Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s4.1

c8.s4.1

Vātsyāyana has left us a description of the occupation of the *nāgaraka* during the whole of the day, which though brief, yet brings up very beautifully the man of fashion of those days before our eyes. Our *nāgaraka* gets up early in the morning and after attending to his morning duties and cleaning his mouth and teeth, proceeds to his toilet. The first article in this toilet is the *anulepana*, a fragrant ointment ordinarily made of fine sandal-wood paste, or of preparations of a variety of sweet-smelling substances.¹ He applies a suitable quantity of this ointment to his person; it would be considered bad taste if he used too much of this perfume; he then scents his clothes in the sweet-smelling smoke of incense (*dhūpa*) thrown into the fire and wears a garland on the head, or hangs it round his neck. He applies collyrium made of various substances to his eyes. To his lips, already reddened by the betel he has chewed, he applies *alaktaka* (a red dye made from lac), to impart a deeper crimson to them and then rubs them over with wax to make the dye fast. Then he looks at himself in a glass, chews spiced betel-leaves to perfume his mouth, and proceeds to attend to his business.² He attends to his hair and wears rings on his fingers that are sometimes of great value.³ He generally wears two garments, a *vāsas* or *vastra* and an *uttarīya* or a wrap for the upper part of the body. This upper garment was sometimes very highly scented with rich perfumes or flowers.⁴ Bhāsa tells us that the rich fragrance of Cārudatta's wearing apparel assured Vasantasenā that though impoverished, he was not quite unmindful of the amenities of youthful society.¹ At Nanda's house at Kapilavastu when Buddha entered it, some of the maids were preparing the perfumed paste while others were perfuming the clothes.² In the *Lalita-vistara* we read that King Suddhodana ordered that all those who would attend on Māyādevī on her journey to the garden of Lumbinī, should wear clothes, soft and fine, coloured with pleasant dyes and smelling sweet with the best of the scents. Similarly, in another place in the same book, we read of a perfumed garment of the exquisite colour of the *nāgakesara*.³