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A History of Sanskrit Literature c9.s5: 5. The Kāmasūtra and the Poet's Milieu

A History of Sanskrit Literature c9.s5

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English

5. The Kāmasūtra and the Poet's Milieu

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Vātsyāyana's *Kāmasūtra*² is of uncertain date, but it is not improbably older than Kālidāsa, and in any case it represents the concentrated essence of earlier treatises on the Ars Amoris. There is no question of the importance of knowledge of this topic for the writers of erotic poetry, and there is abundant proof that the *Kāmasūtra* was studied as eagerly by would-be poets as were grammar, poetics, and lexicography. To Vātsyāyana we owe a vivid conception of the Indian parallel to the man about town (*nāgaraka*) whose existence was due to the growing elaboration of Indian life, and whose interest the poet was anxious to propitiate. We see him,³ opulent, a denizen of the town which lends him his name, or, if compelled by adverse fortune to vegetate in the country, seeking, like Martial in his retreat from Rome, to find congenial society with which to continue the pleasures of his town life. His home boasts all the luxury of the age, soft couches, a summer house in a park, seats strewn with flowers, and swings to amuse the ladies who share and lend zest to his leisure moments. Much of his time is devoted to his toilet; he must bathe, be anointed, perfumed, and garlanded; then he can teach the cage birds which surround him to speak, or enjoy the brutal spectacle of ram or cock fights, both favourite amusements of the gilded youth of the period. Or, in the company of ladies of the demi-monde, he may visit the parks outside the town, returning home crowned with the flowers which they have plucked. There are concerts to be attended, ballets and theatrical spectacles to be visited; he has a lute beside him so that he may make music when he will, and a book to read at leisure. Boon companions and hangers-on of various ranks, the Viṭas, Pīṭhamardas, and Vidūṣakas of the texts, are essential to his happiness, and drinking parties are not unknown, but the ideal forbids mere rude licence; even in his enjoyments the man about town aims at elegance, moderation, and a measure of dignity. He condescends to the use of the vernacular, but blends it with Sanskrit, thus indicating his fine culture. Hetairai are essential to him, but they also are not without accomplishments; indeed the *Kāmasūtra* demands from them knowledge encyclopaedic, including poetic taste. The most famous of them achieved great riches, as we learn from the description of the palace of the heroine in the *Mṛcchakaṭikā* and, as in the Athens of Perikles, discussions on literature, music, and art, must often have afforded the participants a pleasure which could not be expected from their own wives, from whom they demanded children and care for their homes.

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² See below, chap. xxiv; cf. Haraprasād, *Magadhan Literature*, chap. iv. On the arts, Kalās, sixty-four in number at least, of early India, see A. Venkatasubbiah and E. Müller, JRAS. 1914, pp. 355-67.

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³ The comm. allows him to be of any caste.

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An atmosphere of this kind is unquestionably favourable, if not to the highest poetry, at least to the production of elaborate verse, and the care demanded from those who are exposed to keen criticism cannot but produce excellent results in the case of men naturally gifted, though on the other hand it leads to exaggerated love of style with inevitable tasteless extravagance. If under such a system Maecenases produce few Vergils, they are responsible for a plentiful crop of Valerii Flacci, and to the kings of India¹ we unquestionably owe most of the poets of repute; patronage by the king was at once the reward of skill in panegyric and the means of obtaining the leisure for serious composition and a measure of publicity for the works produced. It was the duty of the king to bridge the gulf between wealth and poetic talent, of the poet to save his patron from the night of oblivion which else must assuredly settle on him when his mortal life closed. At the royal courts poets vied in eager rivalry with one another; probably in quite early times there were practised such arts as the composition of verses to complete a stanza when one verse was given, and the production of extempore poems on a given topic. The festival of Sarasvatī each month afforded opportunities for displays in honour of the patroness of poetry and the arts. Fortunately, too, for the poets, kings were willing to claim renown for skill in poetry; we have seen that his panegyrist thought well to ascribe fame in this sphere to Rudradāman and we shall see that the great Gupta Emperor Samudragupta strove for renown as a man of letters.² Harṣa not only patronized Bāṇa, but claimed the authorship of dramas and poems, though unkind hints were prevalent that others were the true begetters of his literary offspring.³ Four hundred years later Bhoja of Dhārā was more fortunate, for we have no real knowledge to disprove his claim to polymathy exhibited in a large variety of works. In the twelfth century⁴ the court of Lakṣmaṇasena revived the glory of Harṣa's patronage, for besides the famous Jayadeva, other poets such as Umāpatidhara, Dhoī, and Govardhana wrote with acceptance. The kings of Kashmir often distinguished themselves by generosity to their laureates, (*kavirāja*) and to such enlightened activity we owe Somadeva's *Kathāsaritsāgara*. Yet it is worth remembering that we cannot prove any royal patron for Kālidāsa, greatest of Indian poets, or even for Kalhaṇa, the one historian of real merit in Sanskrit literature. Nor, of course, was royal generosity confined to Sanskrit poetry; to a king, Hāla or Sātavāhana, is ascribed the anthology of Māhārāṣṭrī verse, and Vākpatirāja wrote his epic, *Gaüḍavaha*, for Yaçovarman of Kanauj, thus assuring him an immortality to survive his defeat at the hands of Lalitāditya of Kashmir. So, too, if we believe tradition, it was perhaps the patronage of Kaniṣka which produced the first great work of the court epic preserved to us, the *Buddhacarita* of Açvaghoṣa.

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¹ Rājaçekhara (*Kāvyamīmāṅsā*, p. 55) gives Vāsudeva (? the Kāṇva or the Kuṣaṇa), Sātavāhana, Çūdraka, and Sāhasāṅka (? Candragupta II; Pischel, GN. 1901, pp. 485–7) as famous patrons.

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² Minor royal authors include the dramatists Mahendravikramavarman (*c.* 675); Yaçovarman, patron of Bhavabhūti (*c.* 735), the Kalacuri Māyurāja (*c.* 800), and Vigraharājadeva (1153). We have stanzas of a Nepalese king (8th cent.), of Amoghavarṣa (815–77), of Muñja (975–95), and Arjunavarman's comm. on Amaru (13th cent.). Cf. Jackson, *Priyadarśikā*, pp. xxxvii ff.

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³ Cf. Keith, *Sanskrit Drama*, pp. 170 ff.

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⁴ Smith, EHI. pp. 419 ff., 432 wishes to place this king about fifty years before the usual date, but ignores important evidence; see R. C. Majumdar, JPASB. 1921, pp. 7 ff.; C. V. Vaidya, IHQ. i. 126 ff.; C. Chakravarti, iii. 186 ff.

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