The Kama Sutra is an Indian text, written in Sanskrit, which provides a prescriptive set of instructions elevating the pursuit of pleasure to an art. Hindus of the fourth century, when the Kama Sutra was composed, believed that a properly fulfilling life required balanced attention to three areas: religious piety or duty (dharma), material provisions or success (artha), and sensual pleasure (kama). Complementing other Hindu texts that provided instruction in the first two areas, the Kama Sutra, or “pleasure treatise,” advised readers on how to maximize their enjoyment of the sensual pleasures of life, in everything from home furnishing to interpersonal relationships.

The original author of the Kama Sutra was Vatsyayana Mallanga, about whom nothing is known outside of what the text reveals.He appears to have been a Brahman, a member of the priest caste, who resided in the city of Pataliputra in southern India during the Gupta era when Indian arts, culture, and literature were flourishing. In his text, Vatsyayana claims he compiled the Kama Sutra for two main reasons: first to ensure the survival of works on the subject, and second to cater to the needs of circles of educated and refined connoisseurs who would appreciate good poetry. He also claims that he wrote the work “in chastity and highest meditation,”which may mean that ancient Hindus cultivated the pursuit of pleasure as sincerely as they practiced religious devotion. The number of serious passages in the text suggests that, unlike OVID’s Art of Love (ca. 1 B.C.), Vatsyayana expected readers to put weight on his advice and regard the pursuit of love and pleasure as an important aspect of human life. Being born into the priestly caste, Vatsyayana would have received a brahminical education, which included knowledge of the teachings of the Vedas and the grammatical structure of the Sanskrit language. He cites earlier sages and Works who have treated the topic of love, but Vatsyayana’s is the first work to offer a comprehensive guide to living the sensual life. Though a precise date of composition cannot be safely ascribed to the Kama Sutra, the classical poet Subandhu, who lived in the court of the Gupta monarch Chandragupta II during the fourth century, mentions the Kama Sutra in his own work.

The first extant commentary on the Kama Sutra was written in the 12th century by the Indian scholar Yasodhara, which began a tradition of translation and interpretation continuing up to the present time. Narsingha Shastra wrote a commentary called the Sutra Vritti in the 18th century. The work of contemporary Hindi scholar Devadatta Shastri puts the Kama Sutra in the context of a continuing Indian literary tradition and also presents a new assessment and interpretation of the concept of kama.

Complementing the Artha Shastra and the Dharma Shastra, to which it makes frequent reference, the Kama Sutra, in the words of translator Alain Daniélou, offers “a picture of the art of living for the civilized and refined citizen, competing in the sphere of love, eroticism, and the pleasures of life.” The text of the Kama Sutra is divided into seven books, which together address all aspects of a man’s adult life.

The target audience of the work includes both the rasikas (connoisseurs) within the Gupta ruler’s court and the city dwellers, or nagaraka, a class of men who possess both the wealth and leisure to cultivate artistic pursuits. As Book 1 makes clear, one must possess all the conveniences and facilities of a nagaraka to properly enjoy sensual pursuits. The author recommends establishing a pleasant home within the confines of a city and equipping its spacious rooms with comfortable beds, garden access, and plenty of fresh flowers. Vatsyayana’s ideal city may be his native Pataliputra, but he refers to other cities in India, including Gandhara and Bactria. In these details, as well as in the rules of etiquette discussed throughout the text, the Kama Sutra offers a useful source of information on the culture of Indian cities during the first century. Book 2, which contains a discussion of recommended sexual techniques, is undoubtedly the most-translated and the reason the Kama Sutra is frequently, but erroneously, thought to be exclusively and explicitly a sex manual. Books 3 through 7 go on to advise young men on how to approach virgins, how to marry and establish their own households, and how to conduct extramarital affairs and seduce other men’s wives. Book 6 discusses the patronage of courtesans, and Book 7 addresses the aging man’s anxieties about how to preserve his attractiveness and his libido.

Throughout, the Kama Sutra’s advice reveals the standards and habits of conduct for men and women of various classes. Some of the advice seems surprisingly progressive; for example, the text makes reference to same-sex relationships and acknowledges the existence of variant groups later marginalized in many societies. In fact, according to Vatsyayana, male homosexual prostitutes are people to know in Indian society; they symbolize good luck and should be invited to weddings to bestow good fortune on the newlyweds. Courtesans, too, are considered essential members of an urban society. The courtesans were themselves art lovers, or rasikas, who perfected techniques of music and dance. A number of these courtesans fulfilled religious roles as temple dancers.

The Kama Sutra, though directed at men, acknowledges that women can be equal participants in erotic activities and equally capable of sexual pleasure. For example, Books 3 and 4 contain information instructing women on how to attract men and how to be good wives. It tells a wife how to keep her husband happy, and how to deal with his infidelity, recommending that she scold him both when they are alone and in company. At the same time, the Kama Sutra contains instructions that some readers may find objectionable. If a young girl is too resistant to advances, for instance, the text recommends getting her drunk and then taking advantage of her. Also, while it presumes that a good wife is faithful, the attention devoted to discussing extramarital affairs suggests that many wives were not. Overall, the main purpose of the Kama Sutra is to explain how supreme enjoyment of the divine can be achieved through the successful blending of eroticism and mysticism. It therefore serves as both a popular manual on erotic practices and as a sacred text. In later periods of Indian history, the pursuit of pleasure was relegated to a lesser status in the context of Hindu life. However, sections of the Kama Sutra continued to be used as a text in Indian schools, though with much of the erotic material excised. Certain later commentaries inserted concepts such as suttee, the requirement that a widow cast herself on her dead husband’s funeral pyre, into a text originally free of these ideas. The great popularity of the Kama Sutra in the Western world rested for a long time on its misinterpretation as a pornographic text. Victorian adventurer Sir Richard Burton obtained and published an English translation of the Kama Sutra in 1883. Burton’s version focused on the erotic material, largely ignoring the spiritual seriousness of the advice, which reflected the tendencies of Burton’s own society to limit the agency of and deny the capacity for sexual pleasure to women.More recent translations, such as the one undertaken by Professor Wendy Doniger, attempt to do justice to the original work. In Doniger’s words, the Kama Sutra reflects a time “when the erotic was associated with all that was bright, shining and beautiful in the ordinary world.” For this reason, its appeal is universal; as Daniélou observes, “the Kama Sutra retains a surprising topicality. It is a breviary of love valid for all times and places.”