Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c5.s2.116

c5.s2.116

Coming back to other works in Sanskrit literature referring to Vātsyāyana, we notice that in some editions of the *Pañcatantra* there are two passages in which Vātsyāyana is mentioned by name. ⁴ However, in the *Tantrākhyāyika* which is considered to be the earliest recension of the Pañcatantra, the name of Vātsyāyana does not occur, but in enumerating the usual subjects of study it mentions first grammar and then the *Dharma*, *Artha* and *Kāma* *Śāstras* in general.¹ The *Tantrākhyāyika* has been supposed to have been written about 300 A.D.² The mention of the *Kāmasūtra* in it shows, at least, that the science of erotics had, in the third century A.D. obtained an equal footing with the sister sciences of *Dharma* and *Artha* as branches of learning that princes were required to acquire. This position it had not attained in 300 B.C., when, as we see from the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya, though *kāma* had been recognised as one of the subjects of human interest (*trivarga*), it had not as yet a *locus standi* as a science worth study, because it does not find a place in Kauṭilya's list where we find *Dharma*, *Artha*, *Itihāsa*, *Purāṇa*, and *Ākhyāna* (narratives) but not the *Kāmaśāstra*.³ In view of the fact, therefore, that it was Vātsyāyana who made popular the science which was almost extinct (*utsanna-prāya*) in his time, the presumption is that the author of *Tantrākhyāyika* had his *Kāmasūtra* in mind when he wrote the passage above referred to. What we have said about the *Tantrākhyāyika* applies with equal force to the *Parva-saṃgraha-parva* which forms the introduction to the *Mahābhārata* and gives a summary of the whole story; it is certainly later than the main body of the work and may have been composed about the time we are speaking of. It describes the *Mahābhārata* as a veritable encyclopædia that embraced in its scope the *Arthaśāstra*, the *Dharmaśāstra* and the *Kāmaśāstra*¹ showing that the science was well-known at the time this chapter was added to the epic. It is significant in this connection that the *Lalitavistara* generally assigned to the second or third century A.C.,² in its enumeration of the subjects that the young Siddhārtha learnt, does not mention the *Kāmasūtra* in general but knows various sections of the science such as *Strīlakṣaṇa*, *Puruṣalakṣaṇa*, *Vaiśika*, etc., besides many of the *Kalās*.³ We know that these subjects had been dealt with by Vātsyāyana's predecessors and that there was a monograph on *Vaiśika* by Dattaka of Pāṭaliputra, and it is no wonder that the author of the *Lalitavistara* who here seeks to exhaust all the branches of learning known under the sun, should refer to these subjects though known in his time only to a very few, and on the other hand, it seems to indicate an earlier date for the *Lalitavistara* than that of the *Kāmasūtra*, though unquestionably both of them belong to the same period, and nothing can be asserted as certain from only a negative piece of evidence.