Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.113

c6.113

The *Rājatarangiṇī* mentions Strīrājya as one of the countries conquered by King Lalitāditya (first half of the 8th century A.C.) who we are told after vanquishing the Tukhāras who lived, as we have seen from Yuan-Chwang’s account, in the immediate vicinity of Balkh or the Bāhlīka country, conquered the country of the Amazons and proceeded to the land of the Uttarakurus² which according to the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*³ and the usual tradition was on the other side of the Himalayas, so that here it is seen that Strīrājya is considered to have been in the extreme north-west so as to agree with the location assigned to it by the *Bṛhat Saṃhitā*. If Strīrājya here is purely mythical like the Uttarakurus,⁴ yet it is significant as a record of the tradition that the country is considered to have been in the far north. But the *Rājatarangiṇī* furnishes further details which would lead one to suppose that this Strīrājya of the *Rājatarangiṇī* might not have been entirely a mythical land, a product of the poet’s imagination merely. Lalitāditya is said to have placed an image of Nṛhari (Viṣṇu) in the Strīrājya.⁵ Again, Lalitāditya’s grandson, Jayapīḍa, who reigned towards the end of the eighth century, is also credited with the conquest of Strīrājya by Kalhaṇa who says “wonderful it is that after he had conquered a territory in the ‘land of the Amazons’ (Strīrājya) the [other] kings esteemed [still more] highly his victory over the group of his senses (indriyagrāma).¹ Again he tells us of Jayāpīḍa's son, the debauchee Lalitāpīḍa, that "this king who was not satisfied with a few women, and who was full of violent desires, thought Jayāpīḍa an imbecile for having left the 'land of the Amazons' (Strīrājya) after he had conquered it."²