The Kama Sutra gets a makeover
What's long been seen as an illustrated manual of the sexual arts will soon be published as a text-only lifestyle guide for the discerning adult. Its publisher says it will be a classy look at every aspect of love and relationships.
Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Aditya Haksar, Indian scholar and translator of new Kama Sutra; Anne Hollond's, psychologist and CEO of Relationships Australia NSW
COCHRANE:The Kama Sutra has become shorthand for adventurous sexual behaviour and for many it's the Indian book illustrating couplings that are part Playboy, part Cirque de Solei.
HAKSAR:There's a feeling the in the last 50 or 60 years or more, the impression has grown that the Kama Sutra is exclusively on the subject of sex and on the subject of sex also, almost entirely about techniques and methods of human copulations, about positions.
COCHRANE: That's Aditya Haksar, an Indian scholar and an expert in translating Sanskrit texts. He says there's a lot more to the Kama Sutra than sexual positions.
It was originally compiled in the 3rd century by an Indian sage and the title translates to something like a "a treatise on pleasure.
Originally, the Kama Sutra didn't have the illustrations it's now famous for. These were later added to flesh out the second and longest chapter, which deals with sex.
While there have been many translations, the most common is the 1883 translation by British explorer and writer, Sir Richard Burton.
HAKSAR: And that translation is couched in, let us say, 19th Century language and the impression I have is that it concentrates more on the second book of the Kama Sutra.
The other six chapters of the book give advice on how to live as, in Mr Haksar's words, a "cultivated gentleman.
HAKSAR: Marriage, courtship, relations within marriage both monogamous and poligamous. The next book is about extra-marital relations, life in the harem, courtesans. And the final book is about various kinds of prescriptions for improving one's attractiveness and improving one's ability to influence the other partner.
COCHRANE: These have been given updated chapter headings, such as "Making a Pass", "Girls to Avoid" and "Why Women Get Turned Off".
While the language has been updated, discussions of how to best handle other men's wives and how to manage a harem, might seem at odds with the expectations of modern couples.
Anne Holland is a psychologist and the CEO of the New South Wales branch of Relationships Australia.
HOLLAND: Self-help books, of all kinds, if you think of the Kama Sutra as a self-help book or a relationship guide, there's a thread of truth in just about everything you read but there's obviously also going to be some quirky pieces that are not so relevant for 2010.
COCHRANE: Anne Holland says the prospect of another version of the Kama Sutra - even with so many other lifestyle guides available - shows the desire for advice on sex and relationships.
HOLLAND: We must be pretty desperate if we're prepared to hear advice from wise people form the 3rd Century AD!
COCHRANE: But for the new edition's translator Aditya Haksar, the age of the book is no barrier to its importance.
HAKSAR: Whenever there are men and women and they deal with each other, you have these relations, you have these issues. And to that extent I think it has a timeless relevance.
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