View source for Kama Sutra

{{Short description|Ancient Hindu text on erotic love}}
{{About|the ancient text|the 1996 film|Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love|other uses}}
{{Pp-semi-indef}}
{{Use Indian English|date=August 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2016}}
{{Infobox book
| italic title      = yes
| name              = Kama Sutra
| image             = 3rd or 4th century CE Kamasutra, Vatsyayana, 13th-century Jayamangala commentary of Yashodhara, Bendall purchase 1885CE in Nepal, Sanskrit, Devanagari.jpg
| image_size        = 
| border            = 
| alt               = 
| caption           = Two folios from a [[palm leaf manuscript]] of the ''Kamasutra'' text (Sanskrit, Devanagari script)
| author            = [[Vātsyāyana|Vatsyayana Mallanaga]]
| audio_read_by     = 
| title_orig        = कामसूत्र
| orig_lang_code    = sa
| title_working     = 
| translator        = Many
| illustrator       = 
| cover_artist      = 
| country           = [[Middle kingdoms of India|Classical Age, India]]
| language          = [[Sanskrit]]
| series            = 
| release_number    = 
| subject           = Erotic love 
| genre             = [[Sutra|Sutra Literature]]
| set_in            = [[3rd century|2nd–3rd century CE]]
| publisher         = 
| publisher2        = 
| pub_date          = 
| english_pub_date  = 1883
| published         = 
| media_type        = 
| pages             = 
| awards            = 
| isbn              = 
| isbn_note         = 
| oclc              = 
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| congress          = 
| preceded_by       = 
| followed_by       = 
| native_wikisource = 
| wikisource        = Kama Sutra
| notes             = 
| exclude_cover     = 
| website           = 
}}
{{Hindu scriptures}}

The '''''Kama Sutra''''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|ɑː|m|ə|_|ˈ|s|uː|t|r|ə}}; {{langx|sa|कामसूत्र}}, {{audio|kamasutra.ogg|pronunciation}}, {{IAST|Kāma-sūtra}}; {{lit|Principles of Love}}) is an ancient Indian Hindu [[Sanskrit]] text<ref name="Doniger1">{{Cite book | last = Doniger| first = Wendy| title = Kamasutra - Oxford World's Classics| publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]| year = 2003| page = i| quote = ''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''| isbn = 9780192839824}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book| last = Coltrane| first = Scott| title = Gender and families| publisher = [[Rowman & Littlefield]]| year = 1998| page = 36| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=KzoNruN9jC0C&pg=PA36| isbn = 9780803990364| access-date = 15 November 2015| archive-date = 30 April 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160430045031/https://books.google.com/books?id=KzoNruN9jC0C&pg=PA36| url-status = live}}</ref> on [[sexuality]], [[eroticism]] and emotional fulfillment.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xi}}<ref>{{Cite book| last = Coltrane| first = Scott| title = Gender and families| publisher = [[Rowman & Littlefield]]| year = 1998| page = 36| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=KzoNruN9jC0C&pg=PA36| isbn = 978-0-8039-9036-4| access-date = 15 November 2015| archive-date = 30 April 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160430045031/https://books.google.com/books?id=KzoNruN9jC0C&pg=PA36| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal| title= The "Kamasutra": It Isn't All about Sex| author= Wendy Doniger| journal= The Kenyon Review |series=New Series| volume= 25| number= 1 | year= 2003| pages= 18–37| jstor= 4338414}}</ref> Attributed to [[Vātsyāyana]],{{sfn|Haksar|Favre|2011|pp=1–5}} the ''Kamasutra'' is neither exclusively nor predominantly a [[sex manual]] on [[sex position]]s,{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xi}} but rather a guide on the art of living well, the nature of love, finding partners, maintaining [[sex life]], and other aspects pertaining to pleasure-oriented faculties.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xi}}<ref>{{Cite book| last = Carroll| first = Janell| title = Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity| publisher = [[Cengage Learning]]| year = 2009| page = 7| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5f8mQx7ULs4C&pg=PA7| isbn = 978-0-495-60274-3| access-date = 15 November 2015| archive-date = 16 January 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170116015629/https://books.google.com/books?id=5f8mQx7ULs4C&pg=PA7| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book| last = Devi| first = Chandi| title = From Om to Orgasm: The Tantra Primer for Living in Bliss| publisher = [[AuthorHouse]]| year = 2008| page = 288| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gIqhh84DGToC&pg=PA288| isbn = 978-1-4343-4960-6| access-date = 15 November 2015| archive-date = 16 January 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170116015158/https://books.google.com/books?id=gIqhh84DGToC&pg=PA288| url-status = live}}</ref> It is a ''[[sutra]]''-genre text with terse [[Aphorism|aphoristic]] verses that have survived into the modern era with different {{transliteration|sa|bhāṣya}}s (commentaries). The text is a mix of prose and [[anustubh]]-meter poetry verses.

''Kamasutra'' acknowledges the Hindu concept of [[purusharthas]], and lists desire, sexuality, and emotional fulfillment as one of the proper goals of life. It discussed methods for courtship, training in the arts to be socially engaging, finding a partner, flirting, maintaining power in a married life, when and how to commit [[adultery]], sexual positions, and other topics.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xi–xiii}} The text majorly dealt with the philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire, what sustains it, and how and when it is good or bad.<ref>Alain Daniélou, ''The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text'', {{ISBN|978-0-89281-525-8}}.</ref><ref>Jacob Levy (2010), Kama sense marketing, iUniverse, {{ISBN|978-1-4401-9556-3}}, see Introduction</ref>

The text is one of many Indian texts on ''[[Kama Shastra]]''.<ref>Flood (1996), p. 65.</ref> It is a much-translated work in Indian and non-Indian languages, and has influenced many secondary texts that followed since the 4th-century CE, as well as the Indian arts as exemplified by the pervasive presence of Kama-related reliefs and sculpture in old [[Hindu temples]]. Of these, the [[Khajuraho Group of Monuments|Khajuraho]] in [[Madhya Pradesh]] is a [[UNESCO World Heritage Site]].<ref>[https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/240 Khajuraho Group of Monuments] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116173646/https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/240 |date=16 November 2018 }} UNESCO World Heritage Site</ref> Among the surviving temple, one in [[Rajasthan]] has all the major chapters and sexual positions sculpted to illustrate the ''Kamasutra''.<ref>[http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/d/019pho0001007s3u00660000.html Ramgarh temple] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220109074710/http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/d/019pho0001007s3u00660000.html |date=9 January 2022 }}, The British Library</ref>

According to [[Wendy Doniger]], the ''Kamasutra'' became "one of the most pirated books in English language" soon after it was published in 1883 by [[Richard Francis Burton|Richard Burton]]. This first European edition by Burton does not faithfully reflect much in the ''Kamasutra'' because he revised the collaborative translation by Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivaram Parashuram Bhide with Forster Arbuthnot to suit 19th-century Victorian tastes.<ref name="Doniger2016p9">{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|pages=155–157|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Date and authorship ==
[[File:Kama, mithuna artwork in Hindu temples.jpg|thumb|Kama-related arts are common in Hindu temples. These scenes include courtship, amorous couples in scenes of intimacy (mithuna), or a sexual position. Above: 6th- to 14th-century temples in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Nepal.]]
The original composition date or century for the ''Kamasutra'' is unknown. Historians have variously placed it between 400 BCE and 300 CE.<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Refractions of Desire, Feminist Perspectives in the Novels of Toni Morrison, Michèle Roberts, and Anita Desai|author=Sengupta, J.|date=2006|publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Distributors|isbn=978-81-269-0629-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V9Y_tQfm_WgC|page=21|access-date=7 December 2014|archive-date=4 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504150511/https://books.google.com/books?id=V9Y_tQfm_WgC|url-status=live}}</ref>{{NoteTag|Sengupta cites only on the 300/400 BCE dating, with the other authors below citing the dating to occur up until 300 CE}} According to [[John Keay]], the ''Kama Sutra'' is a compendium that was collected into its present form in the 2nd century CE.<ref>{{cite book|title=India: A History: from the Earliest Civilisations to the Boom of the Twenty-first Century|pages=81–103|author=John Keay|publisher=Grove Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-8021-9550-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AUPZt-4yqzQC|access-date=10 December 2014|archive-date=20 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150520151418/https://books.google.com/books?id=AUPZt-4yqzQC|url-status=live}}</ref> In contrast, the Indologist Wendy Doniger, who had co-translated the ''Kama Sutra'' and published many papers on related Hindu texts, stated that the surviving version of the ''Kama Sutra'' must have been revised or composed after 225 CE because it mentions the Abhiras and the Andhras, dynasties that did not co-rule major regions of ancient India before that year.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xi-xii with footnote 2}} The text makes no mention of the [[Gupta Empire]], which ruled over major urban areas of ancient India, reshaping arts, culture, and economy from the 4th century through the 6th century CE. For these reasons, she dates the ''Kama Sutra'' to the second half of the 3rd century CE.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xi-xii with footnote 2}} Doniger notes Kama Sutra was composed "sometime in the third century of the common era, most likely in its second half, at the dawn of the [[Gupta Empire]]".{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=iii}}

