Kama Sutra

The Kama Sutra (/ˈkɑːmə ˈsuːtrə/; Sanskrit: कामसूत्र, pronunciation^ⓘ, Kāma-sūtra; lit. 'Principles of Love') is an ancient Indian Hindu Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment. Attributed to Vātsyāyana, the Kamasutra is neither exclusively nor predominantly a sex manual on sex positions, 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. It is a sutra-genre text with terse aphoristic verses that have survived into the modern era with different bhāṣyas (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. 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.

The text is one of many Indian texts on Kama Shastra. 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 in Madhya Pradesh is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Among the surviving temples, one in Rajasthan has all the major chapters and sexual positions sculpted to illustrate the Kamasutra.

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 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.

The original composition date or century for the Kamasutra is unknown. Historians have variously placed it between 400 BCE and 300 CE. According to John Keay, the Kama Sutra is a compendium that was collected into its present form in the 2nd century CE. 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. 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. 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".

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). Vatsyayana Mallanaga is its widely accepted author because his name is embedded in the colophon verse, but little is known about him. Vatsyayana states that he wrote the text after much meditation. In the preface, Vatsyayana acknowledges that he is distilling many ancient texts, but these have not survived. 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.

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. 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.

The Hindu tradition has the concept of the Purusharthas which outlines "four main goals of life". It holds that every human being has four proper goals that are necessary and sufficient for a fulfilling and happy life: