Other works - suffused with the erotic - are selected from Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; Werner Forman Archive, London, UK and the collection of Lance Dane. The introduction by Chaturvedi Badrinath guides the reader towards the appropriate mindset required to imbibe the magic of the text.

Sage Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra is an ancient treatise on man-woman relationships. Through written over 2000 years ago, its relevance is perennial, since, of all life's expressions, sexual gratification remains one of the most fundamental.

The Kama Sutra examines the life force or Prana of which the physical and the spiritual are equally potent aspects. While exploring the art of fulfilling sexual relationships, it stresses equally on self-restraint and consideration for the partner.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER:

LANCE DANE is a renowned photographer who has devoted over five decades to the study and interpretation of works of Indian art. He has visited shrines, temples, museums and private collections - in fact, traversed the entire landscape of India and Asia to collect and record these works. Readers of the Marg magazine are familiar with his photographs of ancient archaeological sites. His expressionism and mastery of 'available light' photography, plus his instinctive understanding of the iconography and symbol of Indian art, have enabled him to create visionary photographic images for all to see and enjoy in perpetuity.

THE EDITOR:

CHATURVEDI BADRINATH, though a civil servant by profession, describes himself as 'a philosopher whose mind is in the clouds, feet firmly upon this earth and heart somewhere in-between'.

Lecturing and writing on Indian philosophy and its relation to concrete human living is what Chaturvedi is best known for. He has lectured in Europe, been visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg in 1973 and been invited twice by the German government to study intellectual issues. In 1985, a Zurich-based Swiss foundation, Intercultural Cooperation, invited him for a whole year to work on his book on the history of the Western encounter with Indian civilization. In march 1998, he was invited to talk at Weimar on the Indian view of Nature and Man in relation to Goethe's own views on the subject.