Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c6.98

c6.98

A Reminiscence of the Aryan Cradle in Central Asia Another country where, as we have seen above, men were kept in the same position as ladies in the harem, was Strīrājya. As its name indicates, here the women perhaps exercised power in state affairs and apparently polyandry was the rule here giving the women a greater preponderance than in Bāhlīka or any other country; that it was not entirely mythical is proved by the details about the character of the ladies that Vātsyāyana gives in two passages besides the one quoted above. One of them states that in Strīrājya artificial means of sexual enjoyment were resorted to by the women, and the other tells us of the character of women in the king's harem.¹ Vātsyāyana's mention of the Strīrājya along with Bāhlīka and the existence of the same sort of relations between the sexes in the two countries would seem to indicate that they were situated in the same region. The other two passages where Vātsyāyana mentions Strīrājya in his work² do not offer any clear indication of its geographical position. Nor does the Commentary help us here. The comment on one of the passages only gives a synonym for Strīrājya viz., Strīpurī, and the other tells us that the Strīrājya was to the West of the Vajravantadeśa or Vangarakta³ about whose position we know nothing. The Brhat Samhita of Varahamihira, however, supports us in the conjecture that it is about the north-western frontier of India that we have to look for this country of women, in as much as he definitely asserts that the Strīrājya belonged to the north-western quarter of India along with the Tuṣāras (Tokhāra of Yuan Chwang), the Aśmakas, the Madras and similar other tribes in that region.¹ Parāśara who belonged to a much earlier period and from whose *Siddhānta* Varāhamihira borrowed his statements, says expressly that in the north-west lived the Tusāras and other tribes, and beyond them was the Strīrājya² leaving no doubt that the Strīrājya was situated in the farthest quarter of the northwestern district. In the corresponding passage in the *Mārkaṇḍeya-Purāṇa* we have a mention, in the north-western quarter, of the country of Strī vāhya which is evidently a misreading of the name Strīrājya. In the *Mahābhārata* we are told that at the *svayamvara* of a daughter of Citrangada, the King of Kalinga, came Mahārāja Sugāla, the ruler of the Strīrājya,⁴ but nothing can be ascertained about the position of the country from this mention, we can only be so far certain that the Strīrājya was looked upon as an integral part of India.