Shlishta
Sanskrit — entwined: embraced, clasped, joined as one.
A faithful companion to Book II of the Kāma Sūtra — its ten chapters in the order Vātsyāyana set them, from the embraces and kisses to the postures and the gentle close, with diagrams for the harder ones.
Who is reading?
Saṃketa — the private concordance
Or, before you read together: each marks in secret what they’d like to explore, and only the wishes you both name are revealed — never the rest. Nothing is saved.
For consenting adults only. Everything here is an invitation, never an expectation — go only as far as you both want, and either of you can pause or stop at any moment, for any reason, no explanation owed. Talk as you go. The descriptions follow Vātsyāyana, who himself warns against force and urges attending to the other’s pleasure and pace; any line labelled Note within the chapters is a modern addition for comfort and consent.
On this edition & sources
Shlishta (श्लिष्ट, “entwined, embraced”) follows the structure and substance of Book II (Sāmprayogika), “On Sexual Union,” of the Kāma Sūtra of Vātsyāyana — a Sanskrit treatise generally dated to roughly the 3rd century CE. Its ten chapters appear here in the text’s own order.
All descriptions are paraphrased, not quoted. Two English translations informed the wording: the 1883 translation by Richard F. Burton and F. F. Arbuthnot (now public domain), and the modern scholarly translation by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar, Kamasutra (Oxford World’s Classics, 2002), which corrects many of Burton’s readings.
Sanskrit names use common transliterations; a specialist may refine particular terms or datings. The two guidance columns reflect the text’s own ethos — notably its repeated insistence on the man’s restraint and the woman’s satisfaction. Any line labelled Note is a present-day editorial addition for comfort and consent, not part of the original.
Read it together in order, as the text intends — each chapter builds on the last, and the next opens only when you are both at ease.
Vātsyāyana ends not with a posture but with conduct: that lovers, their desire spent, should bathe, sit together, take refreshment, and speak with affection. The learning was always in service of that closeness.