The Kama Sutra is an Indian text, written in Sanskrit,
which provides a prescriptive set of instructions
elevating the pursuit of pleasure to an art.
Hindus of the fourth century, when the Kama Sutra
was composed, believed that a properly fulfilling
life required balanced attention to three areas: religious
piety or duty (dharma), material provisions
or success (artha), and sensual pleasure (kama).
Complementing other Hindu texts that provided
instruction in the first two areas, the Kama Sutra, or
“pleasure treatise,” advised readers on how to maximize
their enjoyment of the sensual pleasures of
life, in everything from home furnishing to interpersonal
relationships.
The original author of the Kama Sutra was Vatsyayana
Mallanga, about whom nothing is known
outside of what the text reveals.He appears to have
been a Brahman, a member of the priest caste, who
resided in the city of Pataliputra in southern India
during the Gupta era when Indian arts, culture,
and literature were flourishing. In his text, Vatsyayana
claims he compiled the Kama Sutra for
two main reasons: first to ensure the survival of
works on the subject, and second to cater to the
needs of circles of educated and refined connoisseurs
who would appreciate good poetry. He also
claims that he wrote the work “in chastity and
highest meditation,”which may mean that ancient
Hindus cultivated the pursuit of pleasure as sincerely
as they practiced religious devotion. The
number of serious passages in the text suggests
that, unlike OVID’s Art of Love (ca. 1 B.C.), Vatsyayana
expected readers to put weight on his advice
and regard the pursuit of love and pleasure as
an important aspect of human life.
Being born into the priestly caste, Vatsyayana
would have received a brahminical education,
which included knowledge of the teachings of the
Vedas and the grammatical structure of the Sanskrit
language. He cites earlier sages and works
who have treated the topic of love, but Vatsyayana’s
is the first work to offer a comprehensive guide to
living the sensual life. Though a precise date of
composition cannot be safely ascribed to the Kama
Sutra, the classical poet Subandhu, who lived in the
court of the Gupta monarch Chandragupta II during
the fourth century, mentions the Kama Sutra
in his own work.
The first extant commentary on the Kama Sutra
was written in the 12th century by the Indian
scholar Yasodhara, which began a tradition of
translation and interpretation continuing up to the
present time. Narsingha Shastra wrote a commentary
called the Sutra Vritti in the 18th century. The
work of contemporary Hindi scholar Devadatta
Shastri puts the Kama Sutra in the context of a continuing
Indian literary tradition and also presents
a new assessment and interpretation of the concept
of kama.
Critical Analysis
Complementing the Artha Shastra and the Dharma
Shastra, to which it makes frequent reference, the
Kama Sutra, in the words of translator Alain
Daniélou, offers “a picture of the art of living for
the civilized and refined citizen, competing in the
sphere of love, eroticism, and the pleasures of life.”
The text of the Kama Sutra is divided into seven
books, which together address all aspects of a
man’s adult life.
The target audience of the work includes both
the rasikas (connoisseurs) within the Gupta ruler’s
court and the city dwellers, or nagaraka, a class of
men who possess both the wealth and leisure to
cultivate artistic pursuits. As Book 1 makes clear,
one must possess all the conveniences and facilities
of a nagaraka to properly enjoy sensual pursuits.
The author recommends establishing a pleasant
home within the confines of a city and equipping
its spacious rooms with comfortable beds, garden
access, and plenty of fresh flowers. Vatsyayana’s
ideal city may be his native Pataliputra, but he
refers to other cities in India, including Gandhara
and Bactria. In these details, as well as in the rules of
etiquette discussed throughout the text, the Kama
Sutra offers a useful source of information on the
culture of Indian cities during the first century.
Book 2, which contains a discussion of recommended
sexual techniques, is undoubtedly the
most-translated and the reason the Kama Sutra is
frequently, but erroneously, thought to be exclusively
and explicitly a sex manual. Books 3 through
7 go on to advise young men on how to approach
virgins, how to marry and establish their own
households, and how to conduct extramarital affairs
and seduce other men’s wives. Book 6 discusses
the patronage of courtesans, and Book 7
addresses the aging man’s anxieties about how to
preserve his attractiveness and his libido.
Throughout, the Kama Sutra’s advice reveals
the standards and habits of conduct for men and
women of various classes. Some of the advice
seems surprisingly progressive; for example, the
text makes reference to same-sex relationships and
acknowledges the existence of variant groups later
marginalized in many societies. In fact, according
to Vatsyayana, male homosexual prostitutes are
people to know in Indian society; they symbolize
good luck and should be invited to weddings to bestow
good fortune on the newlyweds. Courtesans,
too, are considered essential members of an urban
society. The courtesans were themselves art lovers,
or rasikas, who perfected techniques of music and
dance. A number of these courtesans fulfilled religious
roles as temple dancers.
The Kama Sutra, though directed at men, acknowledges
that women can be equal participants
in erotic activities and equally capable of sexual
pleasure. For example, Books 3 and 4 contain information
instructing women on how to attract men
and how to be good wives. It tells a wife how to keep
her husband happy, and how to deal with his infidelity,
recommending that she scold him both when
they are alone and in company. At the same time,
the Kama Sutra contains instructions that some
readers may find objectionable. If a young girl is
too resistant to advances, for instance, the text recommends
getting her drunk and then taking advantage
of her. Also, while it presumes that a good wife
is faithful, the attention devoted to discussing extramarital
affairs suggests that many wives were not.
Overall, the main purpose of the Kama Sutra is
to explain how supreme enjoyment of the divine
can be achieved through the successful blending
of eroticism and mysticism. It therefore serves as
both a popular manual on erotic practices and as
a sacred text. In later periods of Indian history, the
pursuit of pleasure was relegated to a lesser status
in the context of Hindu life. However, sections of
the Kama Sutra continued to be used as a text in
Indian schools, though with much of the erotic
material excised. Certain later commentaries inserted
concepts such as suttee, the requirement
that a widow cast herself on her dead husband’s funeral
pyre, into a text originally free of these ideas.
The great popularity of the Kama Sutra in the
Western world rested for a long time on its misinterpretation
as a pornographic text. Victorian adventurer
Sir Richard Burton obtained and published
an English translation of the Kama Sutra in
1883. Burton’s version focused on the erotic material,
largely ignoring the spiritual seriousness of the
advice, which reflected the tendencies of Burton’s
own society to limit the agency of and deny the capacity
for sexual pleasure to women.More recent
translations, such as the one undertaken by Professor
Wendy Doniger, attempt to do justice to the
original work. In Doniger’s words, the Kama Sutra
reflects a time “when the erotic was associated with
all that was bright, shining and beautiful in the ordinary
world.” For this reason, its appeal is universal;
as Daniélou observes, “the Kama Sutra retains
a surprising topicality. It is a breviary of love valid
for all times and places.”
English Versions of the Kama Sutra
The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged
Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text by
Vatsyayana. Translated by Alain Daniélou. South
Paris,Maine: Park Street Press, 1994.
Kamasutra. Translated by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir
Kakar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Works about the Kama Sutra
Doniger,Wendy and Sudhir Kakar, trans. Kamasutra:
The Acclaimed New Translation. Philadelphia:
Running Press, 2003.
Verma,Vinod. The Kamasutra for Women: The Modern
Woman’s Way to Sensual Fulfillment and Health.
Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1997.