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Studies in
and Prakrit, are highly erotic and artistic. To brand them obscene, as impatient critics of Prakrit verses do, would mean putting these great works out of the reach of the sensitive Sahşdayas. We must not be carried away by highly erotic descriptions and mistake the highly erotic for the obscene.
Indian tradition treats the joys of love and the relations between the two sexes in a frank manner. The explanation for the citing of the second group of verses could be given as follows : “17The height of pure love is said to exist in relations with other men's wives or unmarried girls." Naturally, poets, Sanskrit, as well as Prakrit, composed verses portraying 'Caurya-rata' and the Alamkārikas quoted such verses as specimens of Dhvanıkāvya refusing to be impressed by considerations of morality. This explanation may be rest i ted in modern language in a slightly different way thus :
Sanskrit Ālamkārikas show a very sensitive understanding of the aesthetics. Their approach to it is strictly a-moral. What they object to is not immorality but whatever is bad in aesthetic taste. To their minds eroticism was not bad in taste; aesthetically it was most appealing to them.
It seems in later years aesthetics and ethics came to be confused and what was purely aesthetic came to be condemned as unethical. However, it must be said to the credit of the Alamkārikas that their analytical minds made a subtle distinction, between the good and the bad taste and between the aesthetic and the ethic. We must not forget the fact that they were primarly the students of language and as 17. (i) सुलभामवमन्यते दुर्लभामाकाङ्क्षत इति प्रायोवादः ।
-Kamasutra 5.1.40. (ii) यद्वामाभिनिवेशित्वं यतश्च विनिवार्यते । दुर्लभत्वं यतो नार्याः कामिनः सा परा रतिः ॥
- Nāțyaśāstra XXII. 207. (iii) तत् खलु सुरतं सुरतं कृच्छ्रप्राप्यं यदन्यनारीषु ।
-Kuttanimata, v. 812, cd. (iv) परस्त्रीगमनोपायः कविभिर्नोपदिश्यते ।
सुन्दर' किंतु काव्याङ्गमेतत्तन निदर्श्यते ॥ . वामता दुर्लभवं च स्त्रीणां या च निवारणा । तदेव पञ्चबाणस्य मन्ये परममायुधम् ॥
-Rudrata : Srigāratilaka II. 29-30. (v) यत्र निषेधविशेषः सुदुर्लभत्वं च यन्मृगाक्षीणाम् । ___तत्रैव नागराणां निर्भरमासज्यते हृदयम् ।
-Visnugupta Samhita. (vi) शुद्धस्नेहनिबन्धा परवधूः पुण्यैः परैः प्राप्यते ।
--Subhāṣitāvali (vii) स्वदारादौ हि धर्मस्याप्यनुप्रवेशेन केवलस्यैव कामस्य फलहेतुभावो न स्यात् ।
-Natya-darpapa
