Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.7

c6.7

The word Ārya used here by Vatsyayana is not an ethnical designation but it is applied to a person who, as Vātsyāyana says, is pure in habits (*śucyupacāra*); in the example given by him the Ārya ladies of the Madhyadeśa did not like such practices as kissing or biting, apparently because of their aversion to contamination by spittle from another's mouth, that is, to what is known as *ucchista*. It is evident, therefore, that Ārya in Vātsyāyana means the same thing as in Vasiṣṭha and Baudhāyana, that is, a Śiṣṭa or a person of decent habits and character, as will be seen from a reference to their respective *Dharmasūtras*. ¹ There can, therefore, be no doubt that the *Aryavarta* of these latter authors was not the land of the Āryans, but the land of the Śiṣṭas whose manners and customs, habits and practices were decent and pure according to the Dharma literature. In the *Mahābhāṣya* Patañjali also explains Āryāvarta as the land of the Śiṣṭas.²