Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.175

c6.175

The same location of Gauḍa is also assigned in the work of Parasara (one of the very early Indian astronomers) who enumerates the countries in the east in the order Utkala, Puṇḍra, Karvaṭa, Samataṭa, Uḍra, and Gauḍaka.² Certainly this indicates clearly, without any doubt, that with the guidance of Parasara we have to look for Gauḍaka in the same region as Puṇḍra, Samataṭa, and Uḍra, that is, in Bengal and not in the Gonda district. We must also here note carefully what Kern points out with regard to Parasara's work: "Interesting for the geography of India is an entire chapter which Varāhamihira only changing the form, but leaving the matter almost intact, has given in the 14th chapter of Bṛhat Saṃhitā; therefore we have to consider that chapter as really representing the geography of Parasara-tantra or perhaps yet more ancient works."³ Parāśara's exact date cannot be ascertained but as he places the Yavanas,—Greeks—in south-western India, he probably belongs to the period about the beginning of the Christian era to which period Kern assigns Garga, another ancient astronomer of the same type as Parāśara.