Vatsyayana maharshi dhondo

Not to be confused with Pakṣilasvāmin Vātsyāyana.

Indian logician

Vātsyāyana was an ancient Indian philosopher, known for authoring the Kama Sutra.^[1] He lived in India during the second or third century CE, probably in Pataliputra (modern day Patna in Bihar).^[2]

He is not to be confused with Pakṣilasvāmin Vātsyāyana, the author of Nyāya Sutra Bhāshya, the first preserved commentary on Gotama's Nyāya Sutras.^[3] His name is sometimes erroneously confused with Mallanaga, the seer of the Asuras, to whom the origin of erotic science is attributed.^[4]

Biography

Hardly anything is known about Vātsyāyana from sources outside the Kāmasūtra itself.

Vātsyāyana's interest in refined human, including sexual, behavior as a means of fulfilment, was recorded in his treatise Kama Sutra.

At the close of the Kama Sutra this is what he writes about himself:

After reading and considering the works of Babhravya and other anc