The place of its composition is also unclear. The likely candidates are urban centers of north India, alternatively in the eastern urban Pataliputra (now [[Patna]]).{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=iii-xi-xii}} Vatsyayana Mallanaga is its widely accepted author because his name is embedded in the [[Colophon (publishing)|colophon]] verse, but little is known about him.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xi-xii}} Vatsyayana states that he wrote the text after much meditation.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xii}} In the preface, Vatsyayana acknowledges that he is distilling many ancient texts, but these have not survived.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xii}} He cites the work of others he calls "teachers" and "scholars", and the longer texts by Auddalaki, Babhravya, Dattaka, Suvarnanabha, Ghotakamukha, Gonardiya, Gonikaputra, Charayana, and Kuchumara.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xii}}

Kamasutra was considered to have been put together from a 150 chapter manuscript that had itself been distilled from 300 chapters which in turn came from a compilation of some 100,000 chapters of text. It was thought to have been written in its final form sometime between the third and fifth century CE.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Joseph |first=Manu |date=2015-07-24 |title=The Kama Sutra as a Work of Philosophy |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/asia/the-kama-sutra-as-a-work-of-philosophy.html |access-date=2023-02-10 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Vatsyayana's Kamasutra is mentioned and some verses quoted in the ''Brihatsamhita'' of Varahamihira, as well as the poems of Kalidasa. This suggests he lived before the 5th-century CE.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=3-4}}<ref>{{cite book|author1=Varahamihira|author2=M Ramakrishna Bhat|title=Brhat Samhita of Varahamihira|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7VR8iriWmzUC|year=1996|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-1060-0|pages=720–721|access-date=27 November 2018|archive-date=9 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220109084318/https://books.google.com/books?id=7VR8iriWmzUC|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Background ==
===Purusharthas===
{{Main|Purusharthas}}
The Hindu tradition has the concept of the ''[[Purusharthas]]'' which outlines "four main goals of life".<ref>Hopkins, p. 78.</ref><ref>Flood (1996), p. 17.</ref> It holds that every human being has four proper goals that are necessary and sufficient for a fulfilling and happy life:<ref>[a] A. Sharma (1982), The Puruṣārthas: a study in Hindu axiology, Michigan State University, {{ISBN|978-99936-24-31-8}}, pp 9–12; See review by Frank Whaling in Numen, Vol. 31, 1 (Jul., 1984), pp. 140–142;<br>[b] A. Sharma (1999), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40018229 The Puruṣārthas: An Axiological Exploration of Hinduism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201229174154/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40018229 |date=29 December 2020 }}, The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer, 1999), pp. 223–256;<br>[c] Chris Bartley (2001), Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy, Editor: Oliver Learman, {{ISBN|0-415-17281-0}}, Routledge, Article on Purushartha, pp 443</ref>
*[[Dharma]] – signifies behaviors that are considered to be in accord with ''[[rta]]'', the order that makes life and universe possible,<ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/dharma.aspx#1 The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, ''Dharma''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160926234045/http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/dharma.aspx#1 |date=26 September 2016 }}, The [[Oxford Dictionary of World Religions]]: "In Hinduism, dharma is a fundamental concept, referring to the order and custom which make life and a universe possible, and thus to the behaviours appropriate to the maintenance of that order."</ref> and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and ''right way of living''.<ref name=tce>Dharma, The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Ed. (2013), Columbia University Press, Gale, {{ISBN|978-0-7876-5015-5}}</ref> Hindu dharma includes the religious duties, moral rights and duties of each individual, as well as behaviors that enable social order, right conduct, and those that are virtuous.<ref name=tce/> Dharma, according to Van Buitenen,<ref name=vanbuitenen>J. A. B. Van Buitenen, Dharma and Moksa, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 7, No. 1/2 (Apr. - Jul., 1957), pp 33–40</ref> is that which all existing beings must accept and respect to sustain harmony and order in the world. It is, states Van Buitenen, the pursuit and execution of one's nature and true calling, thus playing one's role in cosmic concert.<ref name=vanbuitenen/>
*[[Artha]] – signifies the "means of life", activities and resources that enables one to be in a state one wants to be in.<ref name=johnk>John Koller, Puruṣārtha as Human Aims, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Oct., 1968), pp. 315–319</ref> ''Artha'' incorporates wealth, career, activity to make a living, financial security and economic prosperity. The proper pursuit of artha is considered an important aim of human life in Hinduism.<ref>James Lochtefeld (2002), The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Rosen Publishing, New York, {{ISBN|0-8239-2287-1}}, pp 55–56</ref><ref name=bruces>Bruce Sullivan (1997), Historical Dictionary of Hinduism, {{ISBN|978-0-8108-3327-2}}, pp 29–30</ref>
*[[Kama]] – signifies desire, wish, passion, emotions, pleasure of the senses, the [[aesthetic]] enjoyment of life, affection, or love, with or without sexual connotations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Macy |first1=Joanna |year=1975 |title=The Dialectics of Desire |journal=Numen |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=145–60 |publisher=BRILL |doi=10.1163/156852775X00095 |jstor=3269765}}</ref> [[Gavin Flood]] explains<ref name=gavinf>Gavin Flood (1996), The meaning and context of the Purusarthas, in Julius Lipner (Editor) - The Fruits of Our Desiring, {{ISBN|978-1-896209-30-2}}, pp 11–13</ref> kāma as "love" without violating dharma (moral responsibility), artha (material prosperity) and one's journey towards moksha (spiritual liberation).
*[[Moksha]] – signifies emancipation, liberation or release.<ref>John Bowker, The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-19-213965-8}}, pp. 650</ref> In some schools of Hinduism, ''moksha'' connotes freedom from ''[[saṃsāra]]'', the cycle of death and rebirth, in other schools moksha connotes freedom, self-knowledge, self-realization and liberation in this life.<ref>See:
* E. Deutsch, The self in Advaita Vedanta, in Roy Perrett (Editor), Indian philosophy: metaphysics, Volume 3, {{ISBN|0-8153-3608-X}}, Taylor and Francis, pp 343–360;
* T. Chatterjee (2003), Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy, {{ISBN|978-0-7391-0692-1}}, pp 89–102; Quote - "Moksa means freedom"; "Moksa is founded on atmajnana, which is the knowledge of the self."</ref><ref>See:
* Jorge Ferrer, Transpersonal knowledge, in Transpersonal Knowing: Exploring the Horizon of Consciousness (editors: Hart et al.), {{ISBN|978-0-7914-4615-7}}, State University of New York Press, Chapter 10
* Andrew Fort and Patricia Mumme (1996), Living Liberation in Hindu Thought, {{ISBN|978-0-7914-2706-4}};
</ref>

