Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s7.t5.1

c8.s7.t5.1

In a society where both men and women wore ornaments, it was quite natural that the crafts of the jeweller (*maṇikāra*) and goldsmith (*sauvarṇika* or *suvarṇakāra*) should prosper. The *nāgaraka*, when going to his club or to his garden picnic, wore ornaments and the king did so on his formal visit to the queens every afternoon.⁵ The statues that have come down from this age bear this out. It was, however, the demands of the ladies, who could not appear before their husbands without having ornaments on, that furnished the amplest occupation to the goldsmith and the jeweller. Some of the ladies decorated their whole person with ornaments. Those who could not afford to have pure gold ornaments had to be satisfied with those made of an inferior kind of gold alloyed with an inferior metal. Beyond a general mention of the *alaṃkāras* Vātsyāyana does not name other ornaments than rings which are very frequently referred to as tokens of love presented by lovers to each other.¹ The *Lalitavistara* mentions a ring worth several lacs and a pearl necklace that was worth many times that sum. Cārudatta's wife also had a pearl necklace given to her by her parents worth a lac.² The testing of jewels and coins (*rupya-ratna-parīkṣā*) was a useful art in this community and Vātsyāyana knows a *Vaikatika*, a diamond-cutter, whose craft was to purify or refine precious stones.³ Plates and other vessels made of the precious metals, gold and silver, are mentioned by Vātsyāyana and were evidently often used in the houses of the rich while those made of the baser metals, copper, bell-metal or iron, were used by ordinary people; moreover, vessels made of earth, split-bamboo, wood and skins were in very general use.⁴