Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s8.14

c8.s8.14

The position that the *gaṇikā* enjoyed may be explained by the fact that in a society characterised by æsthetic refinement as was that of the age of Vātsyāyana, women who possessed special proficiency in the arts were respected for the value of their art, and their company was sought for by all lovers of art; the long training and education needed for the acquisition of such literary and artistic accomplishments as the *gaṇikā* possessed, could not be obtained by a girl who was married and had to manage a household, especially as she was married rather early, though Vātsyāyana's chapter on courtship shows that many of them remained unmarried even after puberty. Moreover, it was certainly not considered decent for such a girl to attend the public schools of art or *gāndharva śālās*, where the daughters of the *gaṇikās* received lessons in the arts, and formed, as Vātsyāyana says, acquaintance with the sons of the wealthy citizens;¹ nor could any but very wealthy parents afford to give their daughters such education at home. Where the parents were very rich, as in the case of the daughters of princes and high officials, they did receive, as we have seen before, a thorough education in the arts and sciences. Gopā was as learned and clever as any *gaṇikā*, as the *Lalitavistara* says. Then again, the wedded wife, on account of her manifold duties in the household, could not cultivate the arts as thoroughly as she would like to; besides, the great regard for purity in the married woman and the strict and rigid rules that guided her conduct even in the age of Vātsyāyana, prohibited, as we have seen above, her receiving lessons in the arts except from her own husband. We see, therefore, that the *gaṇikās*, like the Hetæræ in the Athens of Pericles, were generally more educated and better skilled in the arts than the married women, and the *nāgarakas*, though they had devoted wives at home, as the ideal of a wife drawn by Vātsyāyana shows, were attracted by the intellectual and artistic qualities of the educated *gaṇikā*. Such a noble soul as Bhāsa's *Cārudatta*, though he had a devoted wife at home, who was ready to sacrifice the last bit of her personal property for his sake and for whom he himself had a great regard, had no scruple in falling in love with the actress Vasantasenā, and the *Mṛcchakaṭika* makes him even marry her.² With such ideals of the devoted wife as we have in Vātsyāyana and in Bhāsa's Cārudatta, it cannot be said with any sound reason that the nāgaraka sought the company of the gaṇikā because his life at home was miserable or unbearable, but evidently he was drawn by her accomplishments. Even the general public, though they despised her for the life she led, tolerated her on account of her high artistic qualifications which they found many occasions to enjoy and appreciate at the prekṣaṇakas or performances at the festive assemblies (samājas) such as we have described above.