The Mare’s Trap Nature and Culture in the Kamasutra

01 August, 2015

Wendy Doniger

Speaking Tiger, 184 pages, Rs. 399

The Kamasutra, composed in the third century CE, is the world’s most famous textbook of erotic love; it was then and remains by today’s standards an astonishingly sophisticated work. Yet, in its country of origin, it is sometimes considered a matter of national shame rather than pride. In this scholarly and readable book, Doniger seeks to restore the Kamasutra to its proper place in the Sanskrit canon, as a landmark of India’s secular literature. In its encyclopaedic social and psychological narratives, the Kamasutra displays surprisingly modern ideas about gender, role play, female sexuality and homosexual desire, even as it perpetuates attitudes—such as twinning passion with violence—that continue to darken human intercourse.