Only a fifth of the Kama Sutra deals with sexual positions
Kama is usually translated as sexual desire, yet the old Sanskrit idea covers far more: a moving piece of music, a sunset, a crafted object, a child hugging a teddy bear. Hindu thought treats it as one of four rightful aims of life, to be enjoyed alongside duty, prosperity and liberation.
In Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, kama names pleasure, enjoyment and longing. Modern Indian writing tends to narrow it to sexual appetite, but older texts stretch it to any sensory delight or aesthetic thrill, from dance and painting to the natural world. The word turns up in some of the earliest Vedic verses, including the creation hymn in Book 10 of the Rig Veda, and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad uses it for desire in general.
Hindu tradition ranks kama among the four purusharthas, the worthwhile goals of a human life, next to dharma (ethical living), artha (material security) and moksha (liberation). The Mahabharata defines it as any agreeable experience that arises when the senses meet their objects, provided it stays in harmony with those other aims. Vatsyayana, author of the Kamasutra, calls it happiness rooted in the mind and ranks it below artha, with dharma placed above both. Some texts suggest the order shifts with age: artistic desire leads in childhood, kama and artha in youth, dharma in old age.
The Kamasutra itself is often mistaken for a sex manual. Only about 20 percent concerns positions; Jacob Levy notes that most of the book explores what sparks desire, what sustains it and when it helps or harms. Vatsyayana answers critics who saw pleasure as a threat to virtue and work by comparing it to food, and to a farmer who keeps planting even though deer will raid the field.
As a god, Kama is Kamadeva, partnered with Rati and often likened to Eros. He rides a parrot and shoots flower-tipped arrows from a sugarcane bow strung with a line of bees; one name, Ananga, means limbless, because desire strikes unseen. Buddhism and Jainism take a sterner view: monks and nuns must overcome kama to escape rebirth, while lay people may pursue it, and Buddhist cosmology places humans in a Desire Realm below the Form and Formless realms.
Source: Kama
