The World of Courtesans c8.143

c8.143

In keeping with the spirit of the subject, Vatsyayana describes various types of love and love-making. *Ragavat* is defined as the act of love which follows a meeting arranged by a go-between or which takes place when the lover returns from a journey or when lovers are reconciled after a quarrel or separation. For such a love impediments hardly mattered. In *aharyaraga*, love was born of sight and not concerned with the heart, but in course of time this superficial love could turn into deep love. *Kritrimaraga* is defined as love aroused by caressing and other expedients, in which money and chance played an equal part. In spite of mutual attraction, if the union was brought by forcible means it was regarded as an artificial kind of love. In *vyavahitaraga* a man while loving the woman of his heart outwardly showed his love for another as an expedient. *Potarata* is described as making love to a low prostitute or a maid servant. This was singularly devoid of all the finer points of love such as caressing etc. *Khala-rata* is defined as the sex relations of the courtesan and the village yokel. The commentary explains that a courtesan unable to satisfy her sexual craving and unmindful of the implications of her action gave herself up to a robust farmer. Within this category also come the village maidens, the herds-woman and frontier woman with whom the *nagaraka* had sex relations. *Aniyantrita rata* is described as the unhampered union of men and women.