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Book cover of The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text by Vatsyayana Including the Jayamangala Commentary for the Sanskrit by Yashodhara a
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The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text by Vatsyayana Including the Jayamangala Commentary for the Sanskrit by Yashodhara a

by Alain Danielou
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Overview

This definitive volume is the first modern translation of Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra to include two essential commentaries: the Jayamangala of Yashodhara and the modern Hindi commentary by Devadatta Shastri. Alain Danilou spent four years comparing versions of the Kama Sutra in Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, and English, drawing on his intimate experience of India, to preserve the full explicitness of the original. I wanted to demystify India, he writes, to show that a period of great civilization, of high culture, is forcibly a period of great liberty. 

About the Author, Alain Danielou

Alain Danilou (1907-1994) was without question a Renaissance man. Following his early years as an artist, dancer, and musician in Paris (Cocteau, Diaghilev, and Stravinsky were among his friends), Danilou settled in India, where he spent fifteen years in the study of Sanskrit, philosophy, and music. After numerous university appointments in India, he returned in 1963 to Europe, establishing the Institute of Comparative Music Studies in Berlin for the reevaluation of Asian music. Danilou wrote more than thirty books about the philosophy, religion, history, and arts of India, including Gods of Love and Ecstasy; Myths and Gods of India; Virtue, Success, Pleasure, and Liberation; While the Gods Play; The Phallus; and Music and the Power of Sound

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Editorials

Times Literary Supplement

Danilou's new and complete translation of the Kama Sutra is one of his masterpieces. It is all enchantment, a world of refined sensation totally without humbug. Our debt to his scholarship and humanity is immeasurable.

The Guardian Weekend

Dildo was translated as "medicine." Lesbian was just "corrupt woman." No wonder we couldn't follow any of the instructions in the Kama Sutra. But now, there's a new translation of the oldest sex manual, the first since the Victorians brought it home and hid it under the mattress.

Interview Magazine

Alain Danielou is the foremost living interpreter of Hinduism. His books are remarkable for their clarity, scholarship, and uninhibited celebration of erotic and mystical ecstasy.

Library Journal

Long dismissed as a sort of Sanskrit Joy of Sex , the Kama Sutra , composed by Vatsyayana in the fourth century B.C., explores sexuality as an integral part of human existence. Arguing that happiness and moral duty ( dharma ) depend on elaborate social ritual to satisfy the essential needs of life, the Kama Sutra describes the practices, rituals, and lore of the erotic ( kama ) in human relations, both heterosexual and homosexual. Noted Indiologist Danielou provides a fluent and literal translation of the entire Sanskrit original with interpolated extracts from the 12th-century commentary by Yashodara and the modern Hindi commentary by Devadatta Shastri. This is an important advance over Burton's Victorian abridgment.-- T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.

Times Literary Supplement

"Daniélou's new and complete translation of the Kama Sutra is one of his masterpieces. It is all enchantment, a world of refined sensation. Our debt to his scholarship and humanity is immeasurable."

The Guardian Weekend

"Dildo was translated as 'medicine.' Lesbian was just 'corrupt woman.' No wonder we couldn't follow any of the instructions in the Kama Sutra. But now, there's a new translation of the oldest sex manual, the first since the Victorians brought it home and hid it under the mattress."

Interview Magazine

"Alain Danielou is the foremost living interpreter of Hinduism. His books are remarkable for their clarity, scholarship, and uninhibited celebration of erotic and mystical ecstasy."

Brian Bruya

"More than just a pillow book, the Kama Sutra is a guide to the labyrinth of sexual etiquette, from how to bathe before meeting a lover to how lovers should entertain each other after making love. . . . Take from this encyclopedia of amour what you will and let it keep you moving down the path of spiritual practice."

From Barnes & Noble

An unabridged modern translation of the famous 4th-century text of the world's oldest guide to the pleasures and techniques of sex. Paints a fascinating portrait of an India whose openness to sexuality gave rise to a highly developed expression of the erotic.

Book Details

Published
December 1, 2001
Publisher
Diane Pub Co
Pages
564
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780788196782

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