One of the best English translations of this ancient Indian treatise on politics, social mores, love, and intimacy are the Kama Sutra, which Mallanaga Vatsyayana wrote in the second century CE. Its clean presentation raised the bar for Sanskrit translation. The Kama Sutra is a unique combination of sexology, society, psychology. It has been hailed as a great work of Indian literature for more than 1,700 years and has served as a window for the West into the mysticism and culture of the East. The Kama Sutra, a prehistoric Indian literature, is regarded as the most important Sanskrit study of human sexuality. The Kama Sutra remains one of the most accessible and entertaining of all the ancient classics, having been written with frankness and unassuming simplicity. The Kama Sutra is so significant as a work of philosophy, psychology, sociology, theology, science, and sexology that it simultaneously had an impact on Indian civilization and remained a crucial component in understanding it.
The Kama Sutra was written by the ancient Indian scholar Vatsyayana. He was a brahmin who lived in Pataliputra, India, around the second or third century CE (modern-day Patna in Bihar). He should not be confused with Pakila Min Vatsyayana, who wrote the first preserved commentary on Gotama's Nyaya Sutras, the Nyaya Sutra Bhshya. His name is occasionally mistaken for that of Mallanaga, the Asuras' seer, who is credited with creating erotic science. He is thought by some to have lived between the first and sixth centuries CE. He claims that Malayevati, Satakarni Satavahana's wife, was murdered by the Kuntali monarch Satakarni Satavahana, who struck her with a weapon known as the Katari during an intense love affair. Vatsyayana uses this story as an example to caution people about the dangers associated with some outdated habits of hitting women when experiencing intense sexual passion. Vatsyayana must have lived after this Kuntal ruler, who is thought to have lived and ruled. On the other hand, another author, Varahamihira, covers the science of love in the eighth chapter of his "Brihatsanhita," and it appears that he has heavily cited Vatsyayana in doing so.