Each of these pursuits became a subject of study and led to prolific Sanskrit and some Prakrit languages literature in ancient India. Along with [[Dharmaśāstra|Dharmasastras]], [[Arthashastra|Arthasastras]] and Mokshasastras, the Kamasastras genre have been preserved in palm leaf manuscripts. The ''Kamasutra'' belongs to the Kamasastra genre of texts. Other examples of Hindu Sanskrit texts on sexuality and emotions include the ''[[Ratirahasya]]'' (called ''Kokashastra'' in some Indian scripts), the ''[[Anangaranga]]'', the ''Nagarasarvasva'', the ''Kandarpachudmani'', and the ''Panchasayaka''.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xii-xiii}}<ref>[a] {{cite journal|title= Rethinking the History of the "Kāma" World in Early India| author= Daud Ali| journal= Journal of Indian Philosophy| volume= 39| number= 1|year= 2011| pages= 1–13| jstor=23884104| doi=10.1007/s10781-010-9115-7| doi-access= free}};<br>[b] {{cite journal| title= Padmaśrī's "Nāgarasarvasva" and the World of Medieval Kāmaśāstra|author= Daud Ali| journal=Journal of Indian Philosophy| volume= 39| number= 1| year= 2011| pages= 41–62| jstor= 23884106| doi=10.1007/s10781-010-9116-6|s2cid= 170779101}}</ref><ref name=desmond2011p15>{{cite journal| title= The Pleasure is Mine: The Changing Subject of Erotic Science|author=Laura Desmond| journal= Journal of Indian Philosophy| volume= 39|number= 1| year= 2011| pages= 15–39|publisher= Springer| jstor= 23884105| doi=10.1007/s10781-010-9117-5|s2cid=170502725}}</ref>

The defining object of the Indian Kamasastra literature, according to Laura Desmond – an anthropologist and a professor of Religious Studies, is the "harmonious sensory experience" from a good relationship between "the self and the world", by discovering and enhancing sensory capabilities to "affect and be affected by the world".<ref name=desmond2011p15/> Vatsyayana predominantly discusses Kama along with its relationship with Dharma and Artha. He makes a passing mention of Moksha in some verses.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002 |pp=xi-xvi}}

===Vedic heritage===
The earliest foundations of the ''kamasutra'' are found in the [[Vedic era]] literature of Hinduism.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002 |pp=xiv with footnote 8}}<ref name="De1969p89"/> Vatsyayana acknowledges this heritage in verse 1.1.9 of the text where he names Svetaketu Uddalaka as the "first human author of the ''kamasutra''". Uddalaka is an early Upanishadic [[rishi]] (scholar-poet, sage), whose ideas are found in the ''[[Brihadaranyaka Upanishad]]'' such as in section 6.2, and the ''[[Chandogya Upanishad]]'' such as over the verses 5.3 through 5.10.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002 |pp=xiv with footnote 8}} These Hindu scriptures are variously dated between 900 BCE and 700 BCE, according to the Indologist and Sanskrit scholar Patrick Olivelle. Among with other ideas such as [[Atman (Hinduism)|Atman]] (self, soul) and the ontological concept of [[Brahman]], these early Upanishads discuss human life, activities and the nature of existence as a form of internalized worship, where sexuality and sex is mapped into a form of religious ''[[yajna]]'' ritual (sacrificial fire, [[Agni]]) and suffused in spiritual terms:{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002 |pp=xiv with footnote 8}}

<blockquote style="background-color:none;margin-right:5em;margin-left:0em;border-left:solid 6px #FFE0BB;padding:1.0em">
<poem>
A fire – that is what a woman is, Gautama.
Her firewood is the vulva,
her smoke is the pubic hair,
her flame is the vagina,
when one penetrates her, that is her embers,
and her sparks are the climax.
In that very fire the gods offer semen,
and from that offering springs a man.
</poem>
– ''[[Brihadaranyaka Upanishad]]'' 6.2.13, {{Circa|700 BCE}}, Trans.: [[Patrick Olivelle]]<ref>{{cite book|title= The Early Upanishads | year=1998| publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn= 0-19-512435-9 | page=149, context: pp. 143–149}}</ref><ref>योषा वा आग्निर् गौतम । तस्या उपस्थ एव समिल् लोमानि धूमो योनिरर्चिर् यदन्तः करोति तेऽङ्गारा अभिनन्दा विस्फुलिङ्गास् तस्मिन्नेतस्मिन्नग्नौ देवा रेतो जुह्वति तस्या आहुत्यै पुरुषः सम्भवति । स जीवति यावज्जीवत्य् अथ यदा म्रियते ।१३, – 6.2.13, For the context and other verses: [https://sa.wikisource.org/s/x59 Wikisource] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125030003/https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AC%E0%A5%83%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%95_%E0%A4%89%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B7%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%8D_6p |date=25 January 2022 }}</ref></blockquote>

According to the Indologist De, a view with which Doniger agrees, this is one of the many evidences that the ''kamasutra'' began in the religious literature of the Vedic era, ideas that were ultimately refined and distilled into a ''sutra''-genre text by Vatsyayana.<ref name="De1969p89">{{cite book|author=Sushil Kumar De|title=Ancient Indian Erotics and Erotic Literature|url= https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.71326|year= 1969|publisher= K.L. Mukhopadhyay|pages=[https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.71326/page/n120 89]–92}}</ref> According to Doniger, this paradigm of celebrating pleasures, enjoyment and sexuality as a ''dharmic'' act began in the "earthy, vibrant text known as the ''[[Rigveda]]''" of the Hindus.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002 |pp=xiii}} The ''Kamasutra'' and celebration of sex, eroticism and pleasure is an integral part of the religious milieu in Hinduism and quite prevalent in its temples.<ref>{{cite journal| title= The Erotic Sculptures of India| author= Y. Krishan| journal= Artibus Asiae| volume= 34| number= 4| year= 1972|pages = 331–343| doi= 10.2307/3249625| jstor= 3249625}}</ref>{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002 |pp=xi-xvii}}

===Epics===
Human relationships, sex and emotional fulfillment are a significant part of the post-Vedic Sanskrit literature such as the major Hindu epics: the ''Mahabharata'' and the ''Ramayana''. The ancient Indian view has been, states Johann Meyer, that love and sex are a delightful necessity. Though she is reserved and selective, "a woman stands in very great need of ''surata'' (amorous or sexual pleasure)", and "the woman has a far stronger erotic disposition, her delight in the sexual act is greater than a man's".<ref name="Meyer1953p229">{{cite book|author=Johann Jakob Meyer|title=Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=izFNswlJ9LMC|year=1989|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass (Orig: 1953)|isbn=978-81-208-0638-2|pages=229–230, 240–244, context: 229–257 with footnotes|access-date=22 November 2018|archive-date=7 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207014949/https://books.google.com/books?id=izFNswlJ9LMC|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Manuscripts==
[[File:Kama sutra, Vatsyayayan, commentary, sample ii, Sanskrit, Devanagari.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|A ''Kamasutra'' manuscript page preserved in the vaults of the [[Raghunath Temple]] in Jammu & Kashmir]]
The ''Kamasutra'' manuscripts have survived in many versions across the Indian subcontinent. While attempting to get a translation of the Sanskrit kama-sastra text ''[[Ananga Ranga]]'', which had already been widely translated by the Hindus in their regional languages such as Marathi, associates of the British Orientalist Richard Burton, stumbled into portions of the ''Kamasutra'' manuscript. Burton then commissioned the Sanskrit scholar [[Bhagvanlal Indraji]] to locate a complete ''Kamasutra'' manuscript and translate it. Indraji collected variant manuscripts of the text in libraries and temples of Varanasi, Kolkata and Jaipur. Burton later published an edited English translation of these manuscripts, but not a [[critical edition]] of the ''Kamasutra'' in Sanskrit.{{sfn|Jyoti Puri|2002|pp=614–615}}

According to S.C. Upadhyaya, known for his 1961 scholarly study and a more accurate translation of the ''Kamasutra'', there are issues with the manuscripts that have survived and the text likely underwent revisions over time.<ref name=Upadhyaya1961p52>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197|pages=52–54}}</ref> This is confirmed by other 1st-millennium CE Hindu texts on ''kama'' that mention and cite the ''Kamasutra'', but some of these quotations credited to the ''Kamasutra'' by these historic authors "are not to be found in the text of the Kamasutra" that have survived.<ref name=Upadhyaya1961p52/>{{sfn|Jyoti Puri|2002|pp=623–624}}

