Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.329

c6.329

This meagre mention of the countries of the central and eastern portions of Northern India and the detailed description of the customs of Western India makes it abundantly clear that Vātsyāyana had personal knowledge of the western portion alone, and that his information about the eastern regions was derived probably from the works of his predecessors like the treatise on the *Vaiśika* section of the science of Erotics by Dattaka of Pāṭaliputra. That Vātsyāyana belonged to Western India may also be guessed from the fact that he makes a large number of quotations from Āpastamba's *Gṛhyasūtra*¹ as we have shown before; and it is known that the Vedic school of the Āpastambins flourished in Western India, specially in the land of the Andhras.²