DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

242 KAMASUTRA OF VATSYAYANA [8.1
impossible. Agrarian settlement, which could at best take place in
scattered pockets in the Deccan, really began after the Mauryans.
There, the Mauryans had held thinly-occupied trade routes, interrupted
by large stretches of hilly forest. Any conquests south of Mysore haci
been given up. The occupation petered out in a chain of outposts among
the aborigines with megalithic culture.
This basic difference in the means of production, the difference
between long-standing and fresh village settlements, is reflected in the
different political history of the two major sections. The roles of
religion and of caste also differ, though both tended to uniformity with
the spread of villages all over the country. Older productive units such as
the Jreni guild, which had no function in the closed village,
continued to appear prominently in the south after they had shrunk
to negligible proportions in the north.
A work that characterizes this period, as the ArthaSastra did the
pre-Asokan (and carefully modelled upon that treatise) is the famous
Kamasutra of Vatsyayana. This treatise was apparently the first in the
world to treat scientifically of erotics, not only for the individual but
as a social science as well. This is thus a complement to the monastic
tradition that was sweeping the countryside as a civilizing influence.
Naturally, it was meant for the new elite, the nagaraka or ‘man-abouttown’
whose existence implied some source of income, ample leisure,
and the existence of many towns where this new class could develop its
tastes. Their pastimes did imply taste for all cultured pursuits, among
which refined sexual enjoyment took its place frank-and unashamed.
The treatment is materialistic throughout, but never gross. The samaja
had (Kant. 1.4.27) become a rather tame meeting in the temple of
the goddess of learning. A’ new club — like association with the highly
accomplished and cultured hetaerae had come into fashion (as in
Periclean Athens), the gosthi (Ram 1.4.34); the word would later
mean more general associations. There were numerous festival
occasions for the enjoyment of group-life, by this new class,
independently of caste and religious occasions (K&n. 1.4.82). Some
of these hark back to the semi-ritual civic nakkahatta-kila of the