Another notable feature of the text is the “third nature,” which
includes everyone who is neither a heterosexual male nor a heterosexual
female. While imposing modern categories on ancient
phenomena is fraught with difficulties, we can say in the most
general terms that, in the Kamasutra, the third nature is primarily
composed of biological males engaging in a wide variety of nonheterosexual
behaviors. It gives a vivid impression of gay men’s life
in classical India.
You may be shocked at the abundance of biting, scratching, and
slapping. Slapping causes passionate moaning and screaming on the
part of the woman. The point is probably to stimulate the brain’s
production of endorphins, which increases sexual ecstasy, just as it
does in religious ecstasies.
The age of marriage throughout the ancient world, with its
short life spans, was lower than it is today. This explains why the
man is told to engage in childish pastimes to win his bride’s confidence.
Kind and considerate treatment was meant to create a secure
emotional basis for the marriage and a reliable wife who would not
reject sex or prefer other men.
Prostitution was very much a part of the entertainment industry
of the day. Courtesans lived in a special quarter of the city, either
independently or financed by the king. Although roundly condemned
by the clergy, courtesans were immensely popular and admired, just
like modern celebrities. Indian kings, like their European counterparts,
invested in and taxed prostitution—with excellent returns.
Since prostitutes were an economic asset, they had some legal protection,
although they were otherwise regarded as beyond the pale
of respectable society. Among themselves, they lived in a world
of reversed status—the women were the most important persons,
usually supervised by a stone-hearted older woman, or “mother,”
who ran the business. Men had no status and no authority.
Lastly, you may be astonished by the vast amount of intrigue,
drama, and suspense. Penetrating another man’s harem and having
sex with his wives was dangerous for all involved. Nevertheless,
both harem women and other married women had many ways to
get sexual satisfaction on the sly. Thus, the urbane man—from
merchant to king—had to guard his women against the plots of
other men, as well as against the plots of the women themselves and
even of their servants. At the same time, he might engage in similar
plots, having affairs with married women himself!
As for the structure of the book, the first thing to realize is that
it is a sutra text, characterized by highly condensed, almost inaccessible
technical language stripped of every unnecessary syllable to
ease memorization. (Sutra literally means “a thread” in the sense of
a clue or a guide. For a more detailed interpretation, a reader relied
on a guru, a commentary, or both.) The editors grouped the individual,
numbered threads into paragraphs, but left the numbering
unchanged. We left the translation unnumbered to avoid clutter.
Some external sandhis were left unmade to help a Sanskrit reader
decipher this very difficult text and to reduce hyphenation. In
addition to the sutras, there are little groups of verses, typically at
the end of a section or chapter, distinguished typographically in
the Sanskrit as two separate lines of text. Sometimes they are introduced
in the translation with a phrase like “And there are these
verses about this” and sometimes not.
Due to its ancient and layered origin, the text has two organizing
structures, chapters and sections, running in parallel, which
we’ve retained and merged into a modern hierarchy with modern
nomenclature. We have followed the traditional practice of pulling
chapter and section titles from the colophons, those delightfully
flowery sentences that bring each chapter to a satisfying close.
Some chapter titles were abbreviated and/or made general enough
to describe the entire chapter—check the colophons for the original,
unabbreviated titles. The seven parts and their titles are as they
were in the original.
I worked hard to make an accurate translation of just the
Kamasutra itself. More specifically, I resisted the urge to pad the
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