THE KAMA SUTRA
The kama sutra is the all-time classic guide to the art and skills of sex and love. Written between the fourth century BCE and the first century CE by a Hindu philosopher, Mallanaga Vatsyayana, the work was not translated into English until the 1880s, and then it was only distributed to a limited circle of enthusiasts, for fear of prosecution.
The kama sutra has now become a byword for extraordinary sexual positions, but Vatsyayana’s treatise is far more than a simple sex manual. He offers us a thorough exploration of the “science of pleasure” as it was understood in the culture and society of his time for, as he tells us, pleasures are “as necessary for the existence and well-being of the body as food.”
The art of love
The kama sutra offers a holistic approach to the pleasurable life, from courtship and wooing to education and marriage. A disciplined life of enjoyment requires a cultivated body and mind, and Vatsyayana recommends the intellectual and artistic interests—the 64 arts—that the well-rounded person of his day was expected to know.
He also teaches that lovemaking encompasses the spirit as well as the body and mind, that it touches something deeper than earthly pleasure, and should be treated as a sacramental and spiritual act.
Of course, not everything Vatsyayana wrote translates appropriately to our society today. Some of it seems sexist and even brutal to our modern-day sensibilities. It addresses only heterosexual, cisgender couples and does not acknowledge the possibility of other sexualities or genders. But the heart of the kama sutra, the art of living a life of pleasure and sensuality, and the essential human attributes it explores—love, desire, vulnerability, intimacy—speaks as forcefully to us now as it did in fourth-century India. The power and beauty of heartfelt lovemaking can transcend all limitations of time and culture.
BODY, MIND, AND SOUL
"KAMA IS ENJOYMENT BY THE FIVE SENSES OF HEARING, FEELING, SEEING, TASTING, SMELLING, ASSISTED BY THE MIND TOGETHER WITH THE SOUL."