== Structure ==
Vatsyayana's ''Kamasutra'' states it has 1,250 verses distributed over 36 chapters in 64 sections organised into 7 books.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xxii}} This statement is included in the opening chapter, a common practice in ancient Hindu texts, likely to prevent major and unauthorized expansions of a popular text.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xxii-xxiii with footnotes}} The text that has survived into the modern era has 67 sections, and this list is enumerated in Book 7 and in Yashodhara's Sanskrit commentary (''[[bhasya]]'') on the text.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xxii-xxiii with footnotes}}

The ''Kamasutra'' uses a mixture of prose and poetry, and the narration has the form of a dramatic fiction where two characters called ''nayaka'' (man) and ''nayika'' (woman), are aided by the characters called ''pitamarda'' (libertine), ''vita'' (pander) and ''vidushaka'' (jester). This format follows the teachings found in the Sanskrit classic ''[[Natyasastra]]''.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xxv-xxvi with footnotes}} The teachings and discussions found in the ''Kamasutra'' extensively incorporate ancient Hindu mythology and legends.<ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|editor=H. L. Seneviratne|title=The Anthropologist and the Native: Essays for Gananath Obeyesekere|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FjRV7rZdZlAC|year=2011|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=978-0-85728-435-8|pages=293–316|chapter=The Mythology of the Kāmasūtra|access-date=26 November 2018|archive-date=9 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220109162652/https://books.google.com/books?id=FjRV7rZdZlAC|url-status=live}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" align=center style = " background: transparent; "
  |+ ''Kamasutra''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffad66;" | Book.Chapter
  |  style="background: #ffdd33;" | Verses
  | style="background: #ffdd33;" |Topics{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=3–27 (Book 1), 28-73 (Book 2), 74–93 (Book 3), 94–103 (Book 4), 104–129 (Book 5), 131-159 (Book 6), 161-172 (Book 7)}}{{sfn|Haksar|Favre|2011}}<ref>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197|pages=68–70}}</ref>
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | '''1'''
  | 
  |'''General remarks'''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 1.1
  | 1–24
  | Preface, history of kama literature, outline of the contents
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 1.2
  | 1–40
  | Suitable age for kama knowledge, the three goals of life: dharma, Artha, Kama; their essential interrelationship, natural human questions
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 1.3
  | 1–22
  | Preparations for kama, sixty four arts for a better quality of life, how girls can learn and train in these arts, their lifelong benefits and contribution to better kama
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 1.4
  | 1–39
  | The life of an urban gentleman, work routine, entertainment and festivals, sports, picnics, socialization, games, entertainment and drinking parties, finding aids (messengers, friends, helpers) to improve success in kama, options for rural gentlemen, what one must never do in their pursuit of kama
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 1.5
  | 1–37
  | Types of women, finding sexual partners, sex, being lovers, being faithful, permissible women, adultery and when to commit it, the forbidden women whom one must avoid, discretion with messengers and helpers, few dos and don't in life
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | '''2'''
  | 
  |'''Amorous advances/sexual union'''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 2.1
  | 1–45
  | Sexual relationships and the pleasure of sex, uniqueness of every lover, temperaments, sizes, endurance, foreplay, types of love and lovers, duration of sex, types of climax, intimacy, joy
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 2.2
  | 1–31
  | Figuring out if someone is interested, conversations, prelude and preparation, touching each other, massage, embracing
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 2.3–5
  | 1–32, 1–31, 1–43
  | Kissing, where to kiss and how, teasing each other and games, signals and hints for the other person, cleanliness, taking care of teeth, hair, body, nails, physical non-sexual forms of intimacy (scratching, poking, biting, slapping, holding her)
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 2.6–10
  | 1–52
  | Intercourse, what it is and how, positions, various methods, bringing variety, usual and unusual sex, communicating before and during intercourse (moaning), diverse regional practices and customs, the needs of a man, the needs of a woman, variations and surprises, oral sex for women, oral sex for men, opinions, disagreements, experimenting with each other, the first time, why sexual excitement fades, reviving passion, quarreling, keeping sex exciting, sixty four methods to find happiness in a committed relationship
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | '''3'''
  | 
  |'''Acquiring a wife'''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 3.1
  | 1–24
  | Marriage, finding the right girl, which one to avoid, which one to persuade, how to decide, how to proceed, making alliances
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 3.2–3
  | 1–35, 1–32
  | Earning her trust, importance of not rushing things and being gentle, moving towards sexual openness gradually, how to approach a woman, proceeding to friendship, from friendship to intimacy, interpreting different responses of a girl
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 3.4–5 
  | 1–55, 1–30
  | Earning his trust, knowing the man and his advances, how a woman can make advances, winning the heart; utilizing confidants of your lover, types of marriage, formalizing marriage, eloping
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | '''4'''
  | 
  |'''Duties and privileges of the wife'''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 4.1–2
  | 1–48, 1–30
  | Being a wife, her life, conduct, power over the household, duties when her husband is away, nuclear and joint families, when to take charge and when not to
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 4.2
  | 30–72
  | Remarriage, being unlucky, harems,{{refn|group=note|name=harem|According to Jyoti Puri, the Burton version of Kamasutra "appears to have borrowed material concerning the functioning of the harem in Damascus (Syria)" as he edited the text for his colonial era British audience in the late 19th-century.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Puri | first=Jyoti | title=Concerning Kamasutras: Challenging Narratives of History and Sexuality | journal=Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | publisher=University of Chicago Press | volume=27 | issue=3 | year=2002 | doi=10.1086/337937 | pages=614–616 | s2cid=143809154 | url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240553467 | access-date=18 March 2021 | archive-date=25 January 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125025942/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240553467_Concerning_Kamasutra_s_Challenging_Narratives_of_History_and_Sexuality | url-status=live }}</ref>}} polygamy
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | '''5'''
  | 
  |'''Other men's wives'''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 5.1
  | 1–56
  | Human nature, tendencies of men, tendencies of women, why women lose interest and start looking elsewhere, avoiding adultery, pursuing adultery, finding women interested in extramarital sex
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 5.2–5
  | 1–28, 1–28, 1–66, 1–37
  | Finding many lovers, deploying messengers, the need for them and how to find good go-betweens, getting acquainted, how to make a pass, gifts and love tokens, arranging meetings, how to discretely find out if a woman is available and interested, warnings and knowing when to stop
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 5.6
  | 1–48
  | Public women [prostitution], their life, what to expect and not, how to find them, regional practices, guarding and respecting them
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | '''6'''
  | 
  |'''About courtesans'''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 6.1
  | 1–33
  | Courtesans, what motivates them, how to find clients, deciding if someone should just be a friend or a lover, which lovers to avoid, getting a lover and keeping him interested
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 6.2
  | 1–76
  | How to please your lover
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 6.3
  | 1–46
  | Making a lover go crazy about you, how to get rid of him if love life is not fulfilling
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 6.4–5
  | 1–43, 1–39
  | Methods to make an ex-lover interested in you again, reuniting, methods, checking if it is worth the effort, types of lovers, things to consider
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 6.6
  | 1–53
  | Why love life gets dull, examples, familiarity and doubts
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | '''7'''
  | 
  |'''Occult practices'''
|-style="text-align: left;"
  | style="background: #ffdd66;"  | 7.1–2
  | 1–51, 1–51
  | Looking good, feeling good, why and how to be attractive, bewitching, being virile, paying attention, genuineness and artificiality, body art and perforations, taking care of one's sexual organs, stimulants, prescriptions and unusual practices
|}

