Vātsyāyana

Sir Richard F. Burton's translation of The Kama Sutra remains one of the best English interpretations of this early Indian treatise on politics, social customs, love, and intimacy. Its crisp style set a new standard for Sanskrit translation. The Kama Sutra stands uniquely as a work of psychology, sociology, Hindu dogma, and sexology. It has been a celebrated classic of Indian literature for 1,700 years and a window for the West into the culture and mysticism of the East. This Modern Library Paperback Classic reprints the authoritative text of Sir Richard F. Burton's 1883 translation. '[The Kama Sutra is] tender, sage, and domestic.' -Fawn M. Brodie

The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana

Mallanaga Vatsyayana

The Kamasutra is the oldest extant Hindu textbook of erotic love. About the art of living as well as about the positions in sexual intercourse, it is here newly translated into clear, vivid, sexually frank English together with three commentaries: excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (13th century), a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the translators. The edition is enhanced by a selection of colour plates from an early edition of the work.

A New, Complete English Translation of the Sanskrit Text : with Excerpts from the Sanskrit Jayamangala Commentary of Yashodhara Indrapada, the Hindi Jaya Commentary of Devadatta Shastri, and Explanatory Notes by the Translators

Kamasutra

Georges Pichard

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.

The Illustrated Kama Sutra

Sir Richard Francis Burton

The 1964 publication of Sir Richard Burton's translation of the Kama Sutra was celebrated as a literary event of the highest importance. As vital to an understanding of ancient Indian civilisation as the works of Plato and Aristotle are to the West, the Kama Sutra has endured for 1,700 years as an indisputable classic of world literature. Written with frankness and unassuming candour, the Kama Sutra remains one of the most readable of all the classics of antiquity. A work of philosophy, psychology, sociology, Hindu dogma, scientific inquiry and sexology, it is an indispensable key to understanding Indian culture.

The Classic Hindu Treatise on Love and Social Conduct

Kama Sutra

The Kama Sutra (Aphorisms on Love) was written in India some time between 1-5 AD. Its author is said to have been Mallanga Vatsyayana, who compiled the Kama Sutra while he was a religious student, studying the sacred books of Hinduism. In his day Kama, which is love and other pleasures of the senses, was considered to have its own share in the divine scheme of things: in sexual union, a man and woman re-enacted the creation of the cosmos. In this volume the extracts from the Kama Sutra give the modern reader an idea of the book's scope, while the beautiful illustrations reflect the ethos of the Kama Sutra, which is of a highly civilized society which took its pleasures very seriously.

The Art of the Kama Sutra

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 in Sanskrit, 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 witha 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.

Kamasutra : a new, complete English translation of the Sanskrit text ; with excerpts from the Sanskrit Jayamangala commentary of Yashodhara Indrapada, the Hindi Jaya commentary of Devadatta Shastri, and explanatory notes by the translators

The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text written by Vātsyāyana. It is widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behaviour. "Kāma" means desire, and "sūtra" literally means a thread or line that holds things together.

Vātsyāyana

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