Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.270

c6.270

Another indirect mention of a southern country is that implied in the name of Dāṇḍakya, the Bhoja king who met with extermination along with his whole family and kingdom for ravishing a Brahmin girl⁵. This is one of those passages which have apparently been quoted by Vātsyāyana from the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya.⁶ The story is related in the Uttarakāṇḍa of Rāmāyaṇa⁷ how the flourishing dominions of Dāṇḍakya were changed into the forest of Dandaka. The Bhoja kings ruled in the south not only at the time of Kauṭilya but also much earlier; they go back without any doubt to the age of the Brāhmaṇas, and most probably, even so far back as the Ṛgvedic period.⁸ Thus we are told by a passage in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa that in the south, the kings of the Satvats were called Bhojas and a passage in the *Ṛgveda*¹ mentions Pākasthāman, the Bhoja; besides, other passages in the Ṛgveda and the comments in the Bṛhaddevatā on them, show clearly that B h o j a as the designation of a line of kings was well known in the Ṛgvedic era².