==Contents==
{{Quote box
 |quote  = '''On balance in life'''
<poem>
In any period of life in which
one of the elements of the trivarga
– dharma, artha, kama – 
is the primary one, the other two
should be natural adjuncts of it.
Under no circumstances, should any one of the
trivarga be detrimental to the other two.
</poem>
 |source = —''Kamasutra 1.2.1'',<br>Translator: [[Ludo Rocher]]<ref>{{cite journal | last=Rocher | first=Ludo | title=The Kāmasūtra: Vātsyāyana's Attitude toward Dharma and Dharmaśāstra | journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society | volume=105 | issue=3 | year=1985 | doi=10.2307/601526 | pages=521–523| jstor=601526 }}</ref>
 |bgcolor=#FFE0BB
 |align  = right
}}The ''Kamasutra'' is a "[[sutra]]"-genre text consisting of intensely condensed, aphoristic verses. Doniger describes them as a "kind of atomic string (thread) of meanings", which are so cryptic that any translation is more like deciphering and filling in the text.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=xv–xvii}} Condensing a text into a sutra-genre religious text form makes it easier to remember and transmit, but it also introduces ambiguity and the need to understand the context of each chapter, its philological roots, as well as the prior literature, states Doniger.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=xv–xvii}} However, this method of knowledge preservation and transmission has its foundation in the Vedas, which themselves are cryptic and require a commentator and teacher-guide to comprehend the details and the inter-relationship of the ideas.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=xv–xvii}}{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=5-6}} The ''Kamasutra'' too has attracted commentaries, of which the most well known are those of 12th-century{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=5-6}} or 13th-century<ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|page=19|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> Yaśodhara's ''Jayamaṅgalā'' in the Sanskrit language, and of Devadatta Shastri who commented on the original text as well as its commentaries in the Hindi language.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=xv–xvii}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Albrecht Wezler|editor1=Madhav Deshpande|editor2=Peter Edwin Hook|title=Indian Linguistic Studies: Festschrift in Honor of George Cardona|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aVR0rGVQ8ecC|year=2002|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-1885-9|pages=316–322 with footnotes|access-date=28 November 2018|archive-date=25 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125030005/https://books.google.com/books?id=aVR0rGVQ8ecC|url-status=live}}</ref> There are many other Sanskrit commentaries on the ''Kamasutra'', such as the ''Sutra Vritti'' by Narsingha Sastri.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=5-6}} These commentaries cite and quote Hindu texts such as the ''Upanishads'', the ''Arthashastra'', the ''Natyashastra'', the ''Manusmriti'', the ''Nyayasutra'', the ''Markandeya Purana'', the ''Mahabharata'', the ''Nitishastra'' and others to provide the context, per the norms of its literary traditions.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=11-12}} The extant translations of the ''Kamasutra'' typically incorporate these commentaries, states Daniélou.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=6-12}}

In the colonial era marked by sexual censorship, the ''Kamasutra'' became famous as a pirated and underground text for its explicit description of sex positions. The stereotypical image of the text is one where erotic pursuit with sexual intercourse include improbable contortionist forms.<ref name=doniger2016p20/> In reality, according to Doniger, the ''real Kamasutra'' is much more and is a book about "the art of living", about understanding one's body and a partner's body, finding a partner and emotional connection, marriage, the power equation over time in intimate relationships, the nature of adultery and drugs (aphrodisiacs<ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|page=27|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>) along with many simple to complex variations in sex positions to explore. It is also a psychological treatise that presents the effect of desire and pleasure on human behavior.<ref name=doniger2016p20>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|pages=20–27|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

For each aspect of ''Kama'', the ''Kamasutra'' presents a diverse spectrum of options and regional practices. According to Shastri, as quoted by Doniger, the text analyses "the inclinations of men, good and bad", thereafter it presents Vatsyayana's recommendation and arguments of what one must avoid as well as what to not miss in experiencing and enjoying, with "acting only on the good".{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=xx–xxi}} For example, the text discusses adultery but recommends a faithful spousal relationship.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=xx–xxi}}<ref name=doniger2016p14>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|pages=13–14|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> The approach of ''Kamasutra'' is not to ignore nor deny the psychology and complexity of human behavior for pleasure and sex. The text, according to Doniger, clearly states "that a treatise demands the inclusion of everything, good or bad", but after being informed with in-depth knowledge, one must "reflect and accept only the good". The approach found in the text is one where goals of science and religion should not be to repress, but to encyclopedically know and understand, thereafter let the individual decide.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002|pp=xx–xxi}} The text states that it aims to be comprehensive and inclusive of diverse views and lifestyles.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xx–xxii}}

===Flirting and courtship===
The 3rd-century text includes a number of themes, including subjects such as flirting that resonate in the modern era context, states a ''New York Times'' review.<ref name=nytimes2002kamasutra/> For example, it suggests that a young man seeking to attract a woman, should hold a party, and invite the guests to recite poetry. In the party, a poem should be read with parts missing, and the guests should compete to creatively complete the poem.<ref name=nytimes2002kamasutra/> As another example, the ''Kamasutra'' suggests that the boy and the girl should go play together, such as swim in a river. The boy should dive into the water away from the girl he is interested in, then swim underwater to get close to her, emerge from the water and surprise her, touch her slightly and then dive again, away from her.<ref name=nytimes2002kamasutra/>

Book 3 of the ''Kamasutra'' is largely dedicated to the art of courtship with the aim of marriage. The book's opening verse declares marriage to be a conducive means to "a pure and natural love between the partners", states Upadhyaya.<ref name=upadhaya1965p141/> It leads to emotional fulfillment in many forms such as more friends for both, relatives, progeny, amorous and sexual relationship between the couple, and the conjugal pursuit of ''[[dharma]]'' (spiritual and ethical life) and ''[[artha]]'' (economic life).<ref name=upadhaya1965p141/> The first three chapters discuss how a man should go about finding the right bride, while the fourth offers equivalent discussion for a woman and how she can get the man she wants.<ref name=upadhaya1965p141>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197|pages=69, 141–156}}</ref> The text states that a person should be realistic, and must possess the "same qualities which one expects from the partner". It suggests involving one's friends and relatives in the search, and meeting the current friends and relatives of one's future partner prior to the marriage.<ref name=upadhaya1965p141/> While the original text makes no mention of astrology and horoscopes, later commentaries, such as one by 13th-century Yashodhara includes consulting and comparing the compatibility of the horoscopes, omens, planetary alignments, and such signs prior to proposing a marriage. Vatsyayana recommends, states Alain Danielou, that "one should play, marry, associate with one's equals, people of one's own circle" who share the same values and religious outlook. It is more difficult to manage a good, happy relationship when there are basic differences between the two, according to verse 3.1.20 of the ''Kamasutra''.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=222–224}}

===Intimacy and foreplay===
Vatsyayana's ''Kamasutra'' describes intimacy of various forms, including those between lovers before and during sex. For example, the text discusses eight forms of ''alingana'' (embrace) in verses 2.2.7–23: ''sphrishtaka'', ''viddhaka'', ''udghrishtaka'', ''piditaka'', ''lataveshtitaka'', ''vrikshadhirudha'', ''tilatandula'' and ''kshiranira''.<ref name=upadhyaya1965p11/> The first four are expressive of mutual love, but are nonsexual. The last four are forms of embrace recommended by Vatsyayana to increase pleasure during foreplay and during sexual intimacy. Vatsyayana cites earlier – now lost – Indian texts from the Babhraya's school, for these eight categories of embraces. The various forms of intimacy reflect the intent and provide means to engage a combination of senses for pleasure. For instance, according to Vatsyayana the ''lalatika'' form enables both to feel each other and allows the man to visually appreciate "the full beauty of the female form", states S.C. Upadhyaya.<ref name=upadhyaya1965p11>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197|pages=11–12}}</ref>

{{Quote box
 |quote  = '''On sexual embraces'''
<poem>
Some sexual embraces, not in this text,
also intensify passion;
these, too, may be used for love-making,
but only with care.
The territory of the text extends
only so far as men have dull appetites;
but when the wheel of sexual ecstasy is in full motion,
there is no textbook at all, and no order.
</poem>
 |source = —''Kamasutra 2.2.30–31'',<br>Translator: Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xviii}}
 |bgcolor=#FFE0BB
 |align  = right
}}
Another example of the forms of intimacy discussed in the ''Kamasutra'' includes ''chumbanas'' (kissing).<ref name=upadhyaya1965p12/> The text presents twenty-six forms of kisses, ranging from those appropriate for showing respect and affection, to those during foreplay and sex. Vatsyayana also mentions variations in kissing cultures in different parts of ancient India.<ref name=upadhyaya1965p12/> The best kiss for an intimate partner, according to ''kamasutra'', is one that is based on the awareness of the ''avastha'' (the emotional state of one's partner) when the two are not in a sexual union. During sex, the text recommends going with the flow and mirroring with ''abhiyoga'' and ''samprayoga''.<ref name=upadhyaya1965p12>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197|pages=12–13}}</ref>

