IntroductionErotic, exotic, and acrobatic, the jaw-dropping, joint-cracking sex positions of the Kama Sutrahave enthralled readers for centuries. But behind the sexual gymnastics, the book itself isfilled with ancient sexual wisdom that will benefit any couple.What is the Kama Sutra?The original Kama Sutra was written in 3rd-century Indiaby a man known as Vatsyayana Malla. It had no picturesand the text appeared in Sanskrit “sutras”: short, pithyphrases that were designed to be memorized. Little isknown about Vatsyayana, but he was eager to establish hissqueaky-clean motives, saying that he composed the KamaSutra “in chastity and in the highest meditation.”More is known about the two British men who pickedup the Kama Sutra in the 19th century and set about gettingit translated into English. Their names were Sir RichardFrancis Burton and Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, and theirtranslation revived modern interest in the ancient text.Burton was an explorer, writer, and soldier. Arbuthnot wasan ex-civil servant and translator. Their mission was tobring the erotic wisdom of the East to Victorian England;no easy task given the repressive attitudes of the time.As Burton and Fitzgerald were aware, the Kama Sutra was notthe only sex manual to come out of Asia over the centuries.The Ananga Ranga is another Indian love text, written in the15th century by Kalyana Malla. It was intended to “preventlives and loves being wasted” due to ignorance of the divinepleasures of the arts of love. The Perfumed Garden came from16th-century Tunis and was written by Sheik Nefzawi, toencourage sexual satisfaction, and hence fidelity, in themarried couples of the kingdom. Positions from both titlesappear in this book, along with some from The Tao, a seriesof ancient Chinese pillow books.The generally more open and relaxed sexual climate of the1960s meant that the Kama Sutra could finally come out ofhiding, and people have been happily bending themselvesinto its sexual knots ever since.