The text is a mix of prose and anustubh -meter poetry verses. Kamasutra acknowledges the Hindu concept of purusharthas , and lists desire, sexuality, and emotional fulfillment as one of the proper goals of life. It discussed methods for courtship, training in the arts to be socially engaging, finding a partner, flirting, maintaining power in a married life, when and how to commit adultery , sexual positions, and other topics.
The text is one of many Indian texts on Kama Shastra. According to Wendy Doniger , the Kamasutra became "one of the most pirated books in English language" soon after it was published in by Richard Burton. This first European edition by Burton does not faithfully reflect much in the Kamasutra because he revised the collaborative translation by Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivaram Parashuram Bhide with Forster Arbuthnot to suit 19th-century Victorian tastes.
The original composition date or century for the Kamasutra is unknown. For these reasons, she dates the Kama Sutra to the second half of the 3rd century CE. The place of its composition is also unclear. The likely candidates are urban centers of north India, alternatively in the eastern urban Pataliputra now Patna. Kamasutra was considered to have been put together from a chapter manuscript that had itself been distilled from chapters which in turn came from a compilation of some , chapters of text.
It was thought to have been written in its final form sometime between the third and fifth century CE. This suggests he lived before the 5th-century CE.
The Hindu tradition has the concept of the Purusharthas which outlines "four main goals of life". Each of these pursuits became a subject of study and led to prolific Sanskrit and some Prakrit languages literature in ancient India.
