Editing Kama Sutra (section)

== Date and authorship ==
[[File:Kama, mithuna artwork in Hindu temples.jpg|thumb|Kama-related arts are common in Hindu temples. These scenes include courtship, amorous couples in scenes of intimacy (mithuna), or a sexual position. Above: 6th- to 14th-century temples in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Nepal.]]
The original composition date or century for the ''Kamasutra'' is unknown. Historians have variously placed it between 400 BCE and 300 CE.<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Refractions of Desire, Feminist Perspectives in the Novels of Toni Morrison, Michèle Roberts, and Anita Desai|author=Sengupta, J.|date=2006|publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Distributors|isbn=978-81-269-0629-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V9Y_tQfm_WgC|page=21|access-date=7 December 2014|archive-date=4 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504150511/https://books.google.com/books?id=V9Y_tQfm_WgC|url-status=live}}</ref>{{NoteTag|Sengupta cites only on the 300/400 BCE dating, with the other authors below citing the dating to occur up until 300 CE}} According to [[John Keay]], the ''Kama Sutra'' is a compendium that was collected into its present form in the 2nd century CE.<ref>{{cite book|title=India: A History: from the Earliest Civilisations to the Boom of the Twenty-first Century|pages=81–103|author=John Keay|publisher=Grove Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-8021-9550-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AUPZt-4yqzQC|access-date=10 December 2014|archive-date=20 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150520151418/https://books.google.com/books?id=AUPZt-4yqzQC|url-status=live}}</ref> In contrast, the Indologist Wendy Doniger, who had co-translated the ''Kama Sutra'' and published many papers on related Hindu texts, stated that the surviving version of the ''Kama Sutra'' must have been revised or composed after 225 CE because it mentions the Abhiras and the Andhras, dynasties that did not co-rule major regions of ancient India before that year.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xi-xii with footnote 2}} The text makes no mention of the [[Gupta Empire]], which ruled over major urban areas of ancient India, reshaping arts, culture, and economy from the 4th century through the 6th century CE. For these reasons, she dates the ''Kama Sutra'' to the second half of the 3rd century CE.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xi-xii with footnote 2}} Doniger notes Kama Sutra was composed "sometime in the third century of the common era, most likely in its second half, at the dawn of the [[Gupta Empire]]".{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=iii}}

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]]).{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=iii-xi-xii}} Vatsyayana Mallanaga is its widely accepted author because his name is embedded in the [[Colophon (publishing)|colophon]] verse, but little is known about him.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|pp=xi-xii}} Vatsyayana states that he wrote the text after much meditation.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xii}} In the preface, Vatsyayana acknowledges that he is distilling many ancient texts, but these have not survived.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xii}} He cites the work of others he calls "teachers" and "scholars", and the longer texts by Auddalaki, Babhravya, Dattaka, Suvarnanabha, Ghotakamukha, Gonardiya, Gonikaputra, Charayana, and Kuchumara.{{sfn|Wendy Doniger|Sudhir Kakar|2002|p=xii}}

Kamasutra was considered to have been put together from a 150 chapter manuscript that had itself been distilled from 300 chapters which in turn came from a compilation of some 100,000 chapters of text. It was thought to have been written in its final form sometime between the third and fifth century CE.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Joseph |first=Manu |date=2015-07-24 |title=The Kama Sutra as a Work of Philosophy |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/asia/the-kama-sutra-as-a-work-of-philosophy.html |access-date=2023-02-10 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Vatsyayana's Kamasutra is mentioned and some verses quoted in the ''Brihatsamhita'' of Varahamihira, as well as the poems of Kalidasa. This suggests he lived before the 5th-century CE.{{sfn|Daniélou|1993|pp=3-4}}<ref>{{cite book|author1=Varahamihira|author2=M Ramakrishna Bhat|title=Brhat Samhita of Varahamihira|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7VR8iriWmzUC|year=1996|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-1060-0|pages=720–721|access-date=27 November 2018|archive-date=9 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220109084318/https://books.google.com/books?id=7VR8iriWmzUC|url-status=live}}</ref>