The Art of the Kama Sutra

Book excerpt: The Kama Sutra (Aphorisms on Love) was written in India some time between 1-5 AD. Its author is said to have been Mallanga Vatsyayana, who compiled the Kama Sutra while he was a religious student, studying the sacred books of Hinduism. In his day Kama, which is love and other pleasures of the senses, was considered to have its own share in the divine scheme of things: in sexual union, a man and woman re-enacted the creation of the cosmos. In this volume the extracts from the Kama Sutra give the modern reader an idea of the book's scope, while the beautiful illustrations reflect the ethos of the Kama Sutra, which is of a highly civilized society which took its pleasures very seriously.