The classic textbook on erotics, the "Kama Sutra," was written or compiled around the 5th century and is attributed to a sage, Vatsyayana, about whom little else is known. This Hindu treatise, written in Sanskrit, is usually classed among those didactic manuals known as shastra, of which there are many. These teach the proper execution and interpretation of whatever their subject is.
In doing just that, the "Kama Sutra" has become the most famous book on sex ever written. Here Kama, the Hindu "god of love," the Vedic personification of cosmic desire, appears in most of his various forms, and directs the student to a proper understanding.
The text is thus a universal allegory and, at the same time, a kind of recipe book, one that advises on postures, on techniques, on distinguishing all of the 64 sexual positions, and -- oddly to the Western eye -- on propriety. It becomes not only a celebration of ecstatic union, but at the same time a do-it-yourself manual, which is to sex as Emily Post was to etiquette and Martha Stewart to housekeeping.
The sexual possibilities are classified and enlarged upon. For example: "All the areas that can be kissed, can be bitten, except the upper lip, the interior of the mouth, and the eyes." The bites are then categorized: the hidden bite, the swollen bite, etc. They are at the same time given their poetic descriptions, "the coral and the jewel," "the biting of the boar." On and on, the ranks and classes of biting are carefully and uniformly laid out.
In the same manner, all the other forms affection can take are listed, examined and named. If a man and woman lean against a wall while engaged standing up, this is called "a supported congress." When he leans against the wall and the woman throws her arms and thighs around him, this is described as "a suspended congress."
Illustrative anecdotes are also supplied, as when a certain king, carried away by love for his wife, fatally injured her by application of a particularly ardent scissor-like grip. At the same time, the range of activity is much wider than one might expect from a manual with such moral intentions.
Same-sex love is not particularly encouraged, but at the same time, it is not prohibited. Rather, Vatsyayana says that "in everything connected with love, a person should act according to custom and inclination." This results in a whole chapter devoted to the seducing of the wives of others.
What the "Kama Sutra" does frown upon is congress with women of a higher social level. This is prohibited, though such intimacy with women of a lower standing is accepted. (And typically, in this often astonishingly impartial series of moral lessons, fornication with prostitutes and women previously enjoyed by others "for carnal pleasure only" is "neither recommended nor prohibited.")
Reading between these succulent lines, one sees that this treatise is really upholding a complicated caste/class system, and is as concerned with power as any other religious tract. And its major tool is religion, as hinted above. Some women may be "enjoyed" for carnal pleasure only. This presumes other women who are enjoyed for other purposes. Here the Hindu meets the Tantric and the ecstatic union that valorizes fornication in this system is not far away.
If all of this seems recondite to the common reader, the present edition of the "Kama Sutra" can be particularly recommended. The text used is based on the original Richard Burton and F.F. Arbuthnot 1883 translation, and there is an interesting introduction that explores the alternative shastra that led to the belated discovery of this one.
And for those to whom a picture is worth a thousand words, there are the illustrations. These, culled from the finest collections, beautifully rendered, splendidly printed, bring the "Kama Sutra" to life in a manner it has never before been.
All of this is the work of Lance Dane, a writer, photographer, scholar and founder of the Sanskriti Museum of Everyday Art in Delhi. He has dedicated over five decades to researching and archiving all aspects of the "Kama Sutra" and other pre-Vedic and Vedic classical erotica.
Among his many publications is a 2001 illustrated "Kama Sutra," a superb, enormous, large format book, which has now become a collector's volume. The 2003 publication here under review has more pictures, however, and is of a size that will fit on one's library shelves.
Which is where this fine book belongs, ready for reference -- or else, open for reading, on the desk, or even by the bedside table.
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