Kamasutra

The modern translated version of the original Sanskrit Kamasutram, generally known to the Western world as Kama Sutra, is an ancient Indian text on human sexual behavior, widely considered to be the standard work on love in Sanskrit literature. This text was composed by Vatsyayana, as a brief summary of various earlier works belonging to a tradition known generically as Kama Shastra. Kama is literally means desire. Sutra signifies a thread, or discourse threaded on a series of aphorisms and sutra was a standard term for a technical text, thus also the Yogasutram of Patanjali. This text is originally known as Vatsyayana Kamasutram ("Vatsyayana's Aphorisms on Love"). Tradition holds that the author was a celibate scholar and he is believed to have lived sometime between the 1st to 6th centuries C.E., probably during the great cultural flowering of the Gupta dynasty.

The earliest and the most comprehensive contributions to the Kama Shastra or "Discipline of Erotics" is traditionally attributed to Nandi, the sacred bull, Shiva's doorkeeper, who was moved to sacred utterance by overhearing the lovemaking of the god and his wife Parvati and later recorded his utterances for the benefit of the mankind. Yashodhara, in his commentary on the Kama Sutra, further attributes the origins of Kama Shastra to Mallanaga, the "prophet of the Asuras", meaning it originated in the prehistoric times. The attachment of the name "Mallanaga" to Vatsyayana, the author of the Kama Sutra, is due to the confusion of his role as editor of the Kama Sutra with that of the mythical creator of the erotic science.

During the 8th century BC, Shvetaketu, son of Uddalaka, is said to have produced a comprehensive summary of the Kama Shastra. However this "summary" was still too long to be accessible. Later, a scholar called Babhravya, together with a group of his disciples, produced a summary of Shvetaketu's summary and this remained a huge and encyclopaedic tome and between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, important contributions of Kama Shastra expounding on Babhravya group's work are attributed to great sages such as Charayana, Ghotakamukha, Gonardiya, Gonikaputra, Suvarnanabha, and Dattaka. Dattaka's work on courtesans is reproduced by Vatsyayana almost entirely in the Kama Sutra. Suvarnanabha's text mentions Shatakarni Shatavahana, a king of the 1st century BC who killed his own wife accidentally during his sadistic practices, thus giving a hint on the time period it was written.

Vatsyayana seems to have lived around the 4th century AD, and at a time of cultural prosperity known as the Gupta period. The fact that Varahamihira in his Brihad Samhita (literally "Grand Opus", composed around the 6th century AD) claims to have got his inspirations from the Kama Sutra and the Kama Sutra's mention of the King Shatakarni Satavahana who lived in the 1st century BC gives the ranges for the possible production time of the Kama Sutra.

Vatsyayana claims the various major works of Kama Shastra had become difficult to access, which is why he undertook to collect and summarize them in on single treatise as Kama Sutra.

Being an ancient work it holds great historical significance, but worldwide it is considered to be one of the standard books for increasing your love life to extreme levels.

"The Kama Sutra Book"

"Noted Sex Therapist Anne Hooper's interpretation of the Kama Sutra is well detailed in this book. Photographs of exceptionally attractive couples highlight the joys of sexual intimacy."