The Kamasutra (Translated)

Matters

Chapter One

Summary of the Guide

Homage to religion, prosperity, and sensual pleasure, because these are the central subjects of this guide. And homage to the teachers who explained their connections, because these three are related to each other.

When Prajapati, the Creator, made his creatures, he first proclaimed in one hundred thousand chapters how these three aims of life function as the cause of their existence. Manu, son of the Self-born One, extracted the part dealing with religion as a separate work. Brihaspati did the same with regard to prosperity, and the great god Shiva’s follower, Nandin, made a separate presentation of the guide to sensual pleasure in one thousand chapters. Shvetaketu, the son of Uddalaka, then abridged this to five hundred chapters. And furthermore, Babhravya from Panchala abridged this to one hundred fifty chapters in seven parts: General Matters, Sexual Intercourse, Sex with a Young Woman, the Role of the Wife, Other Men’s Wives, Prostitution, and Advanced Methods. From this Dattaka, commissioned by the courtesans of Pataliputra, extracted the sixth part on prostitution as a separate work. Responding to this, Charayana adapted the part on general matters, Suvarnanabha the part on sexual intercourse, Ghotakamukha the part on sex with a young woman, Gonardiya the part on the role of the wife, Gonikaputra the part on other men’s wives, and Kuchumara the part on advanced methods, all as separate works.

In this manner, the guide was divided into pieces by many teachers and its precepts nearly vanished. Because the parts of the work made by Dattaka and the others were one-sided, and because Babhravya’s work was too big to be memorized, Vatsyayana abridged the whole subject into a small book and presents it as this guide to sensual pleasure.

This is the description of its chapters and sections.

The first part, General Matters, has five chapters with five sections: Summary of the Guide; Achievement of the Three Aims of Life; Exposition of the Skills; Lifestyle of the Elegant Man; and Examination of the Activities of the Lover, His Companions, and Messenger Women.

The second part deals with sexual intercourse. It has ten chapters with seventeen sections: Sexual Intercourse with Regard to Size, Endurance, and Temperament; Variations of Love; Embraces; Ways of Kissing; Forms of Scratching; Ways of Biting; Behavior Typical of Women from Different Provinces; Different Sexual Positions; Unusual Sexual Acts; Techniques of Slapping and the Manners of Moaning Associated with Them; Imitating the Sexual Role of a Man; Sexual Techniques of a Man; Oral Sex; The Beginning and Conclusion of Sexual Intercourse; Different Kinds of Sex; and The Lovers’ Quarrel.

The third part deals with sex with a young woman. It has five chapters with nine sections: Rules of Courtship, Deciding a Match, Winning a Young Woman’s Confidence, Approaching a Young Woman, Indications through Gestures and Facial Expressions, Advances a Man Can Make on his Own, Approaching a Man One Desires, Winning a Young Woman by Advances, and Stratagems for Weddings.

The fourth part deals with the wife. It has two chapters with eight sections: Conduct of an Only Wife, Conduct of a Wife Whose Husband is Abroad, Conduct of the Senior Wife to the Co-wives, Conduct of the Junior Wife, Conduct of a Remarried Widow, Conduct of an Unloved Wife, Matters Pertaining to the Harem, and Conduct of a Man with Several Wives.

The fifth part deals with the wives of other men. It has six chapters with ten sections: Exposing the Natures of Men and Women, Causes of Resistance, Men Who Have Success with Women, Women Who Are Easily Won, Ways to Intimacy, Making Advances, Examination of Inclinations, Tasks of the Female Messenger, The Erotic Desire of Rulers, and Life in the Harem and Guarding One’s Wives.

The sixth part deals with courtesans. It has six chapters with twelve sections: Appraisal of a Suitable Lover; Reasons for Approaching a Lover; How to Acquire One; Compliance with the Lover; Ways to Make Money; Signs and Recognition of Indifference; Methods for Driving the Lover Away; Restoring a Broken Relationship; Types of Profit; Considerations Concerning Profit, Loss, and Their Consequences and Risks; and Different Kinds of Available Women.

The seventh part deals with advanced methods. It has two chapters with six sections: Achieving Luck in Love, Spellbinding Someone, Aphrodisiacs, Recovery of Lost Passion, Enlarging the Male Organ, and Unusual Techniques.

That was the summary of this handbook. There are thus seven parts, thirty-six chapters, sixty-four sections, and 1,250 sutras. After this brief exposition, a detailed description of the matter follows, for the world of the learned wants both a summary and a detailed account.

Thus ends the first chapter, Summary of the Guide, in the first part, General Matters, in the guide to sensual pleasure by the glorious Vatsyayana.

Chapter Two

The Three Aims of Life

A man may truly live for a hundred years. By dividing his time, he should pursue the three mutually connected aims of life in such a way that they don’t cause damage to each other.

In childhood, he should strive for goals such as the acquisition of knowledge; in youth, sensual pleasure; and in old age, religion and release. Or he should pursue these aims as the situation permits, since his lifespan is uncertain, but remain celibate until his studies are finished.

Religion is the performance, according to scripture, of acts such as sacrifices and so on, which have no practical purpose because they are not of this world and their aims are invisible, and avoiding, again according to scripture, acts such as the consumption of meat which have a practical purpose because they are of this world and have visible aims. He should learn about it from received scripture and through association with religious experts.

Prosperity is the acquisition of things such as knowledge, land, gold, cattle, grain, merchandise, equipment, and friends, and the increase of what has been acquired. It is learned from the conduct of officials and from merchants with knowledge of business practices.

