topics: |  sex | erotica | india | ancient | social

Author bio

The Kamasutra is not even good pornography, although it is silly and often
hilarious. In its favor, however, we must acknowledge the fact that it was
compiled sometime around the 4th century A.D. during the Golden Age of the
Gupta Empire and so it gives the reader an idea of the free and open society
of those times. This was also a time when erotic painting and sculpture
flourished in all parts of India. Very little is known about the historic
Vatsayana. He lived in Kausambi and Varanasi and had access to the court of
the ruling prince. Using extracts from his treatise, Sudhir Kakar, India's
leading psychoanalyst, has reconstructed Vatsayana's life and times. He has
done so with consummate skill, using psychoanalytic techniques, imagination
and felicitous prose, bringing to vibrant life a scholar of ancient erotica
who died more than 1500 years ago.

Kakar employs the ingenious device of a young neophyte (presumably himself)
who spends many days over many years time in Vatsayana's hermitage on the
pretext of writing a scholarly commentary on the Kamasutra. This neophyte
questions Vatsayana on contentious points such as the art of seduction and
other such matters. If Kakar is right (and there is no reason to believe he
is not), Vatsayana was the illegitimate child of a wealthy tradesman who
was raised in an establishment of courtesans run by two sisters, one of
whom was his father's mistress. As a child, Vatsayana became a favorite of
his mausi (aunt). He was a witness to the comings and goings of rich
patrons who loved to watch the girls sing and dance. After his education in
a gurukul, Vatsayana gained access to the prince's court and was granted a
stipend to compile a definitive work on erotic acts. He married the
prince's beautiful-but-wayward sister-in-law, who was many years younger
than he. They eventually retired to a hermitage at the fringe of a forest.
- from B&N anonymous review of of Sudhir Kakar's "Ascetic of Desire":