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Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s5.t5: Samasyā-Krīḍā

Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vātsyāyana's Kāmasūtra c8.s5.t5

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Samasyā-Krīḍā

c8.s5.t5.1

Last of all we come to the sports that Vātsyāyana calls *samasyā-krīḍā* or *sambhūya-krīḍā*, that is social diversions in which a number of persons took part. He says that they varied with each country and province. Of about a score of them he has given only the names from which their character may sometimes be surmised. Some of them are well-known up to the present day, at least in parts of India, such as *Kaumudī-jāgara*, in which the whole night of the full moon in the month of Āśvina is passed without sleep by playing at dice or similar other amusements, and the *Holākā* or *Holi* on the day of the vernal full moon in the month of Phālguna; such is also the *Alola-caturthī* or *Hindolotsava* in the month of Śrāvaṇa. The *Hallisaka*, accompanied by dancing and music and supposed to be similar to the *Rāsotsava* described in the *Bhāgavata-Purāṇa*, is referred to by Vātsyāyana and a form of it is still current in Kāthiāwād. The festival of *Suvasantaka* reminds us of the *Dule-vasantiyā* of the Sitabenga Cave-Inscription which tells us that at this "swing-festival of the vernal full-moon, frolic and music abound and people tie around their necks garlands thick with jasmine flowers."¹ We are also reminded of the *Kāmadevānuayāna* of Bhāsa's *Cārudatta* (Act I) and of the *Madanodyāna yātrā* of Bhavabhūti's *Mālati-Mādhava* (Act I). It appears that persons of both sexes took part in many of these festivities. At such festivals as *Kaumudī-jāgara*, *Suvasantaka* and *Aṣṭamī Candraka*, the women of the cities and towns entered the harem of the king and sported with the royal ladies there.²

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¹ Dr. T. Bloch, "Rāmgarh Cave Inscriptions," *Report of the Arch. Sur. of India* (1903-1904), pp. 124-25.

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² See *Kāmasūtra*, p. 54 (*sūtra* 42) and p. 283 (*sūtra* 11); for *Hallisaka* cf. हलीसकक्रीडनकेगायननर्तनादिसर्वैः: 1—p. 175 (*sūtra* 25) and see *East and West*, i, pp. 748ff. (May, 1902).

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