Chapters 3, 4 and 5: The Nineteenth Century
The two best biographies of Richard F. Burton are Dane Kennedy’s The Highly Civilized Man: Richard Burton and the Victorian World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005); and Mary S. Lovell’s A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1998). They couldn’t be more different: the former brilliantly and succinctly places Burton in his intellectual context; the latter is an authoritative and engaging reconstruction of Richard and Isabel’s lives based on meticulous bibliographical essay examination of the sources. Fawn M. Brodie’s The Devil Drives, A Life of Sir Richard Burton (New York: Ballantine, 1967) is an attractively written classic, but rather undermined by psycho-sexual speculation. For a more antique flavour, Thomas Wright’s original The Life of Sir Richard Burton (London: Everett & Co., 1906) is available online at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/burton/richard/b97zw/
There is just one academic essay on the cultural context of the 1883 printing of the Kamasutra, a thoughtful piece by Ben Grant, ‘Translating “The” Kama Sutra’, in Third World Quarterly Special Issue: Connecting Cultures, 26/3 (September 2005). Henry Spencer Ashbee’s Bibliography of Prohibited Books was printed in three volumes under this title in 1962 (New York: Jack Brussel, 1962); a shorter version edited by Peter Fryer appears as Forbidden Books of the Victorians: Henry Spencer Ashbee’s Bibliographies of Erotica (London: Odyssey Press Ltd, 1970). Ian Gibson’s The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee (London: Faber & Faber, 2001) is an excellent biography. It outs Ashbee as the sex diarist ‘Walter’, whose My Secret Life has recently been republished in separate volumes with the subtitle The Sex Diaries of a Victorian Gentleman (Bath: Chalford Press, 2006); a text can also be found online at www.my-secret-life.info
There is no biography of Bhagvanlal Indraji, though Virchand Dharamsey was preparing one at the time of writing, provisionally entitled Bhagwanlal Indraji: First Indian Archaeologist and His Period. All Indraji’s works are out of print. No works by Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot are in print, either, nor are any of the Western works on sex cited by him in the Preface to the 1883 Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana – except Richard Carlile’s Every Woman’s Book, republished as What is Love? Richard Carlile’s Philosophy of Sex, edited by M.L. Bush (London: Verso, 1998). Charles Knowlton’s 1832 Fruits of Philosophy was last republished in 1981 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
The secondary literature on nineteenth-century sexuality is extensive and of high quality. The landmark is Peter Gay’s monumental series, The Bourgeois Experience from Victoria to Freud (London and New York: Norton, 1993–9); the five volumes are entitled Education of the Senses; The Tender Passion; The Cultivation of Hatred; The Naked Heart; and Pleasure Wars. Steven Marcus’s enthralling The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England (London: Norton, 1985) shows how sexual literature – and sex itself – thrived in the period. Michael Mason’s twin books, The Making of Victorian Sexuality (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) and The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), by contrast, assert that Victorian anti-sensualism was a powerful force. The first of the pair focuses on actual sexual behaviour and the medical and social beliefs about it; the second concentrates on the philosophical, religious and political ideas that underpinned sexual attitudes. The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650–1950 by Roy Porter and Lesley A. Hall (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995) is an authoritative study incorporating key research on nineteenth-century sex manuals and medical-scientific literature on sex.
Among the more specialized books on nineteenth-century sex, Ian Gibson’s The English Vice: Beating, Sex and Shame in Victorian England and After (London: Duckworth, 1978) is a well-researched study of sexual flagellation. James G. Nelson’s Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Parson, With an appendix on Smithers and the Erotic Book Trade by Peter Mendes (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000) gives a powerful taste of the world of pornographic publishing at the end of the Victorian period. Lisa Z. Sigel’s Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815–1914 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002) is a good if somewhat swift treatment of the topic. James Pope-Hennessy’s dated two-parter, Monckton Milnes: The Years of Promise (London: Constable, 1951) and Monckton Milnes: The Flight of Youth (London: Constable, 1951) is the only biography of Milnes; unfortunately, it gives short weight to his erotic preoccupations.