Other techniques of foreplay and sexual intimacy that are described in the ''kamasutra'' include; various forms of holding and embraces (''grahana'', ''upaguhana''), mutual massage and rubbing (''mardana''), pinching and biting, using fingers and hands to stimulate (''karikarakrida'', ''nadi-kshobana'', ''anguli-pravesha''), three styles of ''jihva-pravesha'' ([[french kiss]]ing), and many styles of fellatio and cunnilingus.<ref>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197|pages=11–42}}</ref>

===Adultery===
The ''Kamasutra'', states the Indologist and Sanskrit literature scholar [[Ludo Rocher]], discourages adultery but then devotes "not less than fifteen sutras (1.5.6–20) to enumerating the reasons (''karana'') for which a man is allowed to seduce a married woman". Vatsyayana mentions different types of ''nayikas'' (urban girls) such as unmarried virgins, those married and abandoned by husband, widow seeking remarriage and courtesans, then discusses their kama/sexual education, rights and mores.<ref name="Rocher1985">{{cite journal|last1=Rocher|first1=Ludo|title=The Kāmasūtra: Vātsyāyana's Attitude toward Dharma and Dharmaśāstra|journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=105|issue=3| year=1985|pages= 521–529|doi=10.2307/601526|jstor=601526}}</ref> In childhood, [[Vātsyāyana]] 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.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

According to Doniger, the ''Kamasutra'' teaches adulterous sexual liaison as a means for a man to predispose the involved woman in assisting him, as a strategic means to work against his enemies and to facilitate his successes. It also explains the signs and reasons a woman wants to enter into an adulterous relationship and when she does not want to commit adultery.<ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|editor=Ariel Glucklich|title=The Sense of Adharma|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d6bsOfvySvMC|year=1994|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-802448-4|pages=170–174|access-date=3 December 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221201824/https://books.google.com/books?id=d6bsOfvySvMC|url-status=live}}</ref> The ''Kamasutra'' teaches strategies to engage in adulterous relationships, but concludes its chapter on sexual liaison stating that one should not commit adultery because adultery pleases only one of two sides in a marriage, hurts the other, it goes against both ''dharma'' and ''artha''.<ref name=doniger2016p14/>

===Caste, class===
The ''Kamasutra'' has been one of the unique sources of sociological information and cultural milieu of ancient India. It shows a "near total disregard of class (varna) and caste (jati)", states Doniger.<ref name=Doniger2016p21/> Human relationships, including the sexual type, are neither segregated nor repressed by gender or caste, rather linked to individual's wealth (success in ''[[artha]]''). In the ''Kamasutra'', lovers are "not upper-class" but they "must be rich" enough to dress well, pursue social leisure activities, buy gifts and surprise the lover. In the rare mention of caste, it is about a man finding his legal wife and the advice that humorous stories to seduce a woman should be about "other virgins of same ''jati'' (caste)". In general, the text describes sexual activity between men and women across class and caste, both in urban and rural settings.<ref name=Doniger2016p21>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|pages=21–23|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Same-sex relationships===
The ''Kamasutra'' includes verses describing homosexual relations such as oral sex between two men, as well as between two women.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar |2002 |pp=xxxiv-xxxvii}}{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=9-10}} Lesbian relations are extensively covered in Chapters 5 and 8 in Book 2.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=169-177}} The text also mentions "pretend play", [[sadomasochism]],<ref>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197|pages=22–23}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|pages=39–140|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[group sex]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Kumkum Roy|editor=Janaki Nair and Mary John|title=A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economies of Modern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gUJ6112aGZQC&pg=PA52|year=2000|publisher=Zed Books|isbn=978-1-85649-892-0|page=52|access-date=5 December 2018|archive-date=26 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126004037/https://books.google.com/books?id=gUJ6112aGZQC&pg=PA52|url-status=live}}</ref>

According to Doniger, the ''Kamasutra'' discusses same-sex relationships through the notion of the ''tritiya prakriti'', literally, "third sexuality" or "third nature". In ''Redeeming the Kamasutra,'' Doniger states that "the Kamasutra departs from the dharmic view of homosexuality in significant ways", where the term ''kliba'' appears. In contemporary translations, this has been inaccurately rendered as "eunuch" – or, a castrated man in a harem,{{refn|group=note|name=harem}} and the [[Harem|royal harem]] did not exist in India before the Turkish presence in the ninth century.<ref name="Doniger2016p114">{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|pages=114–116 [http://www.pdfdrive.com/redeeming-the-kamasutra-e187250316.html PDF]|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> The Sanskrit word ''Kliba'' found in older Indian texts refers to a "man who does not act like a man", typically in a pejorative sense. The ''Kamasutra'' does not use the pejorative term ''kliba'' at all, but speaks instead of a "third nature" or, in the sexual behavior context as the "third sexuality".<ref name="Doniger2016p114"/>

The text states that there are two sorts of "third nature", one where a man behaves like a woman, and in the other, a woman behaves like a man. In one of the longest consecutive sets of verses describing a sexual act, the ''Kamasutra'' describes fellatio technique between a man dressed like a woman performing fellatio on another man.<ref name="Doniger2016p114"/> The text also mentions same-sex behavior between two women, such as a girl losing her virginity with a girlfriend as they use their fingers,<ref name="Doniger2016p120">{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|pages=120–122|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> as well as oral sex and the use of sex toys between women.<ref>{{cite book|author=Davesh Soneji|editor=Yudit Kornberg Greenberg|title=Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nGoag6b3JvYC|year=2007|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-85109-980-1|page=307|access-date=28 November 2018|archive-date=22 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222215811/https://books.google.com/books?id=nGoag6b3JvYC|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Svairini'', a term Danielou translates as a lesbian,{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=48, 171-172}} is described in the text as a woman who lives a conjugal life with another woman or by herself fending for herself, not interested in a husband.<ref>{{cite book|author=P.P. Mishra|editor=Yudit Kornberg Greenberg|title=Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nGoag6b3JvYC|year=2007|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-85109-980-1|page=362|access-date=28 November 2018|archive-date=22 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222215811/https://books.google.com/books?id=nGoag6b3JvYC|url-status=live}}</ref> Additionally, the text has some fleeting remarks on bisexual relationships.<ref name="Doniger2016p120"/>

== Translations ==
{{multiple image
| perrow            = 2
| total_width       = 320
| align             = left
| image1            = Richard Burton's edition of Kamasutra 1883 edition.jpg
| width1            = 200
| alt1              = 
| caption1          = 
| image2            = Lamairesse - Kama Sutra.djvu
| width2            = 203
| alt2              = 
| caption2          = 
| footer            = The first English version by Richard Burton became public in 1883, but it was illegal to publish it in England and the United States till 1962.<ref name="Doniger2018p164"/> Right: a French retranslation of 1891.
}}

According to Doniger, the historical records suggest that the ''Kamasutra'' was a well-known and popular text in Indian history. This popularity through the [[Mughal Empire]] era is confirmed by its regional translations. The Mughals, states Doniger, had "commissioned lavishly illustrated Persian and Sanskrit ''Kamasutra'' manuscripts".<ref name="Doniger2016p12">{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|page=12|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

The first English translation of the ''Kama Sutra'' was privately printed in 1883 by the Orientalist Sir [[Richard Francis Burton]]. He did not translate it, but did edit it to suit the Victorian British attitudes. The unedited translation was produced by the Indian scholar [[Bhagwan Lal Indraji]] with the assistance of a student Shivaram Parshuram Bhide, under the guidance of Burton's friend, the Indian civil servant [[Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot]].<ref>McConnachie (2007), pp. 123–125.</ref> According to Doniger, the Burton version is a "flawed English translation" but influential as modern translators and abridged versions, even in the Indian languages such as in Hindi, are re-translations of the Burton version, rather than the original Sanskrit manuscript.<ref name="Doniger2018p164">[a] [https://lithub.com/redeeming-the-kamasutra/ Sir Richard Burton’s Version of the Kamasutra] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181122174537/https://lithub.com/redeeming-the-kamasutra/ |date=22 November 2018 }}, Wendy Doniger, ''Literary Hub'' (March 11, 2016);<br>[b] {{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Against Dharma: Dissent in the Ancient Indian Sciences of Sex and Politics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XZBNDwAAQBAJ|year=2018|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-21619-6|pages=164–166|access-date=22 November 2018|archive-date=25 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125025942/https://books.google.com/books?id=XZBNDwAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

