ublished by the Kama Shastra Society--each of which
purported, facetiously, to be printed at Behares, the name which Burton
chose to give to Stoke Newington, we shall now give a brief account.

Several, we said, are erotic. But it should be clearly understood what
is here meant by the term. The plays of Wycherley and other Caroline
dramatists are erotic in a bad sense. We admit their literary qualities,
but we cannot hide from ourselves the fact that they were written by
libertines and that an attempt is made to render vice attractive. The
injured husband, for example, is invariably ridiculed, the adulterer
glorified. The Hindu books, on the other hand, were written by
professedly religious men whose aim was "not to encourage chambering and
wantonness, but simply and in all sincerity to prevent the separation
of husband and wife"--not to make them a married couple look afield,
but "to lead them to love each other more by understanding each other
better." Vatsyayan and Kullianmull, [394] indeed, though they poetized
the pleasures of the flesh, would have been horrified could they
have read the plays of Wycherley and Etheridge. The erotic books that
Arbuthnot wished to be translated were the following--all by Hindu poets
more or less famous:--

The Kama Sutra (Book of Love) by Vatsyayana.
Ananga Ranga (Stage of Love) by Kullianmull.
Ratirahasya (Secrets of Love) by Kukkoka.
Panchasakya (The Five Arrows) by Jyotirisha.
Smara Pradipa (Light of Love) by Gunakara.
Ratimanjari (Garland of Love) by Jayadeva.
Rasmanjari (Sprout of Love) by Bhanudatta.

Of these seven books two only were issued, namely the Kama Sutra and the
Ananga Ranga or Lila Shastra. The precise share that Burton [395] had in
them will never be known. It is sufficient to say that he had a share in
both, and the second, according to the title page, was "translated from
the Sanskrit and annotated by A. F. F. and B. F. R.," that is F. F.
Arbuthnot and Richard Francis Bacon--the initials being purposely
reversed.

115. The Kama Sutra.

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 Indra