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Kamasutram, also known to the Western world as Kama Sutra, is an ancient Indian text widely considered to be the standard work on love in Sanskrit literature. This is authored by Mallanaga Vatsyayana. A portion of the work deals with human sexual behavior.^[1]

The Kama Sutra is most notable of a group of texts known generically as Kama Shastra (Sanskrit: Kāma Śāstra).^[2] Traditionally, the first transmission of Kama Shastra or "Discipline of Kama" is attributed to Nandi the sacred bull, Shiva's doorkeeper, who was moved to sacred utterance by overhearing the lovemaking of the god and his wife Parvati and later recorded his utterances for the benefit of mankind.^[3]

Historian John Keay says that the Kama Sutra is a compendium that was collected into its present form in the second century CE.^[4]

The Mallanaga Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra has 36 chapters, organized into 7 parts^[5]. Both according to Burton and Doniger^[6] translations, the contents of the book are structured into 7 parts like the following:

1. Introductory

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 (5 chapters).

2. On sexual union

Chapters on stimulation of desire, embraces types, 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 (10 chapters).

Artistic depiction of a sex position. Kama Sutra did not have illustrative images, part 2 of the work describes different sex positions.

3. About the acquisition of a wife

Chapters on forms of marriage, relaxing the girl, obtaining the girl, managing alone, union by marriage (5 chapters).

4. About a wife

Chapters on conduct of the only wife and conduct of the chief wife and other wives (2 chapters).

5. About the wives of other people

Chapters on behavior of woman and man, encounters to get acquainted, examination of sentiments, the task of go-between, the king's pleasures, behavior in the gynoecium (6 chapters).

6. About courtesans

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 (6 chapters).

7. On the means of attracting others to one's self

Chapters on improving physical attractions, arousing a weakened sexual power (2 chapters).

Indian tradition includes following the "four main goals of life",^[7][8] known as the purusharthas:^[9]

1). Dharma: Virtuous living. 2). Artha: Material prosperity. 3). Kama: Aesthetic and erotic pleasure.^[10][11] 4). Moksha: Liberation.

Dharma, Artha and Karma 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 Karma. 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)^[12]

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, Vātsyāyana says, a person should learn how to make a living, youth is the time for pleasure, as years pass one should concentrate on living virtuously and hope to escape the cycle of rebirth.^[13]

The Kama Sutra is sometimes wrongly thought of as a manual for tantric sex. 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.

The most widely known English translation of the Kama Sutra was made by the famous traveler and author Sir Richard Francis Burton and compiled by his colleague Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot in 1883. Historian Burjor Avari has criticized Burton's translation as "inadequate," having had the result that the book gained a reputation in the West of being a pornographic work.^[14]

A recent translation is that of Indra Sinha, published in 1980. In the early 1990s its chapter on lovemaking positions began circulating on the internet as an independent text and today is often assumed to be the whole of the Kama Sutra.^[15]

Alain Daniélou contributed a translation called The Complete Kama Sutra in 1994. This translation featured the original text attributed to Vatsayana, along with a medieval and modern commentary.

It was translated again in 2002 by Wendy Doniger, the professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago, and Sudhir Kakar, the Indian psychoanalyst and senior fellow at Center for Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Their translation provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of the text.^[16]

• Ananga Ranga
• Lazzat Un Nisa
• History of sex in India
• Kamashastra

• Apte, Vaman Shivram (1965). The Practical Sanskrit Dictionary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. ISBN 81-208-0567-4.  (fourth revised & enlarged edition).
• Avari, Burjor (2007). India: The Ancient Past. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-35616-9. 
• Daniélou, Alain (1993), The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text, Inner Traditions, ISBN 0-89281-525-6.
• Sudhir Kakar and Doniger, Wendy (2003), Kamasutra (Oxford World's Classics), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-283982-9.
• Flood, Gavin (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43878-0. 
• Flood, Gavin (Editor) (2003). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.. ISBN 1-4051-3251-5. 
• Hopkins, Thomas J. (1971). The Hindu Religious Tradition. Cambridge: Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc.. 
• Keay, John (2000). India: A History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3797-0. 
• Sinha, Indra (1999). The Cybergypsies. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-60034-158-5. 

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Kama Sutra

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Kama Sutra

Original and translations

• Sir Richard Burton's English translation of Kama Sutra, pdf version (Portable Document File)
• The Kama Sutra in the original Sanskrit provided by the TITUS project
• The Kama Sutra in a German translation by Richard Schmitt 1922