There is remarkably little literature on the West’s discovery of India’s literary heritage. John Keay does the job very engagingly for the discovery of India’s monumental heritage, in India Discovered: The Recovery of a Lost Civilization (London: HarperCollins, 2001), but there is comparatively little on the discovery of Sanskrit literature in the book. Raymond Schwab’s The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Rediscovery of India and the East, 1680–1880 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984) has more detail, but the focus is on French Indology – and the book is out of print. Ronald Inden’s impressive and serious Imagining India (Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1990) describes how India has been constructed in the Western imagination; as such, it covers a good number of nineteenth-century accounts – without touching on the erotic. Peter van der Veer’s Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001) pushes the post-colonial thesis that the nineteenth-century encounter shaped both Britain and India; in doing so, it follows some fascinating byways on the cultural map of both countries.
Two contentious and much cited books have to be mentioned here. Scholars have been falling over themselves in recent years to decry or disprove Edward Said’s Orientalism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003); it is indeed poorly researched, and it frequently overstates its case, but it remains provocative and fascinating. The same is true – in even greater degree – of Michel Foucault’s seminal bibliographical essay introductory volume to his History of Sexuality, published as The Will to Know, translated by Robert Hurley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998); this book’s ignorance of the facts of sexual history – especially outside Europe – is only matched by its confidence in making general statements about it.
Chapters 6 and 7: The Twentieth Century
The 1963 Kamasutra, with W.G. Archer’s preface and K.M. Panikkar’s introduction, is frequently republished; a recent edition is The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (New York: Berkley Trade, 2004). S.C. Upadhyaya’s translation has recently appeared as Kama Sutra: the Hindu Art of Love (London: Watkins, 2004), complete with his explanatory notes. Sadly, it is hard to get hold of Mulk Raj Anand and Lance Dane’s The Love Teachings of Kama Sutra (London: Spring, 1980).
Alain Daniélou’s The Complete Kama Sutra, translated by Ken Hurry (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 1994) continues to remain in print, as does one of his more curious works, The Phallus: Sacred Symbol of the Male Creative Power, translated by Jon Graham (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 1995). Daniélou’s oddly egotistical autobiography is entitled The Way to the Labyrinth: Memories of East and West, translated by Marie-Claire Cournand (New York: New Directions, 1987). The only biography of Daniélou is a French-language double-hander that also covers his cardinal brother: Emmanuelle Boysson’s Le Cardinal et l’Hindouiste. Le Mystère des frères Daniélou (Paris: Albin Michel, 1999).
Arthur E. Salmon’s workmanlike biography, Alex Comfort (Boston: Twayne, 1978) and Comfort’s own Sexual Behaviour in Society (London: Duckworth, 1950) are out of print. The Joy of Sex, of course, continues to sell handsomely; it was recently republished for its bibliographical essay thirtieth anniversary with accompanying photographs (London: Mitchell Beazley, 2004). Books living in the twilight world of popular ‘Kama Sutras’, however, seem to live pretty disposable existences. Anne Hooper’s K.I
.S.S. Guide to the Kama Sutra (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2001) is one of the few worth recommending – either as a sex guide or as an introduction to the Kamasutra. The two ‘pop-up’ Kamasutras are Jonathan Biggs and Bob Robinson’s The Pop-up Kama Sutra (New York: Bonanza, 1984); and Keith Finch and Andy Crowson’s The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana in Pop-up (London: Collins & Brown, 2003).
Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) is a collection of typically thoughtful essays from the psychologist, novelist and Kamasutra expert Sudhir Kakar. Two solid academic books on homosexuality in India are Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History, edited by Saleem Kidwai and Ruth Vanita (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), and Queering India: Same-sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, edited by Ruth Vanita (New York and London: Routledge, 2002). The former includes Vanita’s excellent essay on the early reception of the Kamasutra in India, ‘The Kamasutra in the Twentieth Century’, and her study of homosexuality in the Kamasutra, ‘Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra’. Queering India has an intriguing essay by Michael J. Sweet on ‘Eunuchs, Lesbians and Other Mythical Beasts: Queering and Dequeering the Kama Sutra’.
