Kama Sutra - Content

Content

Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra has 1250 verses, distributed in 36 chapters, which are further organized into 7 parts. According to both the Burton and Doniger translations, the contents of the book are structured into 7 parts like the following:

1. General remarks
5 chapters on contents of the book, three aims and priorities of life, the acquisition of knowledge, conduct of the well-bred townsman, reflections on intermediaries who assist the lover in his enterprises.
2. Amorous advances/Sexual union
10 chapters on stimulation of desire, types of embraces, caressing and kisses, marking with nails, biting and marking with teeth, on copulation (positions), slapping by hand and corresponding moaning, virile behavior in women, superior coition and oral sex, preludes and conclusions to the game of love. It describes 64 types of sexual acts.
3. Acquiring a wife
5 chapters on forms of marriage, relaxing the girl, obtaining the girl, managing alone, union by marriage.
4. Duties and privileges of the wife
2 chapters on conduct of the only wife and conduct of the chief wife and other wives.
5. Other men's wives
6 chapters on behavior of woman and man, how to get acquainted, examination of sentiments, the task of go-between, the king's pleasures, behavior in the women's quarters.
6. About courtesans
6 chapters on advice of the assistants on the choice of lovers, looking for a steady lover, ways of making money, renewing friendship with a former lover, occasional profits, profits and losses.
7. Occult practices
2 chapters on improving physical attractions, arousing a weakened sexual power.

Read more about this topic:  Kama Sutra

Famous quotes containing the word content:

    “I have sometimes seen women, who would have been sensible enough, if they would have been content not to be called women of sense—but by aiming at what they had not, they only proved absurd—for sense cannot be counterfeited.”
    —Horace Walpole (1717–1797)

    “You can hardly convince a man of an error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “You are not satisfied unless form is so strictly divorced from content that you can comprehend the one without almost without bothering to read the other.”
    —Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)