Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s5.t2.8

c8.s5.t2.8

At the *goṣṭhī* one is neither to speak too much in Sanskrit for he may then be considered a pedant, just as in England two centuries ago to write English in strict accordance with orthography and syntax was considered not necessary for a gentleman; nor should the *nāgaraka* speak too much in a local dialect, because then he ran the risk of being regarded as uneducated and uncultured; he should strike a middle course and have full control over both and then he was sure to win great respect.¹ The prevalent language of the period as seen in inscriptions and in the Mahāyāna literature, bears testimony to the fact that the current speech at the time, at least among the cultured classes, was a mixture of Sanskrit and Prakrit. The learned people like Aśvaghoṣa, of course, wrote pure Sanskrit, but the language of conversation among the educated was apparently a mixture of Sanskrit and the provincial dialect (*deśabhāṣā*) as recommended by the author of the *Kāmasūtra*.