Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c4.2

c4.2

An indispensable preliminary was an accurate determination of the time when Vātsyāyana wrote his book, especially as in the history of Indian literature there are very few definite dates. I have therefore first of all discussed this question at some length from internal and external evidence. My paper on the date of the Kāmasūtra was first published in the *Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society* in 1919, and again, after a thorough revision, in the *Journal of the Department of Letters* (Vol. IV) of the University of Calcutta. The conclusions arrived at by me have been confirmed by the discussions that my paper has raised, both in India and in Europe, and I have reviewed them towards the end of Chapter I. Prof. A. B. Keith in his recently published *History of Sanskrit Literature*, shows himself inclined to bring down my date by about two centuries, but he has not fully set forth his reasons for thingking so.