Review of Literature

The Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana with its earliest Sanskrit commentary by Yaśodhara Indrapāla namely Jayamaṅgalā and the most recent Hindi commentary by Devadatta Shastri called Jayā are available. The authentic English translations of Kāmasūtra by Sir. Richard Francis Burton, Alain Danielou and Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar etc. have also been made use of. More than 20 published works as post Kāmasūtra literature are also available for reference. But literary histories, more or less, concentrate only on an outer-layer analysis regarding Kāmaśāstra.

Three Ph. D theses entitled Influence of Kāmaśāstra on Classical Sanskrit Literature (1986) by Vishwanath K. Hampiholi, Karnataka University, Dharwad, Purusharthas: Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha-Their Relevance and Currency Today and for Tomorrow (1995) by George V. C. from the School of Gandhian Thought and Development Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala and A Critical Comparative Study of Kāmapuruṣārtha with Reference to Dharmaśāstra and Kāmaśāstra (2012) by Dipakkumar P. Joshi, from Gujarat University, Ahmadabad in Gujarati language are available. An M. Phil Dissertation under the title Significance of Sexual Pleasure in Human Sexuality: An Understanding in the Light of Emphasis on Sexual Pleasure in Kāmasūtra (2013) by Vikas Prabhu, from the Department of Philosophy, Christ University, Bangalore also is available. An ongoing Ph. D research work has been traced from Karnataka Sanskrit University registered in the year 2013 by Santosh More entitled Kāma -Its Relevance and Importance in the four Pursuits of Human Life. Recently published book The Mare’s trap: Nature and Culture in Kamasutra (2015) by Wendy Donigar is a scholarly work which tries to restore the Kāmasūtra in its proper place in the Sanskrit canon, as a landmark of India’s secular literature. Besides these, Research papers and articles in various journals and books have been used as sources of information.