Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c5.s1.34.4

c5.s1.34.4

That Śvetaketu left behind him some such work may be gathered from the fact that a personal statement by him has been quoted by Āpastamba in his Dharmasūtra where Śvetaketu is represented as having said that even after his marriage he carried on Vedic studies at his teacher's house for two months every year and thus acquired a greater knowledge of the Śruti than before,¹ and we may note that this passage which seems to be a direct quotation from Śvetaketu, has not been traced as yet in any of the Vedic works where he is referred to. Āpastamba further states, in another chapter, that though Śvetaketu was a person belonging to a comparatively recent age, yet he had become a Ṛshi.¹ Coming back to Vātsyāyana we find that the opinions of Auddālaki are referred to by Vātsyāyana in three places² in his Kāmasūtra and in one of them he contrasts the opinions of Auddālaki and Bābhravya, thus proving the connection of Auddālaki with the Kāmaśāstra beyond any doubt. It does not, however, necessarily impiy that Vātsyāyana had access to Auddālaki's work in five hundred chapters, as in that case he would have made ampler use of it; certain opinions must have been current in Vātsyāyana's time among the teachers of the Kāmaśāstra (whom he frequently refers to as the Ācāryas), as having come down from the reputed human founder of the science; or, the legend of Auddālaki and his opinions might have been taken from the work of Bābhravya on whom Vātsyāyana mainly depends.