Kamasutra
Topic: Gupta Empire and the Classical Age · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Kamasutra is a Sanskrit text by Vatsyayana, probably written in c. 3rd–4th century CE. It deals with kama, meaning pleasure and love. Kama was seen as one of the accepted aims of human life, along with dharma (duty) and artha (wealth). The text is also a valuable source for social history. It describes the daily life of the nagaraka, the cultured city-dweller, and lists the sixty-four arts (kalas), the skills an educated person was expected to learn.
Example
The sixty-four arts include singing, playing music, dancing, painting, flower arrangement, making perfumes, solving riddles and teaching parrots to speak. The list shows the comfortable lifestyle of well-off city people in early India.
Don't confuse with
- Arthashastra: Kautilya's text on artha, which covers statecraft, government and wealth. The Kamasutra deals with pleasure and the arts of daily life.
Related concepts
- Aryabhata
- Aryabhatiya
- Hindu-Arabic numerals
- Bakhshali manuscript
- Surya Siddhanta
- Varahamihira
- Bhaskara I
- Virahanka
- Kalidasa
- Abhijnanashakuntalam