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unjust, cruel voluptuous and licentious. Jayâpida who had gathered about him poets, learned men and other good people, and who had appointed our poet Damodara Gupta as his chief minister, was very virtuous in the beginning, but turned vicious in the latter part of his life, and became addicted to sensual plea: sures. He was succeeded by Lalitâditya, about whom Kalhana says-"He gave himself up to the company of wicked women, and made friends with those who were well-versed in stories about courtezans. He was not satisfied with a few women......"
The example of the king seems to have been followed by many others. Young princes and rich men alike followed in his footsteps.
The vice seems to have permeated the lower strata of society also. The characters mentioned in our poem are high class people; but the life and customs described therein are general and not applicable to a special class.
All this shows that sensual vice was very prevalent and the tone of public morality very low in Kashmir in the times of Damodara Gupta. Though many other poets and learned men flourished in those times, specially at the court of Jayâpida, and though many works must have been written by them, 110 work (except Kuttanimatam) has yet come to light. Hence we are unable to get any more information or evidence about the social condition of those times. IV. AIM OF THE AUTHOR.
Being dissatisfied with this moral degenaration Dâmodara Gupta came forward to expose the practices of all such vicious persons by writing this Kuttaninatam. He has not spared vice in any state of life. This will be evident from the various characters vividly painted by him with sarcastic humour in forcible and chaste Sanskrit. It is more than probable that Damodara Gupta has drawn the characters of the poem from real life but we have no means of identifying them.
The poet vividly describes through the mouth of a procuress by name Vikarâla the various cunning arts, wiles, and devices which are resorted to by courtezans to decoy and lead to ruin guileless weak-minded young ven. He has not given anywhere in the poem his reason for writing on such a subject. Only in
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