The Kamasutra is the oldest extant textbook of erotic love. But it is more than a book about sex. It is about the art of living--about finding a partner, maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs--and also, of course, about the many and varied positions available to lovers in sexual intercourse and the pleasures to be derived from each.
The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century, probably in North India. It combines an encyclopedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual psychology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction, consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation by Sir Richard Burton, the text is newly translated here into clear, vivid, sexually frank English. This edition also includes a section of vivid Indian color illustrations along with three uniquely important commentaries: translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (thirteenth century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators.
The lively and entertaining introduction by translator Wendy Doniger, one of the world's foremost Sanskrit scholars, discusses the history of The Kamasutra and its reception in India and Europe, analyses its attitudes toward gender and sexual violence, and sets it in the context of ancient Indian social theory, scientific method, and sexual ethics.
" This] new translation is fascinating, thought-provoking and occasionally even amusing."--Salon.com
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It is 1925 and India's struggle for independence is in disarray, impeded by factionalism among its leaders and rising incidents of unrest across the country. Meanwhile, having withdrawn himself from active politics, Mahatma Gandhi is in an ashram immersed in what he considers the most important undertaking of his life--the creation of a community that is wholly dedicated to the highest standards of self-discipline, tolerance, and austerity.
Into this world comes a young British woman named Madeline, the daughter of a British admiral. Madeline has set her heart on becoming Gandhi's greatest disciple. Madeline's wish to serve him soon becomes an all-consuming desire to be near him at all times. Because her adoration of the great teacher is in direct conflict with his exacting moral and spiritual codes, Gandhi struggles with wanting to distance himself from her, yet wanting not to let go of her love and friendship.
Using words preserved in their letters and diaries, and drawing on the reminiscences of others, the author has created a compelling fictional narrative based on the extraordinary friendship that lasted over two decades between these two people.
To learn more about the author, Sudhir Kakar, go to www.sudhirkakar.com.

For decades India has been the scene of outbursts of religious violence, thrusting many ordinary Hindus and Muslims into bloody conflict. This work analyzes the psychological roots of Hindu-Muslim violence and examines the subjective experience of religious hatred in the author's native land. Sudhir Kakar discusses the profoundly enigmatic relations that link individual egos to cultural moralities and religious violence. His psychological approach offers a framework for understanding the kind of ethnic-religious conflict that characterizes the turmoil in India. Using case studies, he explores cultural stereotypes, religious antagonisms, ethnocentric histories and episodic violence to trace the development of both Hindu and Muslim psyches. Kakar argues that in early childhood the social identity of every Indian is grounded in traditional religious identifications and communalism. Together these bring about deep-set psychological anxieties and animosities toward the other. For Hindus and Muslims alike, violence becomes morally acceptable when communally and religiously sanctioned. As the changing pressures of modernization and secularism in a multicultural society grate at this entrenched communalism, and as each group vies for power, ethnic-religious conflicts ignite. Sudhir Kakar is also the author of "The Analyst and the Mystic: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism", "Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality" and "Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions", all published by the University of Chicago Press.

Flowing effortlessly from Sudhir Kakar's descriptions of his early life in undivided India to discussions on the Indian psyche and sexuality, India Analysed discusses Kakar's views on secularism and modern Indian leaders such as Gandhi and Nehru wherein he brings to bear his intellect on a wide range of issues such as philosophy, Indian culture and tradition, and the Partition, and, in doing so, reveals the psychological make-up of the contemporary Indian. Part of Ramin Jahanbegloo's series of interviews with prominent intellectuals who have influenced modern Indian thought, this candid and freewheeling conversation demystifies many of the complex ideas of the eminent psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar.

Sudhir Kakar, India's foremost practitioner of psychoanalysis, has focused his career on infusing this preeminently Western discipline with ideas and views from the East. In "Mad and Divine," he takes on the separation of the spirit and the body favored by psychoanalysts, cautioning that a single-minded focus on the physical denies a person's wholeness. Similarly, Kakar argues, to focus on the spirit alone is to hold in contempt the body that makes us human.

"Mad and Divine" looks at the interplay between spirit and psyche and the moments of creativity and transformation that occur when the spirit overcomes desire and narcissism. Kakar examines this relationship in religious rituals and healing traditions-- both Eastern and Western--as well as in the lives of some extraordinary men: the mystic and guru Rajneesh, Gandhi, and the Buddhist saint Drukpa Kunley.

Enriched with a novelist's felicity of language and an analyst's piercing insights and startling interpretations, "Mad and Divine" is a valuable addition to the literature on the integration of the spirit and psyche in the evolving psychology of the individual.

Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst and scholar, brilliantly illuminates the ancient healing traditions of India embodied in the rituals of shamans, the teachings of gurus, and the precepts of the school of medicine known as Ayurveda. With extraordinary sympathy, open-mindedness, and insight Sudhir Kakar has drawn from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to show how the gulf that divides native healer from Western psychiatrist can be spanned.--Rosemary Dinnage, New York Review of Books Each chapter describes the geographical and cultural context within which the healers work, their unique approach to healing mental illness, and . . . the philosophical and religious underpinnings of their theories compared with psychoanalytical theory.--Choice

In this bold, enlightening, and readable study, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar and anthropologist Katharina Kakar investigate the nature of "Indian-ness," that sense of unity that underlies modern India's tremendous diversity, beyond ethnic or social differences. Focusing on what constitutes a common Indian identity, the authors examine in detail the complex hierarchical organization of Indian social life, based on the caste system; strong familial ties, founded upon the concept of extended family; the ayurvedic influence on health and body image; the modest attitude toward sex and marriage; the role of women in society; and the concept of the "other," especially as it applies to Hindu-Muslim relations. Drawing upon three decades of research and sources as varied as the Mahabharata, the Kama Sutra, the writings of Gandhi, Bollywood movies, and popular folklore, the Kakars have created here a rich and colorful portrait of Indian society.
"En este solido, esclarecedor y ameno estudio, el psicoanalista Sudhir Kakar y la antropologa Katharina Kakar investigan la naturaleza de la "indianidad," esa unidad que subyace en la gran diversidad de la India moderna, mas alla de las diferencias etnicas o sociales. Centrandose en lo que constituye una comun identidad india, los autores examinen en detalle el complejo mundo jerarquico de las relaciones sociales indias, basado en la institucion de la casta; la particular concepcion de los vinculos familiares, derivada de la idea de familia extensa; la influencia del ayurveda en la imagen del cuerpo humano y la salud; la pudorosa actitud hacia el sexo y el matrimonio; el papel de la mujer en la sociedad; y la percepcion del "otro," con especial enfasis en el conflicto hindu-musulman. Apoyados en tres decadas de investigacion y fuentes tan variadas como el Mahabharata, el Kamasutra, los escritos de Gandhi, las peliculas de Bollywood y el folclore popular, los Kakar han creado con esta obra un riquisimo y cromatico retrato de la sociedad india."