Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s6.t2: Poor Women
Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vātsyāyana's Kāmasūtra c8.s6.t2
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Poor Women
c8.s6.t2.1
Many of the poorer women,—widows, helpless women, or those who had adopted the ascetic's vow (pravrajitā), earned a living by spinning and weaving as at the time of Kauṭilya, and got their wages from a government officer, the Sūtrādhyakṣa, "the Superintendent of Yarn," and the sales and purchases were made with the Paṇyādhyakṣa, "the Superintendent of Manufactures." In the villages, the peasant women did various kinds of work under the control of the government officer (Ayuktaka) in charge of the village or the headman who lived upon a share of the agricultural produce. Under his orders these women perform unpaid work (viṣṭi) for him, they fill up his granaries, take things in or out of his house, clean and decorate his residence, or work in his fields; they also take from him cotton, wool, flax or hemp for spinning yarn and the bark of trees, or thread, for preparing wearing apparel; moreover, they made with him transactions of sale, purchase or exchange of various articles. Similarly the women in dairy settlements (vrajas) transacted business with the gavādhyakṣa, "the Superintendent of Cattle."¹
c8.s6.t2.2
¹ Kāmasūtra, pp. 282-83 (sūtras 5-10).
Linked texts (1)
- Kāmasūtra — Vātsyāyana Mallanāga, Sanskrit