Kama Sutra - a history for your information 211108
Posted on Nov 24 2008Kama Sutra Fact of Fiction?
Of all the treasures of learning that Europeans have acquired from the Far East, Kama Sutra is perhaps the best known, along with Yoga and Buddhism. Starting with the industrial revolution of the late 18th century and the advent of fashionable foreign traveling, Europe and Northern America have been flooded with art objects, ideas, values and philosophy from the Far East that changed, to a certain extent, our way of thinking.
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Busy Westerners obsessed by tomorrow are intrigued and fascinated by the attitudes of people who are content to live this day and who are not afraid of the future. | |||||||||
When mentioning Kama Sutra, most people think of it as an exotic help book on sexual satisfaction or just an ancient porn magazine. The complete name of the book is actually “Vatsyayana’s Aphorisms on Love” (“Vatsyayana Kamasutram”) and it’s a treaty made of 36 chapters.
The aim of this collection of aphorisms is to provide a comprehensive guide to sex, relationships with courtesans, courtship of married women, marriage and, finally, improving one’s chances to have good sex through the use of herbs, substances, spells and sex toys. As you can see, the purpose of this book was to become a definitive guide to what love and sex meant to the Indian society around the 4th century AD.
Apart from sex and courtly etiquette “Aphorisms on Love” is a very orthodox book, designed for the society that spawned it. Its purpose was to teach the lover what should be done in order to woo the woman he desires while protecting both of their good names and reputation. Reputation was important throughout the ancient world, not just in! India, and if a person forfeited it for such a trivial thing as sex was considered to be frivolous, making the person not worthy of the esteem of others. Vatsyayana himself, a celibate scholar, believed that sex while not bad in itself; the act of engaging in it was certainly frivolous and sinful.
The 36 chapters are each written by an expert of the issue and cover a wide range of issues, such as observations on the daily life of a citizen, sex positions, personal adornment, how to kiss, gaining the confidence of women and the means by which courtesans get money.
Perhaps the best known section of the book is the study of sex and sexual positions and techniques, makes up a mere 20 % of the text as a whole. But nevertheless, those scholars out there who are truly interested in sex should read the entire book. After numerous centuries the theories are still accurate because people still want the same things from one another..
As surprising as it sounds when it comes down to it the central tenants of the Kama Sutra are akin to Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, while the Indian book is much more careful to observe the morals of the time. Both books serve as guides to aspects of their respective societies and deal with them in a frank realistic manner.
Vatsyayana is not fooling himself that men and women are naturally virtuous creatures and so was perfectly willing to give advice on how to seduce married women, just as Machiavelli knew that a prince is bound to do evil things from time to time.
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