Redeeming the Kamasutra


Book Description

"In this scholarly and superbly readable book, one of the world's foremost authorities on ancient Indian texts seeks to restore the Kamasutra to its proper place in the Sanskrit canon, as a landmark of India's secular literature. In investigating, and helping us understand, a much celebrated but under-appreciated text, Wendy Doniger has produced a rich and compelling text of her own that will interest, delight, and surprise scholars and lay readers alike"--




The Book of Love


Book Description

An “enticing . . . elegant and stylish” biography of the ancient Hindu manuscript that became the world’s most famous sex manual (The New York Review of Books) The Kamasutra is one of the world’s best-known yet least understood texts, its title instantly familiar but its contents widely misconstrued as a how-to guide of acrobatic sexual techniques. Yet the book began its life in third-century India as something quite different: a vision of a life of urbane sophistication, with advice on matters from friendship to household decoration. Celebrated, then neglected, the Kamasutra was very nearly lost—until an outrageous adventurer brought it to the West, earning literary immortality. In lively, lucid prose, James McConnachie provides a rare look at the exquisite civilization that produced this cultural cornerstone. He details the quest of explorer Richard Burton, who—with his coterie of libertines—unleashed the Kamasutra on Victorian society as a slap at its prudishness. And he describes the Kamasutra’s exile to the pornographic underground, until the end of the Lady Chatterley obscenity ban thrust it once more into contentious daylight. The first work to tell the full story of the Kamasutra, The Book of Love explores how a way of looking at the world came to be cradled between book covers—and survived.




Foucault and the Kamasutra


Book Description

Gautam has here laid out the first serious reading of Michel Foucault in relation to key Sanskrit texts, and--what may be a surprise to many--he has written the first book-length work in English on the nature and origin of the Kamasutra. Gautam also takes up the Natyasastra (the Kamasutra's twin), locating in the first the themes of sexual-erotic pleasure, and locating in the second the classical Indian view of theater, music, dance, and aesthetic pleasure. The book shows how closely intertwined the history of erotics in ancient Indian culture is with the history of theater-aesthetics. Foucault provides a framework for opening up the intellectual horizon of Indian thought; it is his distinction between ars erotics (erotic arts) and scientia sexualis (science of sexuality) that fuels Gautam's exploration of the courtesan as symbol of both erotic and aesthetic pleasure, particularly in her role as a wife to her patron, which entails the morphing of erotics into a form of theater. The scope broadens ambitiously, to an inquiry on the nature of knowledge formation, erotics, theater, and gender relations in premodern Indian society and culture--as they converged on the historical figures of the courtesan and her male counterpart, the dandy. Gautam's twining of aims and subjects--Foucault's western philosophy of pleasure and India's classic text on eros (anchored in art and aesthetics)--transforms both the modern and the ancient texts with new understandings, and as new forms of investigating erotics and subjectivity itself.




The Kama Sutra


Book Description

The erotic sentiments described in the Hindu love classic the Kama Sutra constitute the most famous work on sex ever created. Written almost 2,000 years ago, the Kama Sutra deals with all aspects of sexual life, including the principles and techniques of sexual pleasure and how to best achieve ecstatic expression of life's beauty.




The Kama Sutra


Book Description

This is the only truly authentic translation of Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra from the ancient Sanskrit. This new edition is beautifully produced and illustrated with photos of the famous Indian sculptures from Sacred Temple at Khajuraho, as well as colorful paintings which depict the delightful aspects of courtship and love. Illustrations.




