Part
5 - Introduction
INTRODUCTORY
REMARKS
THIS
Part VI, about courtesans, was prepared by
Vatsyayana from a treatise on the subject
that was written by Dattaka, for the women
of Pataliputra (the modern Patna), some two
thousand years ago. Dattaka's work does not
appear to be extant now, but this
abridgement of it is very clever, and quite
equal to any of the productions of Emile
Zola, and other writers of the realistic
school of today.
Although
a great deal has been written on the subject
of the courtesan, nowhere will be found a
better description of her, of her
belongings, of her ideas, and of the working
of her mind, than is contained in the
following pages.
The
details of the domestic and social life of
the early Hindoos would not be complete
without mention of the courtesan, and Part
VI is entirely devoted to this subject. The
Hindoos have ever had the good sense to
recognise courtesans as a part and portion
of human society, and so long as they
behaved themselves with decency and
propriety they were regarded with a certain
respect. Anyhow, they have never been
treated in the East with that brutality and
contempt so common in the West, while their
education has always been of a superior kind
to that bestowed upon the rest of womankind
in Oriental countries.
In
the earlier days the well-educated Hindoo
dancing girl and courtesan doubtless
resembled the Hetera of the Greeks, and,
being educated and amusing, were far more
acceptable as companions than the generality
of the married or unmarried women of that
period. At all times and in all countries,
there has ever been a little rivalry between
the chaste and the unchaste. But while some
women are born courtesans, and follow the
instincts of their nature in every class of
society, it has been truly said by some
authors that every woman has got an inkling
of the profession in her nature, and does
her best, as a general rule, to make herself
agreeable to the male sex.
The
subtlety of women, their wonderful
perceptive powers, their knowledge, and
their intuitive appreciation of men and
things are all shown in the following pages,
which may be looked upon as a concentrated
essence that has been since worked up into
detail by many writers in every quarter of
the globe.
Swami Veet Chintan T'Zorba-Krsna
Jyotish
Shastracharya
& Vedic Astrologer of India
.
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