Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s2.29

v2.c24.s2.29

There are doubts expressed even about Gautama's authorship of the N.S. Vātsyāyana, Uddyotakara and Mādhava credit Akṣapāda with the authorcarried on in the school of Gautama. Vātsyāyana offers different explanations of some sūtras, indicating thereby that there were earlier commentators who did not all agree on the interpretations of the sūtras.¹ Besides, Vātsyāyana refers to Gautama as a sage of the remote past, and quotes from Patañjali’s *Mahābhāṣya* and Kauṭilya’s *Arthaśāstra*,² and also from the Vaiśeṣika *Sūtra*.³ Nāgārjuna, the author of *Upāyakausalya* and *Vigrahavyāvartanī*, is certainly earlier than Vātsyāyana, who attempts to combat the views of Nāgārjuna. Diṅnāga criticised Vātsyāyana’s interpretation from the Buddhist point of view. From all this, we may infer that Vātsyāyana lived some time before A.D. 400.⁴