The World of Courtesans c6.4

c6.4

The *Jnatadharma Katha* I lists the attainments of a highly accomplished courtesan of Champa. Her body was faultless (*ahina*), imbued with auspicious signs (*lakshana*), and marked with black painted *tilakas*. She had the right height, girth and weight. She was proficient in the seventy-two traditional arts, and was endowed with the sixty-four qualities necessary for a courtesan. Here "sixty-four" might mean the sixty-four arts such as music, dancing etc., or sixty-four kinds of sexual and erotic poses and embraces. She had also an expert knowledge of the twenty-nine special qualities, the thirty-one kinds of *ratigunas* (sexual poses) and the thirty-two ways of treating men (*purushopachara*). She aroused slumbering passions by her youthful beauty. She was also a linguist, conversant with eighteen regional languages. She was fond of music and an expert dancer. She was graceful, witty and sweet in her conversation and a strict observer of etiquette. Her lovely breasts, her body, hands and legs were all seductive. Her fees were a thousand a day. The king granted her the special privilege of using the umbrella (*chhatra*), *chauri* and fan, and she always travelled in a covered wagon (*karniratha*) She commanded and patronized a thousand courtesans. According to the *Sutrakritanga churni* courtesans were well-versed in *Vaisika* (a section of the science of erotics) which is exclusively devoted to the problems of courtesans The commentary mentions that when Dattaka was cheated by a courtesan, he refused to make love to another courtesan in spite of all the blandishments sanctioned by the science of erotics.