Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s20.15

c11.s20.15

The *Kāmasūtra* of Vātsyāyana borrows from KA its plan and scope, and many peculiar terms as well as entire paragraphs. Hence, says Jolly, ‘no long interval of time can have passed between the composition of two such cognate productions.’¹ Jacobi, as Jolly knows, did not think so, and in truth there can be no rule governing the interval necessary between an original and its imitation. The same consideration applies to the similarity of textual structure and of *tantrayuktis* between KA and the *Suśruta* to which attention has been drawn.² J. J. Meyer has also studied the relation between KA and the *smṛtis* with a view to determine the place of KA ; though his conclusion on the age of KA puts it in the Mauryan age, his views regarding the relative ages of the other *smṛtis* have not gained general acceptance and it seems unlikely that they ever will.³