Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c31.102

c31.102

⁴ Weber, Hist. of Ind. Lit., p. 34, showing the error of the above reading Kāmaśāstra, it being also inconsistent with the character of these persons as devotees of yoga (ninth note above). The error is explained by Vātsyāyana’s statement in his kāmasūtra i, that Śvetaketu composed a work on kāma, it was abridged by Bābhravya Pāñcāla, and he studied Bābhravya’s work. It is shown from many passages (pp. 164-6, and next chap.) that Brahmadatta (and therefore his minister Bābhravya) was long prior to Śvetaketu, and Vātsyāyana’s single statement making his Bābhravya posterior to Śvetaketu cannot, by identifying the two Bābhravyas, override that finding; for he wrote eight or nine centuries later than Śvetaketu (Vātsyāyana—the Author of the Kāmasūtra; by Haranchandra Chakladar: Journ. of Depart. of Letters, Calc. Univ., vol. IV). His Bābhravya was clearly another, later than Śvetaketu. There is nothing improbable in this, because Babhru was a very common name (see the Index, and also Vedic Index), and therefore Bābhravya also; and two Bābhravyas of Pañcāla some four or five centuries apart are nothing surprising after what has been pointed out in chap. XI. The Mat and Pad have confused the two, and altered the earlier Bābhravya’s work, the Kramapāṭha, to the latter’s, a Kāmaśāstra. This is only another instance of the confusion of persons of the same name, so often pointed out (pp. 130-4, 203-4, 213, 234, &c.).