Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.133

c6.133

Of the E a s t e r n or the P r ā c y a division of India Vātsyāyana mentions several countries and usages as well the general name *Prācya* itself as a designation for the whole of the district. We have already referred to his eulogium of the Prācya people who, as we have seen, unlike the Śaurasenas and the Sāketas were free from some of the grossest forms of sexual abuse.² The Commentary here explains that the Prācyas are people to the east of the *Aṅga* country, but here it is inconsistent with its own statement elsewhere; we have seen that according to the Commentary the limits of Vātsyāyana's Madhyadeśa are the same as those of Vasiṣṭha in his *Dharmasūtra* and hence the Prācya district must lie to the east of Prayāga, or Allahabad, where that Madhyadeśa ends. As we shall show below, the Commentator's knowledge of Eastern India was far from satisfactory or reliable, and there is no reason to question that Vātsyāyana has used the word P r ā c y a in its usual sense since the Vedic times, viz., the region from Allahabad to the farthest eastern limits of India.