Samaya Mātrikā
The Samaya Mātrikā is a satire written by the 11th-century Kashmiri poet Kshemendra. Originally written in Sanskrit, the work has since been translated into English by A. N. D. Haksar.
Description
History
Samaya Matrika, or The Courtesan's Keeper, was written by the Kashmiri poet Kshemendra. The poet was born in Kashmir in the 11th century, and much of his body of work was set in the Kashmir region. He studied both Vaishnavism and Buddhism, and was versed in several vedic texts. After years of recording, abridging, and translating various texts, the poet began to produce his own works, one of which would become Samaya Matrika. The work was produced post 1037, the year in which the author began to transition to writing original content.While many of his works were poems, historical epics, and abridgments of Hindu texts, Samaya Matrika was written to be a work of satire. The work pokes fun at the upper class, the clergy, the poor, the seasonal harvest, and the government. In doing so, the document has been cited as providing historians an insight into the day-to-day lives of people in the Medieval-era Kashmir valley. The story takes place in an urban setting, and there are notably a few mentions of far-away Chinese and Turkish peoples.