Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.35

c6.35

The people of Sāketa who also passed through the same vicissitudes were almost as bad as those of Surasena, but the latter were worse in as much as they quoted scripture to support their vile a uses. Sāketa (otherwise known as Ayodhyā) was the capital of the Kosala country, and this name which had been coming into prominence since the Buddhist times was in the second century B.C. as we see from its mention in the *Mahābhāṣya* and later also we find it in the passage quoted above from the Garga Saṃhitā, we find, therefore, in the Kamasutra this name in use in preference to Ayodhyā. I have shown elsewhere that Sāketa was on the boundary line between the Madhyadeśa and the Prācya division of India.²