Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c4.1

c4.1

The social life in ancient India has not yet received the same attention as the other aspects of ancient Indian history and culture. Only caste has been studied with some care, and from the legal point of view, some other aspects of social life also. But what Zimmer in his *Altindisches Leben* has done for the early Vedic period, still remains to be done for the subsequent ages of Indian civilisation and culture. However, before a synthetic history embracing the long period, through which Indian society has grown aud developed, is attempted, an intensive study has to be made of the different ages through which it has come. It was with this object that I took up the study of Vātsyāyana’s K ā m a s ū t r a which gives a beautifully vivid picture of Indian society in the early centuries of the Christian era. It wonderfully supplements the account we receive from the sacred literatures, Brahmanical, Buddhistic and Jain. Dealing with an avowedly secular matter as it does, it depicts society from an independent point of view, and gives details, especially of the darker features of social life, with a fulness that we naturally miss in the sacred texts.