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Indian Kamasutra History
Indian Kama Sutra History is valuable to know about to understand how to profit from its wisdom, and discard the outdated customs that don't apply today.
You see, the Indian Kama Sutra wasn't an entirely original composition. The Hindu love guide is normally attributed to the author, Vatsyayana Mallanaga, a religious scholar and sage who lived in Pataliputra in North India between Benares and Calcutta sometime between 200 and 300 AD.
But in actual fact, he was more editor than creator. Vatsyayana wrote the Indian Kama Sutra by compiling the sexual practices documented from earlier centuries. He summarized obscure texts of the erotic sciences from the vast body of Hindu erotology that already existed by the 1st Century AD.
The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, probably sometime in the third century. 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.
But today, few know the Indian Kama Sutra in its original form. It was first translated into English by Sir Richard Burton, the British linguist and scholar in 1883. (This, by the way, is not the famous modern actor of the same name.)
Though Burton did much to unveil the secrets hidden in the ancient tome, he was somewhat constrained -- or maybe even misguided -- by the Victorian Puritanism of his times. Burton's highly-mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation did spark major controversy when it was discovered being passed amongst noblemen in England. But, in spite of its notoriety, Burton's version wasn't completely frank or accurate.
Yet, the modern world continues to entertain a strong Indian Kama Sutra Fascination.
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