Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.2

c6.2

Vātsyāyana in enumerating the special customs and practices in different parts of India mentions many of its countries and peoples. He appears to have been familiar with all parts of the Indian continent. Of the five great divisions of India since the Vedic times he mentions three, viz. the *Pracya* country, the *Madhyadeśa* and the *Dakṣiṇatya* or the *Dakṣiṇapatha*. In the Vedic age, as we know from a well known passage in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (viii. 14), the whole of India is shown to consist of five great *Diks* or divisions, the *Prācī Dik* with its *Samrāṭ* rulers, the *Dakṣiṇā Dik* with its *Bhoja* sovereigns, the *Pratīcī* and *Udīcī Diks* with their *Svarāṭ* and *Virāṭ* rulers, and the *Dhruvā Madhyamā Dik* with its kings called *Rājas*. This partition of India into five *Diks*, that is quarters or divisions, is found to be a familiar practice in the *Atharva-Veda* and both the *Kṛṣṇa* and *Śukla* recensions of the *Yajurveda Saṃhitā*.¹ In later times we find the *Dik* often changed into *Deśa*, as for example, the *Prācī Dik* and the *Madhyamā-Dik* are called the *Prācya-Deśa* and the *Madhya-Deśa* respectively. This traditional division of India into *Diks* or *Deśas* is found throughout in Indian literature : it is found in the Vedic works, the Epics and the Purāṇas, the astronomical works like those of Parāśara add Varāhamihira, and in the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā* of Rājaśekhara² written about the beginning of the tenth century we find the same five-fold division of the Indian continent. This system of general division of India was also adopted by some of the Chinese travellers.