Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s5.t4: Garden Parties
Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vātsyāyana's Kāmasūtra c8.s5.t4
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Garden Parties
c8.s5.t4.1
Next we come to another diversion which was very dear to the soul of the nāgaraka, viz, udyāna-yātrā or picnics in gardens. Every great city in those days was surrounded by extensive gardens where the residents of the city could find some relief from the congested streets of the town. Round Kapilavastu, says the Lalitavistara, five hundred gardens sprang up for the diversions of Bodhisattva, and prince Siddhārtha went out through the gates of the city for enjoying himself in the gardens outside.² In the Kāmasūtra also we find that these gardens were outside the town and a whole day was spent in the picnic there. Early in the morning a party of well-dressed nāgarakas would go out of the town mounted on horses accompanied by gaṇikās and followed by servants ; there they would arrange for their daily meal and pass the time in pleasant games of chance or in diverting themselves with the fights of cocks, quails or rams or in any other way that they pleased, in the afternoon they would return wearing some token of remembrance of the picnic such as a bunch of flowers or a twig from a garden-tree. Similar parties were enjoyed in connection with sports in water, which took place in artificial lakes or tanks from which all mischievous water-animals had first been removed.³ Picnicking in the gardens outside the city was very popular in the days of Vātsyāyana who again and again speaks of it. His description of *udyānayātrā* agrees in every particular with that given in *mṛcchakaṭika*, the only difference being that in the drama, Cārudatta goes out in a bullock-cart instead of on horseback. A *nāgaraka's* liberality was often tested by his readiness to spend on these garden picnics and dramatic performances. A king who has many wives is advised by Vātsyāyana to please every one of them by such shows and garden-parties.¹ Unmarried girls, and even married women, sometimes went to these picnics; a virgin on her way to a garden-party was sometimes snatched away from her friends and guardians for the purposes of marriage.² Ladies perhaps went on such picnics in parties of their own sex, because Vātsyāyana says that *udyāna-yātrās* afforded opportunities for meeting and making offers of love to them.³ But picnics arranged by married women appear to be rather rare. It was only a *punarbhū*, that is, a widow who had attached herself to a second husband, that induced her adopted lover to institute these picnics and convivial assemblies at which she herself took part.⁴
c8.s5.t4.2
² पञ्च चोद्यानशतानि समन्तान्नगरस्य प्रादुर्बभूवबोधिसत्त्वस्य परिभोगाय ।—Lalita-vistara, (ed. by Lefmann), vii. 95 ; बोधिसत्त्वस्य पूर्वेण नगरद्वारेणोद्यानभूमिमभिनिष्क्रामतो महता व्यूहेन etc. Ibid, xiv. 183-191.
c8.s5.t4.3
³ पूर्वाह्न एव खलु'कास्त्वरगाधिरूढा वैश्याभिः सह परिचारिकानुगता गच्छेयुर्दैवसिकीं च यात्रां तत्र'वानुभूय वाक टलावक्सिपयुञ्ज्यातैः प्र चाभिरनुकूलं यथेष्टितैः काल' गमयित्वाऽपराह्णे गृहीतपद्यद्यानोपभोग-चिह्नास्तथैव प्रत्याव्रजेयुः । एतेन रचितोद्दीदकानां ग्रीष्मे जलक्रीडागमनं व्याख्यातम् ।—Kāmasūtra, p. 53 (sūtras 40-41).
c8.s5.t4.4
¹ प्रद्योदानत्यागशीलः।—Ibid, p. 253 (sūtra 50); उद्यानगमनेः—एकैकामुरञ्जयेत्।—Ibid, p. 245 (sūtra 89).
c8.s5.t4.5
² ग्रामान्तरमुद्यानं वा गच्छन्तीं विदित्वा सुसंभृतसहायो नायकस्तदा रक्षिणो विवास्य हत्वा वा कन्याम-पहरेदिति विवाद्योगाः।—Ibid, p. 222 (sūtra 27).
c8.s5.t4.6
³ Ibid, p. 258 (sūtra 6); also p. 274 (sūtra 41).
c8.s5.t4.7
⁴ Ibid, p. 239 (sūtra 44); also p. 240 (sūtra 59).
Linked texts (1)
- Kāmasūtra — Vātsyāyana Mallanāga, Sanskrit