Two useful academic essays focus on the career of the Kamasutra in modern India and 1960s America, respectively: Jyoti Puri, ‘Concerning Kamasutras: Challenging Narratives of History and Sexuality’, in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 27/3 (2002); Valerie Peterson, ‘Text As Cultural Antagonist: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana’, in the Journal of Communication Inquiry 26/2 (April 2002). William Mazzarella’s lively and intelligent essay, ‘Citizens have Sex, Consumers Make Love: Marketing KamaSutra Condoms in Bombay’, can be found in Brian Moeran (ed.), Asian Media Productions (London: Curzon Press; Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001).
Sudhir Kakar’s The Ascetic of Desire: A Novel of the Kama Sutra (New York: Overlook Press, 2000) is an insightful conjuring of Vatsyayana’s world, but Ecstasy (New York: Overlook Press, 2002), his disturbing pseudo-biography of a guru not entirely dissimilar to Sri Ramakrishna, is perhaps more successful as a novel. Avatar Prabhu’s The Revised Kamasutra: A Novel (Fairfield, Iowa: Sunstar Publishing, 1998) is both clever and funny. Lee Siegel’s Love in a Dead Language: A Romance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) is brilliant, playful and outrageous; if you read only one book mentioned in this essay – apart from the Kamasutra itself, of course – make it this one.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the many librarians, archivists and bibliophiles around the world who have helped me in my search for obscure editions of the Kamasutra and material relating to Arbuthnot, Burton and Indraji. My thanks go to: Keith Arbuthnot; William Arbuthnot; Nicholas Bacuez at the Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin; Susan Bellany at the National Library of Scotland; Jacques Cloarec; Amy Deuink at Penn State Schuylkill; Sylvain Dumont at Alain Danielou.org; Gillian Evison, Doris Nicholson and all the staff at the Indian Institute, Bodleian Library, Oxford; Ivana Frlan at the University of Birmingham; John Goldfinch, Michael O’Keefe and the staff at the British Library’s Oriental and India Office Collection; Diane Hudson at the Fitzwilliam; Caroline Hay at Christies; Betsy Kohut at the Smithsonian; Alice McEwan at the Royal Asiatic Society, London; Mark de Novellis at Orleans House; Steve Pepple at Buddenbrooks; Loren Rothschild; David E. Schoonoverat at the University of Iowa; Kiran Sethi at Raymond India; Arlene Shaner at the NewYork Academy of Medicine; Punita Singh and Mark Tewfik at Maggs Bros Rare Books.
Many Sanskritists and other writers and scholars have been extremely generous with their expertise. I would like to thank: Tony Brown; Simon Dawson; Vidya Dehejia; Laura Desmond; Virchand Dharamsey; Rachel Dwyer; Phillip Ernest; Ben Grant; Lesley Hall; Justine Hardy; Anne Hooper; Hanco Jürgens; Sudhir Kakar; Dane Kennedy; Christopher Minkowski; Klaus Mylius; Isabel Onians; Cinzia Pieruccini; Michael Rabe; Ludo Rocher; Rosane Rocher; David Smith; Linda Sonntag; Matthew Sweet; Somdev Vasudeva; Marika Vicziany; Peter Wyzlic; and Kenneth Zysk. Especial thanks must go to Wendy Doniger; Mary Lovell; Lee Siegel; and Chlodwig H. Werba. Their advice and inspiration have been invaluable. All errors remain, of course, my own.
For their help and friendship, I would like to thank Jerry Goodman; Anne-Celine Jaeger; Ita Mac Carthy; Jan Piggott; Caroline Schafer; John Scholar; Andrew Vereker; and Theodore Zeldin. My particular thanks go to my television agent, Sophie Laurimore at William Morris; my Nepali ‘Jifea’ friends, who first introduced me to the Kamasutra; and Jonathan Buckley, who has always encouraged me.
Finally, I’d like to thank my editors, Louisa Joyner and Sarah Norman, and everyone else at Atlantic – especially Toby Mundy, for trusting me with this book. And, for their incredible support and for reading so intelligently, I would like to thank Robin, Gwen and Moray McConnachie; Richard Scholar; and, above all, Alice Hunt.
