Gaha Sattasai

The Gāhā Sattasaī or Gāhā Kośa (Sanskrit: गाथा सप्तशती, romanized: Gāthā Saptaśatī) is an ancient collection of love poems in the Maharashtri Prakrit language. They are written as frank monologues usually by a married woman, or an unmarried girl. They often express her unrequited feelings and longings to her friend, mother, or another relative, lover, husband, or to herself. Many poems are notable for describing unmarried girls daring for secret rendezvous to meet boys in ancient India, or about marital problems with husbands who remains emotionally a stranger to his wife and bosses over her, while trying to have affairs with other women.

Gaha Sattasai is one of the oldest known Subhashita-genre text. It deals with the emotions of love, and has been called the "opposite extreme" of Kamasutra. While Kamasutra is a theoretical work on love and sex, Gaha Sattasai is a practical compilation of examples describing "untidy reality of life" where seduction formulae do not work, love seems complicated and emotionally unfulfilling. It also mentioned Radha and Krishna in one of its verse as nayika and nayak respectively.

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