Kamasutra

by Vatsyayana, Mallanaga; Doniger, Wendy; Kakar, Sudhir

• ISBN13: 9780192802705
• ISBN10: 0192802704
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-06-06
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Kamasutra is the oldest extant Hindu textbook of erotic love. It is about the art of living - about finding a partner, maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs - and also about the positions in sexual intercourse. It was composed inSanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century of the common era, probably in North India. It combines an encyclopedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual pyschology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction,consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation of Sir Richard Burton, the text is presented here in an entirely new translation into clear, vivid, sexually frank English, together with three commentaries:translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (13th century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators.The lively and entertaining introduction by Wendy Doniger discusses the history of the text and its reception in India and Europe, analyses its attitudes toward gender and sexual violence, and sets it in the context of ancient Indian social theory, scientific method, and sexual ethics.

Author Biography

Wendy Doniger is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago. She is the author of The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade and Siva, The Erotic Ascetic. Sudhir Kakar is Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. He is the author of Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
The Text	xi
The Text and its Author(s)	xi
The Genre of the Kamasutra	xv
The Science and Magic of Numbers	xxi
The Kamasutra as a Play in Seven Acts	xxv
The Genders of the Kamasutra	xxviii
Psychology and Culture in the Kamasutra	xxxix
The Commentaries	xlv
Yashodhara's Jayamangala	xlvi
Devadatta Shastri's Jaya	xlix
Translations into European Languages	l
Burton et al.	l
Other Translations	lix
The Present Translation	lx
Sexually Explicit Vocabulary	lxiii
Contemporary Pleasures of the Text	lxiv
A Note on Presentation	lxix
KAMASUTRA with excerpts from Yashodhara's commentary, the Jayamangala
BOOK ONE GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
Summary of the Text [1]	3	(4)
The Means of Achieving the Three Aims of Human Life [2]	7	(6)
Exposition of the Arts [3]	13	(4)
The Lifestyle of the Man-about-town [4]	17	(5)
Reasons for Taking Another Man's Wife	22	(6)
The Work of the Man's Male Helpers and Messengers [5]	27	(1)
BOOK TWO SEX
Sexual Typology According to Size, Endurance, and Temperament [6]	28	(11)
Types of Love [7]	37	(2)
Ways of Embracing [8]	39	(3)
Procedures of Kissing [9]	42	(3)
Types of Scratching with the Nails [10]	45	(3)
Ways of Biting [11]	48	(3)
Customs from Different Regions [12]	49	(2)
Varieties of Sexual Positions [13]	51	(5)
Unusual Sexual Acts [14]	55	(1)
Modes of Slapping [15]	56	(4)
The Accompanying Moaning [16]	56	(4)
The Woman Playing the Man's Part [17]	60	(5)
A Man's Sexual Strokes [18]	61	(4)
Oral Sex [19]	65	(5)
The Start and Finish of Sex [20]	70	(5)
Different Kinds of Sex [21]	71	(2)
Lovers' Quarrels [22]	73	(2)
BOOK THREE VIRGINS
Courting the Girl [23]	75	(3)
Making Alliances [24]	77	(1)
Winning a Virgin's Trust [25]	78	(4)
Making Advances to a Young Girl [26]	82	(4)
Interpreting her Gestures and Signals [27]	85	(1)
The Advances that a Man Makes on his Own [28]	86	(4)
The Advances that a Virgin Makes to the Man She Wants [29]	88	(1)
The Advances that Win a Virgin [30]	89	(1)
Devious Devices for Weddings [31]	90	(4)
BOOK FOUR WIVES
The Life of an Only Wife [32]	94	(4)
Her Behaviour during his Absence [33]	97	(1)
The Senior Wife [34)	98	(6)
The Junior Wife [35)	99	(1)
The Second-hand Woman [36]	100	(1)
The Wife Unlucky in Love [37]	101	(1)
Women of the Harem [38]	102	(1)
A Man's Management of Many Women	103	(1)
BOOK FIVE OTHER MEN'S WIVES
On the Characteristic Natures of Women and Men [39]	104	(6)
Causes of Resistance [40]	105	(2)
Men who are Successful with Women [41]	107	(1)
Women who can be Won without Effort [42]	108	(2)
Ways of Becoming Intimate [43]	110	(3)
Making Advances [44]	111	(2)
Testing her Feelings [45]	113	(2)
The Duties of a Female Messenger [46]	115	(7)
The Sex Life of a Man in Power [47]	122	(3)
The Life of the Women of the Harem [48]	125	(6)
The Guarding of Wives [49]	129	(2)
BOOK SIX COURTESANS
Deciding on a Friend, an Eligible Lover, and an Ineligible Lover [50]	131	(6)
Getting a Lover [51]	135	(2)
Giving the Beloved what He Wants [52]	137	(5)
Ways to Get Money from Him [53]	142	(5)
Signs that his Passion is Cooling [54]	145	(1)
Ways to Get Rid of Him [55]	145	(2)
Getting Back Together with an Ex-lover [56]	147	(4)
Weighing Different Kinds of Profits [57]	151	(4)
Calculating Gains and Losses, Consequences, and Doubts [58]	155	(6)
Types of Courtesans	159	(2)
BOOK SEVEN EROTIC ESOTERICA
Making Luck in Love [59]	161	(5)
Putting Someone in your Power [60]	163	(1)
Stimulants for Virility [61]	164	(2)
Rekindling Exhausted Passion [62]	166	(7)
Methods of Increasing the Size of the Male Organ [63]	169	(1)
Unusual Techniques [64]	169	(4)
Appendix: Excerpts from Devadatta Shastri's Commentary	173	(8)
Explanatory Notes	181	(31)
Bibliography	212	(7)
Glossary and Index	219