Index
Abhira dynasty 8
Ablaing, R.C. d’ 151
Acton, William 161–2, 165, 167
adultery 25–6, 56, 101–2, 135, 194, 200
and Indian Penal Code 198
Akbar, Emperor 59
Ali, Sayyid Hasan, Lawful Enjoyment of Women 71
Amaru, Amarusataka 43–4
Anand, Mulk Raj 191, 224, 227–8
Ananga Ranga 55–7, 114
Burton’s footnotes 95–6, 222
English translation 92, 94–101, 105, 130–2, 139, 222, 245
illustrations 92
and Kamasutra 100–1, 119
publication 169–70, 188
title 97
Andhra dynasty 8
Anthropological Society of London 80–3, 90
aphrodisiacs 30, 50, 71, 114, 166, 215
Arabian Nights
Burton’s translation xiv, 81, 89, 91, 128–30, 141–2, 144, 170–1, 184
Isabel Burton’s version 142
Payne’s translation 128, 141, 147–8
Arbuthnot, Elinor (née Stirling) 138, 173
Arbuthnot, Foster Fitzgerald and Ashbee 152–3, 159–60, 167–8
and Burton 92–6, 110, 118–22, 128–9, 145–6, 172–3
and discovery of Kamasutra 12, 100–2, 110, 115–16, 118–20
and Hinduism and Christianity 82–3
and Indraji 117–18, 123–4, 127
marriage 138
and Milnes 94
and Orientalism 111
and sadism 157
and sexual ignorance 159–61, 164
translations
Ananga Ranga 92, 94–102, 132, 139, 144, 169–70
Kamasutra xiii, xv, xvii, 123–5, 127–30, 132–3, 143–4, 147–52, 155, 162–3, 181–3, 209
writings 247
Early Ideas 138–40, 143, 149, 158
Sex Mythology, Including an Account of the Masculine Cross 130
Archer, W. G. 68–9, 129, 192–5, 210, 246
Aretino, Pietro 219–20
Aristotle’s Masterpiece 162
art, erotic xi, 57–61, 202, 223–4, 245–6
artha
definition 23–4
and kama 26, 29, 199
Arthashastra 26–8, 207, 240
asceticism, and sensuality 4–6, 194, 197–9, 231
Ashbee, Charles 107–8
Ashbee, Henry Spencer 115–16, 125
and Arbuthnot 152–3, 159–60, 167–8
and Burton 153
Catena Librorum Absconditorum 100, 110, 153
De Secretis Mulierum 219
Index Librorum Prohibitorum xvi, 99–100, 148, 152–3
and Kamasutra 152–4
and My Secret Life 99, 156, 162
Auchmuty, Gen. Samuel 67, 75
Aufrecht, Theodor 74–5
Avery, Edward 133, 180
Babhravya 17, 18–19, 21, 24, 35
Barrett, Mary 194
Basu, B.N. 201
bayadères see nautch girls
Beardsley, Aubrey 172, 189
Beharistan 144
Bell, T., Kalogynomia 166–7
Bellamy, Edward Henry Vaux 89–90, 94, 151–2
Besant, Annie 146–7, 164, 184
Bhagavadgita xiv, 5, 72, 184
bhakti cult 47–8, 206
Bharata, Natyashastra 21, 36–41, 48–9, 57, 58, 242
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) xii, 239
Bhartrihari (poet) 5–6
Bhaskar, Sanjeev 222–3
Bhattacharya, Narendra Nath 222
Bhide, Shivaram Parshuram xvi, 125–7, 133, 181, 232
The Bibliographer 153–4
birth control 146–7, 163, 164
Blackwell, Elizabeth 161–2, 185
Blaine, Mahlon 189
Blunt, Wilfred Scawen 77, 109
Bodleian Library xvi, 74, 182–3
books, in 3rd-century India 19–20
Bradlaugh, Charles 83, 146–7, 164
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3, 18
British Library xvi
Brussel, Jack 189
Bryan, Frederick van Pelt 19
bubus, and Burton 66, 69–70
Buddhism, and kama 5
Bühler, Johann Georg 111–17, 124–6, 144, 181
Burgess, James 116, 125
Burnier, Rymond 203, 223
Burton (née Arundell), Isabel 84, 90, 94, 95–6, 105–7, 140
clandestine marriage 79, 107
and death of Richard Burton 173–5
The Book of Love- The Story of the Kamasutra Page 24