Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.100

c8.100

Vātsyāyana gives an example here from the people of the south : thus, for example, says he, in the Dakṣiṇāpatha, one separated from one's mother when a child, and living in a subordinate position in the family of his maternal uncle, should try to gain over the daughter of the uncle when beyond his reach on account of her wealth, ever if she may have been provisionally betrothed to another.¹ He may attempt to win over other girls also from childhood, for Ghoṭakamukha, who is Vātsyāyana's great authority for all matters appertaining to nuptials, declares that this courtship from childhood is unexceptionable as union is brought about by honest and honourable means (dharma).² Here Vātsyāyana confirms what Baudhāyana says about the irregular practice of the people of the south, that they marry the daughter of a maternal uncle.³ Kumārila Bhaṭṭa also casts a fling at the Dākṣiṇātya who, he says, is overjoyed to get the daughter of his maternal uncle.⁴ "The marriages between cousins," as Bühler points out, "occur among the Karhāḍa Brāhmaṇas of the Dekhan."⁵ The existence of this custom in high circles in the South, receives historical confirmation from the inscriptions of the powerful royal house of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa sovereigns of Malkheḍ. Thus the Rāṣṭrakūṭa monarch Kṛṣṇa II, who reigned during the last part of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth century, had as his *mahādevī* or chief queen, a daughter of the Haihaya Cedi king Kokkalla, and from them was born Jagattunga II who married Lakṣmī, the daughter of his maternal uncle Raṇavigraha, a son of Kokkalla. From this union sprang up Indra III, who again married Vijāmbā, the daughter of Ammaṇadeva, who himself was the son of Arjuna, another son of Kokkalla.¹