"courtesan" as translation

Mon Aug 22 20:54:48 UTC 2011

Allen,

Ludvik Sternbach discusses the various terms for prostitutes in his article "Legal Position of Prostitutes according the Kautiliya Arthashastra". Whether a prostitute is regarded as a cultural treasure or trash depends to some extent on your perspective. Ganikas were much sought after and admired like movie stars and actesses today, but the latter also used to have (or still have) a somewhat iffy reputation. Go back a few of centuries, and actors and actresses were buried outside the churchyard in our part of the world. It seems to me that ganikas had a similarly ambivalent position. 

I think that for translatorial purposes, "courtesan" works fine because it gives the right association. A lady like Ninon de Lenclos, renowned for her beauty and intelligence, certainly fits the bill in this part of the world, and her Indian ganika colleagues seem to have been up to her standards, although they didn't last so long in the profession. Below the ganikas, you get the rupajivas (women who lived off their good looks, but lacked the cultural baggage of the ganikas), and then of course all sorts of women. The Kamasutra actually gives us an unpleasant picture of women sexually used and abused by males who were their social superiors. 

The ganikas and rupajivas owned jewels, or they were set up with jewelry by their patrons (e.g. the king, who made a lot of money from this entertainment industry.) Because they were important, they had some legal protection, particularly if they worked for the king (see Sternbach). To moralists, all prostitutes would be whores, but traditionally, both we and the Indians classified these women differently depending upon their style and culture. The ganikas would at least be rich -- as long as it lasted -- and as we know, even own an elephant. It's a bit like owning a Rolls Royce. Ordinary prostitutes did not own elephants.

As for modern terms, I would not know, but I suspect that in the cultural sense, the old-fashioned ganika has drifted into the role of the Bollywood heroine. The latter seems certainly as popular and fêted as the ganikas once were.

LM

From: 
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From: Indology [mailto:INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Thrasher, Allen
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2011 9:09 PM
To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Subject: [INDOLOGY] "courtesan" as translation

Lars Martin's question raises another I have been meaning to raise in this forum.  Does the word "courtesan," which seems to be standard nowadays for referring to pre-modern Indian female sex workers, correspond to any Sanskrit lexeme? I seem to recall going through Ludwik Sternbach's  Vesya: Synonyms and Aphorisms (Bombay, 1945), to which, as I see from JAOS 71 (1951), "Legal Position of Prostitutes According to Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra, p. 25n, he published a "First supplement," in Bharatiya Vidya 11, 256, and planned a "Second supplement."  (Was all this accumulated in his Gaṇikā-vr̥tta-saṅgrahaḥ, or, Texts on courtezans in classical Sanskrit (Hoshiarpur, 1953)?).

Anyway, several years ago I went through his 1945 publication and could not find that there was anything corresponding to a distinction between "courtesan" (high-class, cultivated, expensive) and "prostitute" or "whore," with the exception of compounds like rAjagaNikA, "royal prostitute," presumably having the characteristics just cited for "courtesans," since she would be for the entertainment of the king's guests.  But this is a difference primarily in place of business, not quality.  For those outside the court, the same terms seem to be used for everyone from the village or alley whore to the top of the line variety.

I think there is in at least in some modern  Indo-Aryan languages such a distinction, between raNDI or veZyA and the like and tawAIf.  But I don't see it in Sanskrit.  Do others see it or not?

I am also wondering whether I am making "courtesan" a more marked term that some other English-speakers do.  In the online Digital Dictionaries of South Asia I find for several IA languages that a string of synonyms is given for raNDI et al.: "whore," "courtesan," "prostitute," "strumpet," etc. (Somehow I have not found a search strategy that turns up tawAIF for comparison.) Of course, many of those dictionaries are of the nineteenth or early twentieth century, when usage may have been different. But I also notice that the online OED calls "courtesan" "a somewhat euphemistic appellation," citing examples going back centuries.   Is this contemporary translation habit a matter of euphemism?

Surely not all Indian prostitutes, not even all assembled to take part in public processions or the like, were drop-dead beautiful, cultivated in all the arts, and expensive.  Also, unpleasant things are said about the ladies at both the bottom and the top of the trade.

Allen

Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D.

Senior Reference Librarian and Team Coordinator

South Asia Team

Asian Division

Library of Congress

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Washington, DC 20540-4810

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fax 202-707-1724

The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress.

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