Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.209

c6.209

The only other place that Vātsyāyana mentions in Eastern India is Pāṭaliputra at the request of the courtesans of which city, Dattaka composed his monograph on the section of the Kāmaśāstra dealing with them³. Beside this, Yaśodhara, the Commentator, considers Pāṭaliputra to be implied by the term *Nagara* in two passages of Vātsyāyana, it being perhaps, in his opinion, the 'nagara' *par excellence*: thus he explains the word *Nāgarikyaḥ* in a passage by *Pāṭaliputrikyaḥ*⁴, and *Nāgarakāḥ* in another, by *Pāṭaliputrakāḥ*⁵. Yaśodhara has not stated on what authority, or from what considerations, he was led to offer this explanation, but bearing in mind his poor knowledge of the geography of Eastern India, as we have seen before, this identification is not worthy of any serious consideration. We can, therefore, have no hesitation in rejecting his identification as a mere haphazard guess. Besides, the very fact that Vātsyāyana mentions Pāṭaliputra expressly when speaking of Dattaka, precludes the supposition that he should use another word when speaking of the same place in a different part of the same book. We shall presently discuss the question of the location of Vātsyāyana's Nagara.