Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c5.s3.3

c5.s3.3

² *Early History of the Deccan*, p. 31. I beg leave to submit that *Kartari* here does not mean "a pair of scissors" as translated by Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, but it is a technical term to denote a kind of stroke dealt by a man with one or both of his hands at a woman's head at the parting of the hair (*Simanta*). Vātsyāyana says that these strokes are in vogue among the people of the south (*Dākṣiṇātyānām*) and he condemns them as they sometimes proved fatal. The case of Kuntala Sātakarṇi is an example in point. See *Kāmasūtra*, Ben. ed., pp. 147-9.