Kamasutra (Oxford World's Classics)

The Kamasutra is the oldest extant textbook of erotic love. But it is more than a book about sex. 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, of course, about the many and varied positions available to lovers in sexual intercourse and the pleasures to be derived from each.
The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century, probably in North India. It combines an encyclopedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual psychology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction, consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation by Sir Richard Burton, the text is newly translated here into clear, vivid, sexually frank English. This edition also includes a section of vivid Indian color illustrations along with three uniquely important commentaries: translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (thirteenth century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators.
The lively and entertaining introduction by translator Wendy Doniger, one of the world's foremost Sanskrit scholars, discusses the history of The Kamasutra 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.
"[This] new translation is fascinating, thought-provoking and occasionally even amusing."--Salon.com

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Customer Reviews:

bi-gender text that offers pragmatism

By A Customer - January 27, 2003

this book is excellent. most think the kamasutra is a sex manual. o.k., so it can be used as one - but if taken at face value, could create some pulled muscles and ligamentus issues...this translation of the kamasutra has more "meat" to it than the burton translation a 100 years ago. also..it is more accurate.furthermore, it is easy to understand. this book is about how to live life and how to approach human relations in a rational way. sometimes that is sex. sometimes it is marriage. sometimes it is just group interactions.if you apply to proper context to this book (whatever is important to you, basically), the book is a great way to introspect and understand your own life using a 400 AD context.

Kamasutra is not a pornographic work

By Christopher Sawi - March 17, 2013

Paperback, handy, and light weight. The price was cheap. The translation was very good, yet some parts were not clear to me. It's worth reading the book, and read it again - for further understanding.

The book is not the one translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton, but of Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar. What made me bought this book is that, it allows me to read the contents of this Hindu text with no pictures - yes, no illustrations, only the treatise and commentaries, as this is my primary requirement before.

The treatise has a very good flow of sentences. It is justifiable that this book is not a pornographic work, but a very good literature, a classic to be read - ars erotica and scientia sexualis.

Nothing good happens to a man who does nothing. - Vatsyayana

Not for People Who Need Illustrations

By fae - May 31, 2012

I am happy with the book. However, my husband's interest in the book completely deflated when he saw that it did not contain any illustrations. I guess I will need to read it and draw him pictures.