Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.141

c6.141

Vātsyāyana mentions three countries of the Prācya Division, *Vaṅga*, *Aṅga* and *Kaliṅga* in one passage where he refers to the love-episodes of the royal harem. He says that Brahmins of the city under the pretext of giving flowers to the ladies enter the harem with the knowledge of the king, and speak with them from behind a curtain, and from such conversations union afterwards takes place.⁵ It is in his notes on this passage that the commentator, Yaśodhara, manifests his absolute ignorance of the geography of eastern India to which we have already referred. Thus he says that the Vaṅgas lived to the east of the Lauhitya or the Brahmaputra, the Aṅgas to the east of the Mahānadī and the Kaliṅgas to the south of the Gauḍa-viṣaya, and that the Gauḍas themselves were a Prācya people living in Kāmarūpa.¹ Except with regard to the situation of Kaliṅga which may be said to be practically correct, all his other locations are absurd showing that he had no personal acquaintance with this part of India.