India has long figured in the sexual imagination of Western writers and artists, but back in the 1840’s, when Burton arrived in India, Westerners considered India a declining and decadent culture. Gurus (teachers) had not really registered in the West – Vivekananda in the 1890's would be the

Sir Richard Burton's translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1888) has been better known as The Arabian Nights after Andrew Lang's subsequent abridged and retitled version (1898). This is from The Six Hundred and Fiftieth Night: "Then said she:--I