6.3. Identity of Woman in Ancient India

[Full title: Ancient Indian Social Life: Excerpts from Kāmaśāstra (3): Identity of Woman]

Discussions regarding the identity of women in society and in the places like family, kitchen, bedroom and even in sexual intercourses is an important subject even today. Kāmasūtra, the ancient Indian text on sexuality also views women through various angles. But as a whole, according to Kāmasūtra femininity is a marketing commodity and the author opines that a woman should stand herself in a street as like a product for sale. The sūtra “paṇyasadharmatvāt” in Kāmasūtra is self-explanatory in this occasion. Kāmasūtra scenario evaluates female as a multi-functional physical device made for producing children and for satisfying sexual thirst of men temporarily.

“Paṇyasadharmatvāt” is the term which has been used twice in Kāmasūtra, firstly in the third book called Kanyāsamprayukta. When the girl is of an age to be married, her parents dress her in beautiful clothes. In the evening, with her friends, she amuses herself with adornments. She must be superbly dressed for the marriage rite and the rejoicing, since an object that is not carefully decorated does not attract buyers^[1]. Then the sūtra is used in Vaiśika (it will be cited in the coming title about courtesan). The conceptual image of ideal wife in Indian tradition-dharmapatnī-does not allow Vātsyāyana to expose his trade mind. So, in the book Bhāryādhikārika, Vātsyāyana introduces women as an ideal icon in the family. But through some other ways he silently made use of the idiom “paṇyasadharmatvāt” incorporating with the concept patnīdharma.

An alternate phase of the official male voice of Indian literature can be witnessed in the Kāmasūtra of Vātsyayana too. The liberal humanitarian outlook put forward by the author of this work shows the hidden exposition of rigid and limited mindset of the universal masculinity. Vātsyāyana repeatedly announces that men should be concerned about the pleasure of women and only the equilibrium pleasure status of both of them is praised^[2]. Such proclamations on equality aim only to the agenda that the despotic sexual thirst of men. Psychologically sex is the feeling, which is born in the mind and from where it spreads over to the entire body. So, both mental and physical requirements of both men and women are definitely needed to fulfil this task. But in a wider vision, it is clear that Kāmasūtra forwards the rules and directions for a mental rape towards femininity other than the delightful and graceful enjoyment of pleasure.

Vātsyāyana classifies women mainly three broad categories with own sub-divisions namely virgin, wife and prostitute respectively^[3]. These three kinds of women are the sexual objects of men in its fundamental aim of classification. The Kāmasūtra society wants the women to be educated and trained in the science of sex before they are getting married. The women in the Kāmasūtra are not only less idealized than the men, but more differentiated. On the above-mentioned three female categories, Kāmasūtra concentrates upon the ideal wife (dharmapatnī) and the courtesan (gaṇikā) respectively.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

tasmātpradānasamaye kanyāmudāraveṣāṃ sthapayeyuḥ | aparāhnikaṃ ca nityaṃ prasādhitāyāḥ sakhībhiḥ saha krīḍā | yajñavivāhādiṣu janasaṃdrāveṣu prāyatnikaṃ darśanam | tathotsaveṣu ca | paṇyasadharmatvāt | (kāmasūtra, 3. 1. 14)

[2]:

parasparasukhāsvādā krīḍā yatra prayujyate | viśeṣayantī cānyonyaṃ sambandhaḥ sa vidhīyate | (kāmasūtra, 3. 1. 23)

[3]:

Kanyā, Bhāryā and Veśyā.