Sutra. "The Kama Sutra is neither
exclusively a sex manual nor, as also commonly used art, a sacred or religious work. It is
certainly not atantric 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 of three." Indra Sinha.
4.
Jump up^ Carroll, Janell (2009). Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity. Cengage Learning.
p. 7.ISBN 978-0-495-60274-3.
5.
Jump up^ Devi, Chandi (2008). From Om to Orgasm: The Tantra Primer for Living in
Bliss.AuthorHouse. p. 288. ISBN 978-1-4343-4960-6.
6.
Jump up^ Jacob Levy (2010), Kama sense marketing, iUniverse, ISBN 978-1440195563, see
Introduction
7.
Jump up^ Alain Danilou, The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern
Translation of the Classic Indian Text, ISBN 978-0892815258
8.
Jump up^ For Kama Sutra as the most notable of the kma hstra literature see: Flood
(1996), p. 65.
9.
Jump up^ Sengupta, J. (2006). Refractions of Desire, Feminist Perspectives in the Novels of
Toni Morrison, Michle Roberts, and Anita Desai. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors.
p. 21.ISBN 9788126906291. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
10.
Jump up^ John Keay (2010). India: A History: from the Earliest Civilisations to the Boom of
the Twenty-first Century. Grove press. pp. 81103.
11.
Jump up^ book, see index pages by Wendy Doniger, also translation by Burton
12.
Jump up^ Date checked: 29 March 2007 Burton and Doniger
13.
Jump up^ For the Dharma stras as discussing the "four main goals of life" (dharma,
artha, kma, and moksha) see: Hopkins, p. 78.
14.
Jump up^ For dharma, artha, and kama as "brahmanic householder values" see: Flood
(1996), p. 17.
15.
Jump up^ For definition of the term - (purusa-artha) as "any of the four principal
objects of human life, i.e. (dharma), (artha), (kma), and (moksa)" see: Apte, p.
626, middle column, compound #1.
16.
Jump up^ Quotation from the translation by Richard Burton taken from [1]. Text accessed 3
April 2007.
17.
Jump up^ Book I, Chapter ii, Lines 2-4 Vatsyayana Kamasutram Electronic Sanskrit edition:
Titus Texts, University of Frankfurt blye vidygrahan dn arthn, kmam ca yauvane, sthvire
dharmam moks am ca
18.
Jump up^ McConnachie (2007), pp. 123125.
19.
Jump up^ McConnachie (2007), p. 233.
20.
Jump up^ Sinha, p. 33.
21.
Jump up^ The Complete Kama Sutra by Alain Danilou
22.
Jump up^ Stated in the translation's preface
23.
24.
Jump up^ Balagangadhara, S. N. (2007). Antonio De Nicholas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, Aditi
Banerjee, eds. Invading the Sacred. Rupa & Co. pp. 431433. ISBN 978-81-291-1182-1.
Jump up^ McConnachie (2007), p. 232.
