Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.s9.7

c8.s9.7

Vedic sacrifices still appear to have constituted an important feature of the religious exercises of the people; along with other common occurrences of life sacrifices are mentioned by Vātsyāyana as occasions which permitted a gathering of people of both sexes and we are told that even the virtuous matron could attend such assemblies with the permission of her husband. The erection of sacrificial altars and houses, formed one of the most earnest desires of women, nay even of the courtesans. Sacrifices formed an indispansable part of the ceremony of marriage, which, if once performed in the presence of fire, i. e., with sacrifices, could never be repudiated; this is declared as the rule upheld by all teachers and throughout his chapter on courtship and marriage, Vātsyāyana advises a young lover, again and again, to ratify his marriage with the maiden of his love with sacrifices in the fire brought from the house of a *śrotriya*, i. e. a man who keeps up the sacrificial fire constantly burning in his house and daily offers oblations in it. A person initiated for sacrifice (*dīkṣita*) is also mentioned along with persons who have taken certain vows or have assumed the marks of certain sects of ascetics.¹ This makes it abundantly clear that the sacrifices laid down in the *gṛhya-sūtras* still held a prominent place in the life of the period when Vātsyāyana lived and here he is corroborated by epigraphic evidence. The inscriptions in Western India of the early centuries of the Christian era show that sacrifices on a large scale were performed at the time and munificent gifts were made to Bhikṣus and Brāhmaṇas even by persons of foreign extraction like Uṣabhadāta. Vātsyāyana speaks of a thousand cows given away to Brāhmaṇas. Moreover the daily performance of *bali-karma* at the *nāgaraka's* under the supervision of his wife shows the unabated influence of the *gṛhyasūtras*.² Then again, the *nāgaraka*, though a pleasure-seeker, was a worshipper of the gods. We have already referred to the niche at the head of his bed for holding an image of the *iṣṭa-devatā* or the deity to whom he was particularly devoted and also to the daily worship of the gods at the household temple. Moreover, he, and specially his wife, took part in fasts and observances whose number was apparently not insignificant. Besides, we have seen, how at regular, as well as irregular, intervals the public took part in grand religious festivals (ghaṭā) often accompanied by processions of images and attended by men and women in large numbers. Even a courtesan considered it as the greatest happiness of her life (lābhātiśaya) to institute arrangements for the worship of the gods.¹ All these facts go to prove that religious observances played a great part in the life of the people in Vātsyāyana's time, and that the Code of Manu had at the time acquired its full authority over the public mind as is shown by Vātsyāyana who speaks of Svāyambhuva Manu as the person who had taken up the Dharma section of Prajāpati's all-embracing encyclopaedia and dealt with it in a separate treatise. Besides, Yājñavalkya's great code, second in importance to Manu alone, is supposed to have been composed about the time when Vātsyāyana lived.²