The Karma Sutra: A Process of Liberation

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Jyoti Puri, who has published a review and feminist critique of the text, states that the " Kamasutra is frequently appropriated as indisputable evidence of a non-Western and tolerant, indeed celebratory, view of sexuality" and for "the belief that the Kamasutra provides a transparent glimpse into the positive, even exalted, view of sexuality". [115] However, according to Puri, this is a colonial and anticolonial modernist interpretation of the text. These narratives neither resonate with nor provide the "politics of gender, race, nationality and class" in ancient India published by other historians and that may have been prevalent then. [116] Sudhir Kakar and Wendy Doniger. 2003. Kamasutra (Oxford World's Classics). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283982-9

One person stretches out flat and shifts their weight to one side, then raises a leg up and rests it on their partner’s shoulder. Their other leg remains stretched out underneath their partner.The first English version by Richard Burton became public in 1883, but it was illegal to publish it in England and the United States till 1962. [97] Right: a French retranslation of 1891. Gavin Flood (1996), The meaning and context of the Purusarthas, in Julius Lipner (Editor) - The Fruits of Our Desiring, ISBN 978-1-896209-30-2, pp 11–13

John Keay (2010). India: A History: from the Earliest Civilisations to the Boom of the Twenty-first Century. Grove Press. pp.81–103. ISBN 978-0-8021-9550-0. Archived from the original on 20 May 2015 . Retrieved 10 December 2014. Johann Jakob Meyer (1989). Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture. Motilal Banarsidass (Orig: 1953). pp.229–230, 240–244, context: 229–257 with footnotes. ISBN 978-81-208-0638-2. Archived from the original on 7 December 2016 . Retrieved 22 November 2018.The Kamasutra uses a mixture of prose and poetry, and the narration has the form of a dramatic fiction where two characters are called the nayaka (man) and nayika (woman), aided by the characters called pitamarda (libertine), vita (pander) and vidushaka (jester). This format follows the teachings found in the Sanskrit classic named the Natyasastra. [57] The teachings and discussions found in the Kamasutra extensively incorporate ancient Hindu mythology and legends. [58] Kamasutra Book.Chapter Wendy Doniger (2002). "On the Kamasutra". Daedalus. The MIT Press. 131 (2): 126–129. JSTOR 20027767. The term Kama Sutra comes from an ancient Hindu textbook written in Sanskrit about erotic love called The Kamasutra. Very little is known about its author, Vatsyayana Mallanga, other than his name. It was written probably sometime in the third century.

The Mallanaga Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra has 36 chapters, organized into seven parts. [10] Both according to Burton and Wendy Doniger translations, the contents of the book are structured into seven parts like the following: According to Doniger, the Kamasutra teaches adulterous sexual liaison as a means for a man to predispose the involved woman in assisting him, as a strategic means to work against his enemies and to facilitate his successes. It also explains the signs and reasons a woman wants to enter into an adulterous relationship and when she does not want to commit adultery. [84] The Kamasutra teaches strategies to engage in adulterous relationships, but concludes its chapter on sexual liaison stating that one should not commit adultery because adultery pleases only one of two sides in a marriage, hurts the other, it goes against both dharma and artha. [74] Caste, class John Koller, Puruṣārtha as Human Aims, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Oct., 1968), pp. 315–319 Doniger and Sudhir Kakar published another translation in 2002, as a part of the Oxford World's Classics series. [108] Along with the translation, Doniger has published numerous articles and book chapters relating to the Kamasutra. [109] [110] [111] The Doniger translation and Kamasutra-related literature has both been praised and criticized. According to David Shulman, the Doniger translation "will change peoples' understanding of this book and of ancient India. Previous translations are hopelessly outdated, inadequate and misguided". [76] Narasingha Sil calls the Doniger's work as "another signature work of translation and exegesis of the much misunderstood and abused Hindu erotology". Her translation has the folksy, "twinkle prose", engaging style, and an original translation of the Sanskrit text. However, adds Sil, Doniger's work mixes her postmodern translation and interpretation of the text with her own "political and polemical" views. She makes sweeping generalizations and flippant insertions that are supported by neither the original text nor the weight of evidence in other related ancient and later Indian literature such as from the Bengal Renaissance movement – one of the scholarly specialty of Narasingha Sil. Doniger's presentation style titillates, yet some details misinform and parts of her interpretations are dubious, states Sil. [112] ReceptionWendy Doniger; Sudhir Kakar (2002). Kamasutra. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283982-9.