Kama Sutra

Kamasutram, generally known to the Western world as Kama Sutra, is an ancient Indian text widely considered to be the standard work on love in Sanskrit literature. A small portion of the work deals with human sexual behavior.

Only one book of the Kama Sutra's seven is devoted to sexual arts, and just one chapter within it to sexual positions. The other six books cover subjects as diverse as how to furnish and decorate a house, how to woo a bride, how husbands and wives are to behave to one another, how religious festivals are to be celebrated, the kitchen provisioned and the garden planted.

However the text's impact has always been its sexual teachings, as can be seen from the fact that this was the section most widely copied by later writers in the kamashastra tradition.

The Kama Sutra has helped people enjoy the art of sex at a deeper level and can be considered a technical guide to sexual enjoyment, as well as providing insight into the sexual mores and social practices of the India of its time. The gentle progression of touches and kisses were for the benefit of young and inexperienced couples.

The Kama Sutra is sometimes wrongly thought of as a manual for tantric sex. While sexual practices do exist within the very wide tradition of Hindu tantra, the Kama Sutra is not a tantric text, and does not touch upon any of the sexual rites associated with some forms of tantric practice.