The Burton version of the ''Kamasutra'' was produced in an environment where the Victorian mindset and Protestant proselytizers were busy finding faults and attacking Hinduism and its culture, rejecting as "filthy paganism" anything they found sensuous and sexual in Hindu arts and literature. The "Hindus were cowering under their scorn", states Doniger, and the open discussion of sex in the ''Kamasutra'' scandalized the 19th-century Europeans.<ref name="Doniger2018p164"/> The Burton edition of the ''Kamasutra'' was illegal to publish in England and the United States till 1962. Yet, states Doniger, it became soon after its publication in 1883, "one of the most pirated books in the English language", widely copied, reprinted and republished sometimes without Richard Burton's name.<ref name="Doniger2018p164"/>

Burton made two important contributions to the ''Kamasutra''. First, he had the courage to publish it in the colonial era against the political and cultural mores of the British elite. He creatively found a way to subvert the then prevalent censorship laws of Britain under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857.<ref>{{cite journal| title= Translating/'The' "Kama Sutra"| author= Ben Grant|journal = Third World Quarterly| volume= 26|number= 3| year= 2005| pages= 509–510| publisher= Taylor & Francis|jstor=  3993841| doi=10.1080/01436590500033867| s2cid= 145438916}}</ref><ref name="Doniger2018p164"/> Burton created a fake publishing house named ''The Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares'' (Benares = [[Varanasi]]), with the declaration that it is "for private circulation only".<ref name="Doniger2018p164"/> The second major contribution was to edit it in a major way, by changing words and rewriting sections to make it more acceptable to the general British public. For example, the original Sanskrit ''Kamasutra'' does not use the words [[lingam]] or [[yoni]] for sexual organs, and almost always uses other terms. Burton adroitly avoided being viewed as obscene to the Victorian mindset by avoiding the use of words such as penis, vulva, vagina and other direct or indirect sexual terms in the Sanskrit text to discuss sex, sexual relationships and human sexual positions. Burton used the terms lingam and yoni instead throughout the translation.<ref name=doniger2011p500/> This conscious and incorrect word substitution, states Doniger, thus served as an Orientalist means to "anthropologize sex, distance it, make it safe for English readers by assuring them, or pretending to assure them, that the text was not about real sexual organs, their sexual organs, but merely about the appendages of weird, dark people far away."<ref name=doniger2011p500>{{cite journal|author =Wendy Doniger| title= God's Body, or, The Lingam Made Flesh: Conflicts over the Representation of the Sexual Body of the Hindu God Shiva| journal= Social Research|volume =78| number=2|year= 2011|publisher=  The Johns Hopkins University Press|pages=499–505|jstor=23347187}}</ref> Though Burton used the terms [[lingam]] and [[yoni]] for human sexual organs, terms that actually mean a lot more in Sanskrit texts and its meaning depends on the context. However, Burton's ''Kamasutra'' gave a unique, specific meaning to these words in the western imagination.<ref name=doniger2011p500/>

The problems with Burton mistranslation are many, states Doniger. First, the text "simply does not say what Burton says it says".<ref name="Doniger2018p164"/> Second, it "robs women of their voices, turning direct quotes into indirect quotes, thus losing the force of the dialogue that animates the work and erasing the vivid presence of the many women who speak in the Kamasutra". Third, it changes the force of words in the original text. For example, when a woman says "Stop!" or "Let me go!" in the original text of Vatsyayana, Burton changed it to "She continually utters words expressive of prohibition, sufficiency, or desire of liberation", states Doniger, and thus misconstrues the context and intent of the original text.<ref name="Doniger2018p164"/> Similarly, while the original ''Kamasutra'' acknowledges that "women have strong privileges", Burton erased these passages and thus eroded women's agency in ancient India in the typical Orientialist manner that dehumanized the Indian culture.<ref name="Doniger2018p164"/><ref name=doniger2011p500/> David Shulman, a professor of Indian Studies and Comparative Religion, agrees with Doniger that the Burton translation is misguided and flawed.<ref name=nytimes2002kamasutra/> The Burton version was written with a different mindset, one that treated "sexual matters with Victorian squeamishness and a pornographic delight in the indirect", according to Shulman. It has led to a misunderstanding of the text and created the wrong impression of it being ancient "Hindu pornography".<ref name=nytimes2002kamasutra/>

In 1961, S. C. Upadhyaya published his translation as the ''Kamasutra of Vatsyayana: Complete Translation from the Original''.<ref>{{cite book| title= Kama sutra of Vatsyayana Complete translation from the original Sanskrit| author1=Vatsyayana| author2= SC Upadhyaya (transl)| year=1965 | publisher= DB Taraporevala (Orig publication year: 1961) | oclc=150688197}}</ref> According to [[Jyoti Puri]], it is considered among the best-known scholarly English-language translations of the ''Kamasutra'' in post-independent India.{{sfn|Jyoti Puri|2002|p=607}}

Other translations include those by [[Alain Daniélou]] (''The Complete Kama Sutra'' in 1994).<ref>[http://www.alaindanielou.org/The-Complete-Kama-Sutra.html ''The Complete Kama Sutra''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080506045738/http://www.alaindanielou.org/The-Complete-Kama-Sutra.html |date=6 May 2008 }} by Alain Daniélou.</ref> This translation, originally into French, and thence into English, featured the original text attributed to [[Vātsyāyana|Vatsyayana]], along with a medieval and a modern commentary.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993}} Unlike the 1883 version, Daniélou'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, one by Jayamangala, and a more modern commentary by Devadatta Shastri, as [[endnote]]s.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993}} Doniger questions the accuracy of Daniélou's translation, stating that he has freely reinterpreted the ''Kamasutra'' while disregarding the gender that is implicit in the Sanskrit words. He, at times, reverses the object and subject, making the woman the subject and man the object when the ''Kamasutra'' is explicitly stating the reverse. According to Doniger,  "even this cryptic text [''Kamasutra''] is not infinitely elastic" and such creative reinterpretations do not reflect the text.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xxxvi-xxxvii with footnotes}}

A 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''.<ref>Sinha, p. 33.</ref>

Doniger and Sudhir Kakar published another translation in 2002, as a part of the Oxford World's Classics series.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002}} Along with the translation, Doniger has published numerous articles and book chapters relating to the ''Kamasutra''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=On the Kamasutra|author=Wendy Doniger| journal= Daedalus| volume= 131| number=2|year= 2002|publisher=The MIT Press|pages=   126–129|jstor=20027767}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|editor=Ariel Glucklich|title=The Sense of Adharma|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d6bsOfvySvMC&pg=PA169|year=1994|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-802448-4|pages=169–174|access-date=3 December 2018|archive-date=25 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125030006/https://books.google.com/books?id=d6bsOfvySvMC&pg=PA169|url-status=live}}</ref> The Doniger translation and ''Kamasutra''-related literature has both been praised and criticized. According to David Shulman, the Doniger translation "will change peoples' understanding of this book and of ancient India. Previous translations are hopelessly outdated, inadequate and misguided".<ref name=nytimes2002kamasutra>{{cite news|author= Dinitia Smith|title= A New Kama Sutra Without Victorian Veils|newspaper= The New York Times|date= May 4, 2002|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/books/a-new-kama-sutra-without-victorian-veils.html|access-date= 3 December 2018|archive-date= 3 December 2018|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181203202659/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/books/a-new-kama-sutra-without-victorian-veils.html|url-status= live}}</ref> Narasingha Sil calls the Doniger's work as "another signature work of translation and exegesis of the much misunderstood and abused Hindu erotology". Her translation has the folksy, "twinkle prose", engaging style, and an original translation of the Sanskrit text. However, adds Sil, Doniger's work mixes her postmodern translation and interpretation of the text with her own "political and polemical" views. She makes sweeping generalizations and flippant insertions that are supported by neither the original text nor the weight of evidence in other related ancient and later Indian literature such as from the Bengal Renaissance movement – one of the scholarly specialty of Narasingha Sil. Doniger's presentation style titillates, yet some details misinform and parts of her interpretations are dubious, states Sil.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Narasingha P. Sil|title= Book Review: Wendy Doniger, Redeeming the Kamasutra|journal=American Journal of Indic Studies|volume=1|number=1|year=2018|pages=61–66 with footnotes|doi=10.12794/journals.ind.vol1iss1pp61-66|doi-access=free}}</ref>

