A systematic treatise on pleasure, courtship, and cultivated living, popularly reduced in the West to a narrow sexual manual despite covering a far broader account of a refined life.
The Kama Sutra earns a page in this archive for the same reason tantra and yoga did: a narrow popular reputation has almost entirely displaced a much broader and more interesting original scope, and correcting that requires stating the misconception directly.
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A systematic treatise on statecraft, economics, and security, traditionally attributed to Chanakya and notable for its frank, unsentimental treatment of political power.
A comprehensive ancient treatise on dramatic and aesthetic theory, developing a systematic account of how art produces emotional experience distinct from ordinary feeling.
The classical scheme of four legitimate aims of human life — duty, prosperity, pleasure, and liberation — held in tension.
A cluster of ideas around duty, order, and right conduct that is understood differently across Indian traditions.