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Product Description
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A new translation which includes an introduction from Wendy Doniger, a Sanskrit scholar with a worldwide reputation.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
'When the wheel of sexual ecstasy is in full motion, there is no textbook at all, and no order.' The Kamasutra is the oldest extant Hindu textbook of erotic love. It is about the art of living - about finding a partner, maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs - and also about the positions in sexual intercourse. It was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century CE. It combines an encyclopaedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual psychology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction, consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation of Sir Richard Burton, the text is presented here in an entirely new translation into clear, vivid, sexually frank English, together with three commentaries: translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (13th century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Firstly the book is very nicely presented, with full colour illustrations from the original Karma Sutra. Once one starts reading the book it becomes clear that despite being almost 800 years old the relationships that the book describes are the same today. If you are looking for a sex guide then this version of the Karma Sutra isn't for you, however if you're looking to read a classic of World Literature AND learn something, including sexual techniques then this is a good choice. The one obvious drawback is that at times the language is difficult, but this reflects a true translation of a 13th century text. A worthwhile and fascinating text!
24 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've browsed through a previous version of the Kamasutra and thought of it as a "sex" book.
Now I just had the chance to read this new version which a friend of mine passed me (in my country it will be published soon). I've been quite impressed: it seems more a handbook of life than a book just about sex. After all, who thinks that something about sex is still to be said in the age of image and hedonism and ... well ... pornography?
This book will still say something to the western world, something about living and having fun and enjoying life. It teaches how to conduct a balanced life, how to find (and recognise) a good partner and, of course, how to have a satisfactory sexual life; and all this comes centuries before Freud!
Expecially women will find something that in previous translations might have been hidden. Puritanism of the victorian age influenced previous translation in such a way that the book was intended for men. Now the original spirit of some 17 century old indian text returns: women that pretend men to do what women want, women that can get rid of men as they wish, women that are able to send husband back to his mummy.
Yet, it is still a mystery if this new version will help men to understand the everlasting mysterious feminine planet.
Now I just had the chance to read this new version which a friend of mine passed me (in my country it will be published soon). I've been quite impressed: it seems more a handbook of life than a book just about sex. After all, who thinks that something about sex is still to be said in the age of image and hedonism and ... well ... pornography?
This book will still say something to the western world, something about living and having fun and enjoying life. It teaches how to conduct a balanced life, how to find (and recognise) a good partner and, of course, how to have a satisfactory sexual life; and all this comes centuries before Freud!
Expecially women will find something that in previous translations might have been hidden. Puritanism of the victorian age influenced previous translation in such a way that the book was intended for men. Now the original spirit of some 17 century old indian text returns: women that pretend men to do what women want, women that can get rid of men as they wish, women that are able to send husband back to his mummy.
Yet, it is still a mystery if this new version will help men to understand the everlasting mysterious feminine planet.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this edition (the Miniature edition) believing that I was getting a smaller version of the original Oxford edition, perhaps with fewer illustrations. Since I was interested in the text that was okay with me, but I was so disappointed. Apart from the very few illustrations (which I can tolerate) the text size is so large that you feel like browsing through the book rather than actually reading it. Furthermore, several parts of the text are left out, without this being shown in the "browse" view offered the to customers (the browse displays the original and unabridged version according to the table of contents!). Therefore, I really felt like a fool once I received the pocket version. It seems useful only as a gift idea or curiosity. Next time I'll buy the full version, no matter the price and size and shall not pay attention to the deceiving browsing options offered (Publisher, shame on you!).
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