Of all the ancient sexual traditions, India’s is the most prominent in our contemporary erotic consciousness, where its founding text, the Kamasutra, often serves as a symbol or synonym for the general field of ars erotica. Although Chinese sexual theory is probably older and may have influenced Indian sexual mysticism (particularly in its use of coitus reservatus and injaculation), there is no reason to view Indian erotology as derivative. It has a distinctively rich and original character that easily rivals China’s, and this character is profoundly aesthetic. If one construes Foucault’s notion of ars erotica as implying an emphasis on the aesthetic pleasures and artfulness of lovemaking in contrast to a scientia sexualis that focused on truth and health (whether physical, mental, or spiritual), then Indian erotic theory provides a better paradigm for such art. While China’s sexual theory drew most heavily on medical texts and derived its concern for pleasure from the key medical aims of health and progeny, Indian erotology drew most heavily on the fine arts and their sensuous aesthetic pleasures, especially the traditional Indian art of drama, which was also an art of dance. Nonetheless, Indian sexual theory cannot fully support Foucault’s sharp distinction between esoteric ars erotica and scientia sexualis, because it defines itself in essentially scientific terms as providing knowledge about empirical matters based on observation. Moreover, this knowledge was openly published in texts articulating principles and rules rather than focusing on recondite skills secretly transmitted by an expert master to carefully chosen pupils.1