When commencing upon The Kama Sutra, Indraji—for he was the actual translator—found his copy, which had been procured in Bombay, to be defective, so he wrote to Benares, Calcutta and Jeypoor for copies of the manuscripts preserved in the Sanskrit libraries of those places. These having been obtained and compared with each other, a revised copy of the entire work was compiled and from this Indraji made his translation. "This work," he says, "is not to be used merely as an instrument for satisfying our desires. A person acquainted with the true principles of this science, who preserved his Dharma (virtue or religious merit), his Artha (worldly wealth) and his Kama (pleasure, or sensual gratification), and who has regard to the customs of the people, is sure to obtain the mastery over his senses. In short, an intelligent and knowing person, attending to Dharma, and Artha and also to Kama, without becoming the slave of his passions, will obtain success in everything that he may do." According to Vatsyayana, Kama should be taught just as is taught—say, hygiene or political economy. "A man practising Dharma, Artha and Kama enjoys happiness both in this world and in the world to come." It must not be supposed that the work is entirely erotic. There are also directions for one's conduct at religious festivals, especially that in honour of Saraswati, 396 picnics, drinking parties and other social gatherings. Still, the erotic preponderates. The work is mainly a handbook on Love. One is informed respecting what women are or are not worthy of affection. There are full instructions respecting kissing, an art which is not so easy to learn as some persons think. Still, a man who could not kiss properly after reading the Kama Sutra would be a dullard indeed. Some of the remarks are quaint enough. Thus we are told that "nothing tends to increase love so much as the effects of marking with the nails 397 and biting." Some girls when asked in marriage are slow to make up their minds. With that situation there are, it seems, several ways of dealing. The simplest is the following: "When the girl goes to a garden, or to some village in the neigbourhood, the man should, with his friends, fall on her guards, and having killed them, or frightened them away, forcibly carry her off." Sometime it is the man who is shy. In such cases the girl "should bring him to her house under the pretence of seeing the fights of quails, cocks and rams, of hearing the maina (a kind of starling) talk.... she should also amuse him for a long time by telling him such stories and doing such things as he may take most delight in."

For Edwin and Angelina when they get married there is also much wholesome instruction. "The wife, whether she be a woman of noble family or a virgin widow re-married, 398 should lead a chaste life." "When the man sets out on a journey she should make him swear that he will return quickly. 399... When the man does return home she should worship the God Kama." Ladies will be interested to learn that there are twenty-seven artifices by which a woman can get money out of a man. One is "Praising his intelligence to his face." Then there are useful directions for the personal adornment of both sexes. "If the bone of a peacock or of a hyena be covered with gold and tied to the right hand, it makes a man lovely in the eyes of other people."

Of the essential portions of the book it is sufficient to say that they are similar to those of the other avowedly erotic Eastern works, the contents of the principal of which have been touched upon by Burton in the Terminal Essay to his Arabian Nights and in some of his notes. Finally we are told that the Kama Sutra was composed for the benefit of the world by Vatsyayana, while leading the life of a religious student, and wholly engaged in the contemplation of the Deity. At the same time, the teaching of this holy man amounts to very much the same as that of Maupassant, which is, to use Tolstoy's words, "that life consists in pleasures of which woman with her love is the chief, and in the double, again reflected delight of depicting this love and exciting it in others." 400

The work lets a flood of light on Hindu manners and customs; and it must be borne in mind that the translation was issued privately at a high price and intended only for "curious students." In the Preface, Burton and Arbuthnot observe that after a perusal of the Hindoo work the reader will understand the subject upon which it treats, "At all events from a materialistic, realistic and practical point of view. If all science is founded more or less on a stratum of facts, there can be no harm in making known to mankind generally certain matters intimately connected with their private, domestic and social life. Alas! complete ignorance of them has unfortunately wrecked many a man and many a woman, while a little knowledge of a subject generally ignored by the masses would have enabled numbers of people to understand many things which they believed to be quite incomprehensible, or which were not thought worthy of their consideration."

Writing to Payne, 15th January, 1883, Burton says, "Has Arbuthnot sent you his Vatsyayana? 401 He and I and the Printer have started a Hindu Kama Shastra (Ars Amoris Society). It will make the Brit(ish) Pub(lis) stare. Please encourage him." Later Arbuthnot, in reply to a question put to him by a friend, said that the Society consisted practically of himself, Sir Richard Burton and the late Lord Houghton. 402