Zoomed Vinay Special · First-person editorial
The Kama Sutra Is Seven Books, and Only One of Them Covers Sexual Union. Here Is What Is in the Other Six
Everyone "knows" the Kama Sutra as the ancient sex position book. Most of the people who joke about it have never opened it. The real text, compiled by a scholar named Vatsyayana, is a seven-part treatise on how to live a cultured, balanced, ethical life, and sexual technique is one section out of seven. A commonly cited estimate puts that part at around 20 percent of the text. Here is what is actually in the book, and how a serious work got flattened into a punchline.
The point of view
Let's go to Victorian England. The year is 1883. Officially, this society is deeply prudish about sex. And a British explorer and writer named Richard Francis Burton publishes the first widely circulated English translation of an old Indian text called the Kama Sutra. Now let me ask you something: have you ever actually read it? Most people who joke about it never have. The real book is seven parts on how to live a cultured, balanced life, and sexual technique is one part of the seven. Here is what is in the rest, and how a philosophy became a punchline.
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Source Library
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana — 1883 Burton Translation
Richard F. Burton — Sacred Texts
Original citation linked to this published story. Its downloadable Source record is still completing editorial publication.
Kama Sutra Summary and Structure
GradeSaver
Original citation linked to this published story. Its downloadable Source record is still completing editorial publication.
Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra: A Concise Guide to Balanced Intimacy
Indraya
Original citation linked to this published story. Its downloadable Source record is still completing editorial publication.