Book By: Lance Dane

The ultimate book of love
The Kama Sutra is possibly one of the most misunderstood ancient texts. Too many people think of it as merely a collection of smutty Indian miniatures demonstrating a range of unfeasible sexual positions.

Those sexual positions are merely a part of one of seven sections of this learned treatise. The Kama Sutra is perhaps better looked at as a book about love and relationships in all aspects.

Love scholar
The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra has been edited by a renowned scholar of Indian art. Lance Dane lives in India and has spent more than 50 years researching and photographing art and ancient texts. His particular interest has been the Kama Sutra and other Vedic and pre-Vedic erotic classics.

Dane's version of the Kama Sutra is ideal for people who've been a little suspicious of this book. Taken at one level it is a beautiful guide to Indian art, since each of its illustrations is a photograph of a carefully chosen piece. It features 250 pictures, of which 64 are sexual positions. But there are also fascinating depictions of Indian art on everything from coins to architecture to ancient toys. Dane has drawn upon his own collection of over 300,000 photographs, as well as examples from various museums and private collections.

The sections
The most well known part of the Kama Sutra is the second chapter which, in addition to sexual positions, discusses kissing, foreplay, orgasms, and more specialized forms of sexual arousal.

Other sections on the acquisition of a wife and her proper conduct may seem a little dated on the surface, but in fact provide a vast body of advice on relationships and happiness in the home. As with many newer books on relationships, a lot of this ancient text deals with communication. Part seven, like part two, can easily be applied today: it is a detailed discourse on the means of making oneself attractive to another person.

Same-sex couples will be pleased to find that the Kama Sutra isn't rigid about gender. Its view on making love is that it is a "divine union" -- there is a spiritual undercurrent to even its more graphic teachings.

Many options
Readers interested in the physical side of the Kama Sutra will find that it breaks down foreplay and intercourse into tiny steps and describes ranges of possibilities at every stage. For example, there is an entire discourse on the different types of kisses. Even embraces are listed and categorized. It describes eight kinds and divides them into different types for different situations --for example, embraces upon meeting and embraces for specific body parts. The book often uses interesting metaphors, such as an embrace likened to a mixture of sesame seeds and rice.

Dane's edition offers an improvement on the popular translation by Sir Richard Burton, one that's said to have been edited to conform to a Victorian outlook. It is highly recommended on many levels: a book on Indian erotic art, a book on relationships and, of course, a book on sex.