Kama Sutra


Book Description

RE-IGNITE THE SPARK IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ANCIENT KAMA SUTRA! Read about how you and your long time love can put the fire back in your relationship by following the tenets of Kama Sutra, the ancient East's "Treatise on Pleasure." Have you noticed that the fire of passion between you and your partner isn't what it once was? Find out how all that can change when you turn to the Kama Sutra to re-ignite the spark! The ancient text, Kama Sutra, is known is the West as a sex manual. But the truth about Kama Sutra is much richer. The Sanskrit title translates in English as "The Treatise on Pleasure." The pleasure referred to goes beyond the sexual, encompassing all of human life. The compilation of Vedic teachings and advice represented by the Kama Sutra amounts to a guide to getting the most out of life by being fully present to all it offers us - including sex. In this book, you'll discover: Detailed advice about re-igniting the flame in your partnership or marriage by re-connecting with yourself and the universe you're part of (and with your love). What the Kama Sutra is really all about (besides sexuality) That everything is sacred and has a cosmic purpose. The story of the original cosmic lovers, Parvati and Shiva and how their love led to the conquest of evil. Simple exercises to help you get the most from your sexual encounters with your lover How to re-align your consciousness by seeing your lover with new eyes How to live a life filled with wonder and adventure, where all is new and fresh. Your love has a purpose - to keep alight the flame of love which enlivens the universe. By re-igniting the flame of passion in your own relationship, you and your lover become partners in the cosmic work of growing the love that illuminates all life. Together, you become one with the reason at the heart of the cosmos and the love that binds all together. Re-kindle the flame with ancient Kama Sutra and know the fullness and joy of living. Download your copy today!




Kama Sutra Expert


Book Description

"Previously published in the United States as Kama Sutra Step by Step, 2009"--P. 240.




The Kama Sutra


Book Description

One of the best English translations of this ancient Indian treatise on politics, social mores, love, and intimacy are the Kama Sutra, which Mallanaga Vatsyayana wrote in the second century CE. Its clean presentation raised the bar for Sanskrit translation. The Kama Sutra is a unique combination of sexology, society, psychology. It has been hailed as a great work of Indian literature for more than 1,700 years and has served as a window for the West into the mysticism and culture of the East. The Kama Sutra, a prehistoric Indian literature, is regarded as the most important Sanskrit study of human sexuality. The Kama Sutra remains one of the most accessible and entertaining of all the ancient classics, having been written with frankness and unassuming simplicity. The Kama Sutra is so significant as a work of philosophy, psychology, sociology, theology, science, and sexology that it simultaneously had an impact on Indian civilization and remained a crucial component in understanding it.




The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana


Book Description

The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature written by Vātsyāyana. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse. It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses. "Kāma" which is one of the four goals of Hindu life, means desire including sexual desire the latter being the subject of the textbook, and "sūtra" literally means a thread or line that holds things together, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Contrary to popular perception, especially in the western world, the Kama Sutra is not exclusively a sex manual; it presents itself as a guide to a virtuous and gracious living that discusses the nature of love, family life, and other aspects pertaining to pleasure-oriented faculties of human life. The Kama Sutra does reveal that Vatsyayana lived the life of a religious student, likely in Benares, and spent his time engaged in the contemplation of the highest Deity. Scholars believe that the tone Vatsyayana takes towards youth in the Kama Sutra suggests that he likely spent many years studying religion before beginning his life's work compiling the wisdom of the sages. Indeed, Vatsyayana was less of a groundbreaking philosopher and apparently more of a diligent academician. Besides transcribing the Kama Sutra more than 300 years after the Shastras had already been passed down, he also transcribed the Nyaya Sutras, an ancient Indian text of philosophy that was composed by the buddha Gotama in the 2nd century B.C. Whereas the Kama Sutra tackles kama (or sensual pleasures), the Nyaya Sutra delineates paths for achieving moksha, or spiritual liberation from the cycle of birth and death.




Kama Sutra


Book Description

Based on the Ancient Indian Sex Manual, Here is Advice to Steam Up Any Bedroom and Spark Life into Any Romance—from Oral Sex to Sitting and Standing Positions to More Adventurous Positions like “The Propeller” and “The Rowing Boat” Sadie Cayman has taken the ancient Kama Sutra and given it a modern self-help feel. Designed to educate you as a lover and advance your lovemaking techniques beyond the basic and boring, this book is designed to make fantasies come true. Here are ways to bring passion to your bedroom (or any room with a chair or table). Positions are ranked for passion, drama, romance, exertion, convenience, and more. Experience: The Bent Kiss The Cap of Luxury The Flowing Triangle Nirvana Supernova The Curled Angel And, to spice things up, Cayman offers quotes and advice about romances and sex from Ingrid Bergman, the Marquis de Sade, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Deepak Chopra, and more. Tastefully illustrated in full color, and playfully written, this new handbook will bring your love life new excitement and challenges. You can offer your new lover or your long-term partner the most passionate, creative, and enthusiastic lovemaking he or she has ever had. You won’t have to fantasize any longer about what it’s like for a lover to thank you after sex. You’ll find out.