Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.184

c6.184

The only passage that shows the existence of a Gauḍa country in the Gonda district is found in a verse that occurs in the list of kings of the Ikṣvāku family in the *Matsya*, *Kūrma* and *Liṅga Purāṇas*, as pointed out by Cunningham*, where Śrāvastī is said to have been founded by Śrāvasta of that dynasty in the Gauḍa-deśa. The corresponding passage in the other Purāṇas, for example, *Vāyu*, *Viṣṇu*, *Bhāgavata* etc., speaks of the foundation of Śrāvastī by king Śrāvasta but does not mention the Gauḍa-deśa. This Gauḍa therefore must have been merely a Sanscritization by some writers of the local name *Gonda* and hence it is no wonder that it was very rarely used in literature. It is nowhere found in any record of historical importance whether literary or epigraphical, it is only an unimportant local name Sanscritized in imitation of the Gauḍa *par excellence* in Bengal. It is remarkable that in Buddhist literature where Śrāvastī and the country around is frequently referred to, *Gauḍa* is nowhere mentioned. The Gauḍa of Kauṭilya and early geographical works and of inscriptions was no doubt, in Bengal; it acquired a great political importance since the later Gupta times, and even before that, formed a well-known province of Eastern India. There is every reason to believe that the G a u ḍ a p u r a of Pāṇini was the capital of this Gauḍa country.