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Kama Sutra

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Description

The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian text on sex, widely considered the standard work on love in the Sanskrit literature. The text was written by Vatsyayana. The full title of the text is vâtsyâyana kâma sûtra ("Aphorisms on Love, by Vatsyayana"). The author is believed to have lived sometime between the 1st to 6th centuries A.D, probably during the Gupta period. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KamaSutra [Oct 2004]

Versions

1. The Illustrated Kama Sutra - Georges Pichard [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]
   The great French erotic artist Georges Pichard beautifully (and quite unabashedly!) illustrates the famous Indian classic on the art of making love. Both volumes include over 86 illustrations embellishing the text. --Book Description
   This book actually deserves zero stars. illustrations have nothing to do with the text -- they're all bondage, S&M, and other highly disturbing stuff. If you're really interested in the Kama Sutra, get the new unabridged translation, not this garbage. -- a US reader for amazon

2. The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text [UNABRIDGED] by Alain Danielou (Translator), Mallanaga Vatsyayana [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]
   The galaxy of pleasures in Alain Daniélou's translation of the Kama Sutra takes you back to an India where sexuality was an integral part of life and an avenue to spiritual bliss. As Devadatta Shastri says in his commentary: "At the moment when the peak of bliss is attained, the internal and external world vanish. The man and woman cease to be separate entities and lose themselves in the beatitudes of being." Daniélou's elegant rendering includes not only the entire sutra, much of which is excluded in other versions, but two essential commentaries as well. More than just a pillow book, the Kama Sutra is a guide to the labyrinth of sexual etiquette, from how to bathe before meeting a lover to how lovers should entertain each other after making love. Admittedly, the text is dated and culture bound in places; it can be chauvinistic, bizarre, and even violent. The commentators are careful to point out, however, that the work is an overview of all sexual practices, some of which are not recommended. Take from this encyclopedia of amour what you will and let it keep you moving down the path of spiritual practice. --Brian Bruya

   From Library Journal
   Long dismissed as a sort of Sanskrit Joy of Sex , the Kama Sutra , composed by Vatsyayana in the fourth century B.C., explores sexuality as an integral part of human existence. Arguing that happiness and moral duty ( dharma ) depend on elaborate social ritual to satisfy the essential needs of life, the Kama Sutra describes the practices, rituals, and lore of the erotic ( kama ) in human relations, both heterosexual and homosexual. Noted Indiologist Danielou provides a fluent and literal... read more --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

   Book Description
   This definitive volume is the first modern translation of Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra to include two essential commentaries: the Jayamangala of Yashodhara and the modern Hindi commentary by Devadatta Shastri. Alain Danilou spent four years comparing versions of the Kama Sutra in Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, and English, drawing on his intimate experience of India, to preserve the full explicitness of the original. I wanted to demystify India, he writes, to show that a period of great civilization, of high culture, is forcibly a period of great liberty. --via amazon.com

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