The Complete Kama Sutra : The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text

Alan Danileou's translation is straightforward and it also includes commentaries on KS by other authors which helps to know different views. Though it lacks pictures (precisely the reason I bought it - not to get distracted from the original composition) it is a much better translation than Richard Burton's (which also I own). At times Richard gets squeaky in explaining very "intimate" things (its not a complete translation, looks like he left things that are too un-Victorian to translate) but Alan is more straightforward and complete.

Also translated are the chemistry of love potions, how to make money (of course not relevant to modern times) etc. If it contained the original Sanskrit quotations, I would have enjoyed the poetic flow. Anyways it adorns my book case.


it's not just sexual positions, it's history and culture too   July 14, 2000
81 out of 88 found this review helpful

a friend gave this book to me as a gift. i must admit that it wasn't quite what i expected - which was a blow-by-blow account of various sexual positions. first of all, this book has no drawings whatsoever! and i didn't expect to find that there were chapters dealing with seduction, mistresses, love potions, etc...i still found it a good book to read inspite of my initial 'disappointment'. it does live up to its (ill?) repute as a manual of sexual instruction, and it's translator, going by the short info given on him, appears to know whereof he speaks, what with his credentials as a Hindu scholar. leave your biases behind and pick up the book, you'll be glad you did. i wouldn't recommend trying the exotic love potions though! as for sex preferably not being learned from a book, i have this to say...of course no book on sexual instruction should be your bible to love-making, but we read up on chess, cooking, the news, and a whole range of other topics, so why not sex? a great many of us are a lot more ignorant than we think we are, and it's not always feasible to ask around, especially since i personally will not divulge any tricks i might have learned from my lover's bed, out of respect for our privacy.


A Scholarly Work for the Intelligent, Not the Ignorant   October 24, 2000
K. Henton (Tokyo, Japan)
64 out of 78 found this review helpful

There exist in every society those puritanical, cynical human beings who simply must rain on parades, in spite of the fact that, as we all know, they have some of the strongest sexual drives amongst us. Some of these individuals, who either do not read works carefully or are incapable of gathering meaning from what they read, are the ones that insist that the Kama Sutra should not be read. I suppose they are against sex education in schools as well. It is sad that they are amongst the ignorant mentioned in the book itself.

The authors of this magnificent, over 3,000 year old study of one element of our human nature stated in Mr Daneilou's scholarly, commendable translation that the work is to be read by "the citizen," meaning a person with both academic and moral education and the financial means to make use of the knowledge. The poor, as the work accurately mentions, are focused on survival and have no time to acquire the ability to comprehend the information. The uneducated or "ignorant-and-proud-of-it" ones are, by their own refusal to learn, unable to see this work as part of the "three aims of life (virtue/morality, financial prosperity and love/eroticism)." They therefore cannot differentiate between what is good or bad for themselves in it, and tend to see the work as a giant "how to" manual. This group includes fools who attempt to do and suggest their friends or mates do whatever is written in the book, and complain about the lack of pictures in this volume. As the authors and the translator on more than one occasion state that this is not a book on ethics, it is precisely this ability to comprehend and select what is good that makes this a work for those with the means to acquire and the ability to assimilate knowledge ONLY. In old India both men and women of good standing were expected to know the Kama Sutra back and forth, even though it was from the beginning never a work for open public discussion.

In ancient times, an educated person balanced this work with others on the other two aims of life. Today, the knowledgeable can do the same with the works of his or her choice. Those of us who are intelligent can take the male chauvinistic parts of the work and wonder at the progress we have made over the centuries, and wonder still at the progress we have yet to make. Those of us who really care about ridding our societies of some of the sick perversities we see in the papers today can examine, like surgeons, the ancient roots of these behaviors and develop a better base for dealing with and eradicating them. And last but not least, those who really want to understand how thorough knowledge leads to experiencing the kind of ecstatic sexual pleasure they thought only happens in the movies or porno books should get down to the business of learning some of the "64 arts" mentioned in the book, the very first of those being the reading and assimilation of The Kama Sutra. This work, in my opinion, is rated AANI (All Ages No Idiots).


Sensual, intimate and incredible! Making love is an art!   June 11, 1999
57 out of 59 found this review helpful

This book is overlooked by so many who desire to make love to their partners as though they were the only person in the world. The positions offered are incredible and although it may be uncomfortable to try some of them the ecstasy is well worth any discomfort or embarrassment. Try them! You will never experience total release from the world like lying in your lover's arm in one of these incredible positions!