Sensual pleasure means the application of hearing, feeling, sight, taste, and smell to their separate objects, according to one’s wishes, based on the mind united with the self. Specifically, sensual pleasure is the self’s successful experience of a sense object, permeated by a psychological pleasure caused by the object of the different sense impressions. This he should learn from this guide to sensual pleasure and through association with the elegant men of the town.

When these three aims of life are in conflict, the preceding aim in the sequence is always the most important. But for the king, the most important aim is prosperity, because social life is rooted in it, and the same goes for a prostitute.

So far the achievement of the three aims of life.

Religion is not of this world, therefore a book which teaches it is appropriate. The same goes for success in prosperity, because it depends upon methods. These methods are taught by a manual. According to the teachers, however, among animals action is produced by impulse and the innate character of sensual pleasure, not from a manual. Because men and women depend upon another for sexual intercourse, sensual pleasure demands a method. And, according to Vatsyayana, one learns this method from this guide to sensual pleasure. Animals, on the other hand, have intercourse because the females roam freely, because it happens in the fertile season according to need, and because they mate without thinking. Thus there is no need for a method.

He should not pursue religion because the fruit comes in the future, and because it is uncertain. For who but a fool would hand over what he holds in his hand to another? Better a pigeon today than a peacock tomorrow. A sure copper penny is better than an unsure ornament of gold. So say the materialists.

But Vatsyayana says: Because scripture cannot be doubted, and because the fruit of incantations and curses can occasionally be seen; because one can see that the constellations, the moon, the sun, the stars, and the circle of planets act for the sake of the world as if intentionally; because social life is marked by the maintenance of the practices of the classes and stages of life, and because one sees that a piece of grain in one’s hand has to be cast away so that it can become corn, one should act according to religious principles.

One should not pursue economic matters. For even if one attends to them with great effort, sometimes nothing comes of them, and even if one does not attend to them, they may produce results by themselves. Fate makes all this happen. For it is fate that leads men to wealth and misery, to victory and defeat, to happiness and unhappiness. Fate turned Bali into Indra. Fate toppled him. Only Fate will reinstate him. So say the fatalists.

Because all activities are based on human effort, there is a need for a method, precisely because even wealth inevitably ordained is associated with a method. The person who doesn’t act achieves nothing good, according to Vatsyayana.

One should not pursue sensual pleasures, because they militate against religion and prosperity, which are the most important, but also against other good things. Furthermore, they bring a man into contact with worthless people, cause him to participate in bad undertakings, and produce impurity and loss of prospects. They also produce carelessness, thoughtlessness, distrust, and rejection. And we hear of many who, under the spell of sensual pleasure, have perished with their followers like Dandakya, the king of the Bhojas who, for reasons of sensual pleasure, desired the daughter of a Brahmin and perished with his kinsmen and his realm. The King of the Gods desired Ahalya, the all-powerful Kichaka desired Draupadi, Ravana desired Sita, and many others under the spell of sensual pleasure are seen to have perished, according to the utilitarians.

Sensual pleasures actually resemble food because they make the body thrive, and they are the fruits of religion and prosperity. But we must also be aware of their disadvantages, as it were. For we do not fail to put cooking pots on the fire without thinking, ‘There are beggars,’ nor do we fail to sow barley without thinking, ‘There are gazelles,’ according to Vatsyayana.

And there are these verses about this.

A man who pursues prosperity, sensual pleasure, and religion achieves endless happiness without pain, both in this world and the next.

Educated men prefer actions which are neither associated with doubt about what will happen in the next life, nor with happiness that destroys prosperity.

One should perform an action that achieves the three aims of life, or two of them, or only one, but not one that prejudices the other two.

Thus ends the second chapter, Achievement of the Three Aims of Life, in the first part, General Matters, in the guide to sensual pleasure by the glorious Vatsyayana.

Chapter Three

Exposition of the Skills

A man should study this guide to sensual pleasure and its subsidiary sciences without neglecting the periods for the study of religion and prosperity with their subsidiary sciences. A woman should do this before entering adulthood and, with the permission of her husband, after she is married.

Because females are unable to understand scientific treatises, instructing women in this handbook is pointless, according to some teachers. However, according to Vatsyayana, they are able to learn the practices—and the practices are based on this handbook.

This obtains not only in this particular context. All over the world, only a few people are conversant in the manuals, but the practices are within the reach of everybody. And manuals are the cause of practices, however far back they may go.

There is the science of grammar, yet sacrificial experts with no knowledge of it know how to modify language during rituals. There is the science of astrology, yet people with no knowledge of it perform their work on auspicious days.

In the same manner, horsemen and elephant riders control their horses and elephants even if they have not studied the handbooks. Even distant tribes do not cross the border because they know there is a king. It is the same matter.

However, there are also courtesans, princesses, and daughters of high officials whose minds have been influenced by this handbook. Therefore a woman should learn the practices, or this handbook, or part of it in secret from a confidante.

A young woman should, in secret and alone, practice the sixty-four skills which must be mastered through repeated exercise. Teachers of young women can be foster sisters who have grown up with them and who have had sexual experience with men, an experienced friend with whom she can talk without being judged, a sister of her mother of the same age, or instead of her, a trustworthy old servant woman, a female mendicant with whom she is already acquainted, or an older sister when there is reason to trust her.

Singing; instrumental music; dancing; painting; carving templates on leaves; making various patterns of rice and flowers; making beds of flowers; coloring of teeth, clothes, and limbs; making floors with jewel inlays; preparing a couch; water music; water spraying; magic tricks; various ways of binding garlands; preparation of diadems and