| Focusing upon the earliest extant work of Sanskrit erotic science, the ca. 4th century C.E. Kamas utra, this dissertation examines how pleasure, kama, came to be an object of scientific investigation, sastra in early South Asia. It is concerned to show that early Indian erotic science, like scientific projects elsewhere, brought into being new human and nonhuman actors, new forms of material reality, and new ways of being human as part of that reality. It traces the emergence of sastra and its underlying presuppositions and operating principles, and analyzes the K amasutra's application of s astric techniques to a specific set of bodily and social practices, those that transpire in the domain of pleasure. By considering the specific discipline of kamasutra , this dissertation investigates the model of human agency and behavior operative within the larger sastric project, and attempts to elucidate specific features of sastra 's scientificity. Throughout its presentation, this dissertation reflects upon how the assumptions of the Sanskrit human sciences contrast with, but might contribute to, modern sciences of human being. |