==Analysis==
Indira Kapoor, a director of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation, states that the ''Kamasutra'' is a treatise on human sexual behavior and an ancient attempt to seriously study sexuality among other things. According to Kapoor, quotes [[Jyoti Puri]], the attitude of contemporary Indians is markedly different, with misconceptions and expressions of embarrassment, rather than curiosity and pride, when faced with texts such as ''Kamasutra'' and amorous and erotic arts found in Hindu temples.{{sfn|Jyoti Puri|2002|p=605}} ''Kamasutra'', states Kapoor, must be viewed as a means to discover and improve the "self-confidence and understanding of their bodies and feelings".{{sfn|Jyoti Puri|2002|p=605}}

The ''Kamasutra'' has been a popular reference to erotic ancient literature. In the Western media, such as in the American women's magazine ''[[Redbook]]'', the Kamasutra is described as "Although it was written centuries ago, there's still no better sex handbook, which details hundreds of positions, each offering a subtle variation in pleasure to men and women."<ref>{{cite journal| author=Lamar Graham|year=1995| title= A Love Map to His Body|journal = Redbook|issue=May|page=88}}</ref>

Jyoti Puri, who published a review and feminist critique of the text, stated that the "''Kamasutra'' is frequently appropriated as indisputable evidence of a non-Western and tolerant, indeed celebratory, view of sexuality" and for "the belief that the ''Kamasutra'' provides a transparent glimpse into the positive, even exalted, view of sexuality".{{sfn|Jyoti Puri|2002|pp=604, 606–608}} However, according to Puri, this is a colonial and anticolonial modernist interpretation of the text. These narratives neither resonate with nor provide the "politics of gender, race, nationality and class" that may have been prevalent in ancient India as published by other historians .{{sfn|Jyoti Puri|2002|pp=633-634}}

According to Doniger, the ''Kama Sutra'' is a "great cultural masterpiece", one which can inspire contemporary Indians to overcome "self-doubts and rejoice" in their ancient heritage.<ref>{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Redeeming the Kamasutra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-049928-0|page=16|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=21 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221104600/https://books.google.com/books?id=TrVjDQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
List of feature films based on the ''Kamasutra'': 
* ''[[Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love]]''
* ''[[Kamasutra 3D]]''
* ''[[Tales of The Kama Sutra: The Perfumed Garden]]''
* ''[[Tales of The Kama Sutra 2: Monsoon]]''

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
File:KamaSutra24.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra03.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra11.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra26 b.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:Painting - B2.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, late 18th century
File:Painting - B3.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, late 18th century
File:Painting - B4.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, late 18th century
File:Painting - B1.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, late 18th century
File:KamaSutra18.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra22.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra16.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra25.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra04.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra14.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra44.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra33.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra55.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra26.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra32.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra20.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra27.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra54.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra36.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra46.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra45.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra02.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra07.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra37.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra21.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra51.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra31.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra53.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra15.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra10.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra49.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra41.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra34.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra30.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra48.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra13.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra28.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra35.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra09.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra23.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra12.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra47.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra39.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra40.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra05.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra42.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra08.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra06.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra52.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra29.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra43.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:KamaSutra50 (cropped).jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:Kamasutra5.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:Kamasutra1.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, circa 19th Century
File:Indiaerotic1.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration, 1790
File:KamaSutra19.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' Illustration
File:Kamas1.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' lesbian
File:Two women embracing and using carrots as dildoes. Gouache Wellcome L0033073.jpg|Two women embracing and using carrots as [[Dildo|dildoes]]
File:Karma Sutra, Kuchaman Fort.jpg|''Kama Sutra'' illustration
</gallery>

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[History of sex in India]]
* ''[[Allen Edwardes|The Jewel in The Lotus]]''
* [[Kamashastra]]
* [[Khajuraho Group of Monuments]]
* ''[[Lazzat Un Nisa]]''
* [[List of Indian inventions and discoveries]]
* [[Mlecchita vikalpa]]
* [[Philaenis]]
* ''[[The Perfumed Garden]]''
* [[Song of Songs]]
* ''[[Fanny Hill]]''

{{div col end}}

== Notes ==
{{reflist|group=note}}

== Citations ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== General bibliography ==
* {{Cite book |last=Apte |first=Vaman Shivram |title=The Practical Sanskrit Dictionary |year=1965 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publishers |location=Delhi |isbn=81-208-0567-4 |edition=fourth revised & enlarged}}
* {{Cite book |last=Avari |first=Burjor |title=India: The Ancient Past|year=2007 |publisher=Routledge|location=London |isbn= 978-0-415-35616-9}}
* {{Cite book | author-link=Alain Daniélou | last=Daniélou | first=Alain | title=The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text | publisher=[[Inner Traditions]] | year=1993 | isbn=0-89281-525-6 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/completekamasutr00alai }}
* {{Cite book | author-link=Wendy Doniger | author1=Wendy Doniger | author2=Sudhir Kakar | title=Kamasutra | series=Oxford World's Classics | publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | year=2002 | isbn=0-19-283982-9 | url=https://archive.org/details/kamasutra00vats }}
*{{cite book|title=Kama Sutra|first1=A.N.D|last1= Haksar|first2= Malika| last2= Favre|isbn=978-1-101-65107-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o7BDmY8vzWIC| year=2011| publisher=Penguin }}
* {{Cite book |last=Flood |first=Gavin |title=An Introduction to Hinduism |year=1996 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge |isbn=0-521-43878-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontohi0000floo }}
* {{Cite book |editor1-last=Flood |editor1-first=Gavin |title=The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism|year=2003 |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] Ltd|location=Malden, MA |isbn=1-4051-3251-5}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hopkins |first=Thomas J. |title=The Hindu Religious Tradition|year=1971 |publisher=Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc |location=Cambridge}}
* {{Cite book |last=Keay |first=John|author-link=John Keay |title=India: A History |year=2000 |publisher=[[Grove Press]] |location=New York |isbn=0-8021-3797-0}}
* {{Cite book |last=McConnachie |first=James|title= The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra |year=2007 |publisher=[[Atlantic Books]] |location=London |isbn=978-1-84354-373-2}}
*{{cite journal|title = Concerning "Kamasutras": Challenging Narratives of History and Sexuality |author= Jyoti Puri| volume= 27|number= 3| journal= Signs| publisher=University of Chicago Press| year= 2002| jstor= 3175887}}
* {{Cite book |last=Sinha |first=Indra|author-link= Indra Sinha |title=The Cybergypsies |year=1999 |publisher=Viking |location=New York |isbn=0-600-34158-5}}

== External links ==
{{Sister project links}}
'''Original and translations'''
* [http://www.indohistory.com/kamasutra.html Sir Richard Burton's English translation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120919095241/http://www.indohistory.com/kamasutra.html |date=19 September 2012 }} on Indohistory.com
* {{librivox book | title=The Kama Sutra | author=Mallanaga Vatsyayana}}
* [http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/ind/aind/klskt/kamasutr/kamas.htm The Kama Sutra in the original Sanskrit] provided by the [[TITUS (project)|TITUS project]]
* {{Gutenberg|no=27827|name=Kama Sutra}}

{{Sex}}
{{Sex manuals}}
{{Hindudharma}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Sutras (Hinduism)]]
[[Category:Hinduism and sexuality]]
[[Category:Kamashastra]]
[[Category:Sanskrit literature]]
[[Category:Sex manuals]]
[[Category:Indian literature]]
[[Category:Sexuality in India]]
[[Category:Indian manuscripts]]
[[Category:Ancient Indian literature]]