Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c5.s1.34.3

c5.s1.34.3

From what we have said above, it is evident that Uddālaka considerably advanced the science the rudiments of which he had received from Pravāhaṇa Jaivali, and his son, Śvetaketu, must have carried it still farther as is evident from the body of tradition that has accumulated round his name as the first human founder of the Kāmaśāstra which appears to have been specially studied in his family. There can be no doubt that Śvetaketu and his father were historical personages and lived in a highly cultured age, an age of intense philosophical speculation, as we see from the many stories connected with them in the Brāhmaṇas and the Upanishads and it is not improbable that he had composed an Upanishad or secret work in which matters relating to marriage, love and the begetting of children were specially dealt with; at any rate, a body of eugenic rules of which a few fragments have been preserved in the Bṛhadāraṇyako-paniṣad, must have come down from him and his family.