Production Of Philosophical Literature In South Asia During Pre Colonial Period

Author(s): Karin Preisendanz
Publisher: Karin Preisendanz
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269575/1

Page #1

Journal of Indian Philosophy (2005) 33:55-94 DOI 10.1007/s10781-004-9055-1
© Springer 2005
KARIN PREISENDANZ
THE PRODUCTION OF PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE IN SOUTH ASIA DURING THE PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD (15TH TO 18TH CENTURIES): THE CASE OF THE NYAYASŪTRA
COMMENTARIAL TRADITION*
Dedicated to Mm. Professor Anantalal Thakur in respectful appreciation of his foundational contribution
to the study of the history of Nyāya
The following essay will present a broad survey as well as some first observations and results concerning the Nyāyasūtra commentarial tradition and its individual scholars in the pre-colonial period, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, in accordance with the focus of the international project 'Sanskrit Knowledge Systems On the Eve of Colonialism' in which I am a participator. To be able to outline the general developments and specific changes which occurred just before
*This contribution is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0135069. Access to the manuscript materials preserved at Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute to which reference is made in this contribution has been provided by the Sanskrit Knowledge Systems Project; I would like to take the opportunity to thank BORI for this most collegial cooperation. I also want to express my gratitude to the Sanskrit College, Kolkata, and its Acting Principal, Dr. Jayanta Chakraborty, as well as to the dedicated staff of Sarasvati Bhavana Library, foremost the chief librarian, Dr. Suryakant Yadav, and the former Vice-Chancellor of Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, Dr. Ram Murti Sharma, for generously permitting access to their manuscript holdings and greatly facilitating my work at these institutions in the years 2001 and 2002..In Darbhanga, access to the manuscript collection at Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University (Darbhanga Raj Library) was granted in 2002 by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Kishor Kunal, and kind assistance provided by the Head Librarian, Dr. Jha, and the retired manuscript curator ("Mahatmaji"). At the Mithila Research Institute, the Director, Dr. Krishnakant Trivedi, permitted me in the same year to explore part of the Institute's manuscript holdings; in this I was supported by the whole staff, foremost by my dear friend, Dr. Mitra Nath Jha, Director of the Manuscript Department. Furthermore, I am grateful to Dr. Saroja Bhate for her kind assistance in obtaining photocopies of the Nyāyasūtra ms. owned by the Prajñā Pāghaśāla Mandala, Wai, referred to in n. 62. Cordial thanks are due to my husband, Dr. Eli Franco, and my colleague Dr. Anne MacDonald, Vienna, for their many valuable comments and suggestions, and to Dr. Sudipta Kaviraj, London, for his insightful and inspiring remarks on an earlier version of this paper.

Page #2

56
and during this period I will have to provide a wider context and therefore first present a concise survey and analysis of the earlier commentarial tradition. Only with some understanding of this prehistory, both in general and from the relevant points of view such as the commentators' motivation in composing their works, their intended audience, their attitude towards the foundational text and other, earlier commentarial works of the tradition, and their selfunderstanding in general, can one proceed to ask the right questions, to examine these aspects in the commentarial tradition of the relevant pre-colonial period, and to characterize its development and special features. Wherever possible, observations relating to the social and political-historical contexts of the authors of these commentaries and to the circulation of their works will be made.
KARIN PREISENDANZ
As is well known, it was during Kushana rule and the following Gupta period that the major philosophical traditions of Classical South Asia crystallized on the sub-continent. Among them, the Nyaya or 'logic' tradition most probably arose within an intellectual environment of thinkers who were concerned in a scholarly manner with the prerequisites and principles of sound academic debate, with its instruments and its general rules; at the same time these thinkers must have also become engaged in philosophical questions, foremost in questions belonging to the domain of epistemology, which is of immediate relevance to debate, but also in questions pertaining to philosophy of nature, that is, the realm of physics, and to some extent metaphysics. This combination of areas of intellectual concern pro-. vided fertile ground for the formation of a full-fledged philosophical tradition. Inasmuch as the art of debate and reasoned argumentation is of relevance to all philosophical and scholarly endeavours, it is not surprising that the Nyaya tradition from early on occupied a central position in South Asian intellectual history, which is reflected in its strong influence on other philosophical traditions and Sanskritic sciences in general, from a doctrinal as well as from a formal point of view.
The Nyayasutra or Nyayaśästra, as the foundational work of the tradition is most commonly called in the early tradition, is ascribed to the sage Akṣapāda of the Gotama clan; there are indications that it was probably finalized in its classical form available to us nowadays. by anonymous redactors in the first half of the fifth century.2 Next to its most ancient core, i.e., the first and last chapters, which betrays the
For a summary, cf. e.g., Franco/Preisendanz (1998a).
2 Cf. Franco/Preisendanz (1995: 85-86), Franco (2002: 283).

Page #3

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
57
origins of Nyāya in the tradition of debate, in its three middle chapters the work presents - in a more or less systematic arrangement - numerous dialectically structured discussions on epistemological, psychological and metaphysical topics, as well as on topics of philosophy of nature, leading to the establishment of the position of the Nyāya proponent. The partners in conversation, or rather opponents in dispute, who can be identified by us or were already identified by the early commentators, are thinkers within the Nyāya tradition itself and contemporary or slightly anterior philosophers of rival traditions such as the Sankhya and the Mīmāmsā, the latter especially in the context of philosophy of language. Further opponents can be determined as adherents of the largely lost materialist tradition of Indian philosophy and as philosophers belonging to the early Buddhist traditions of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra as well as representatives of early classical Buddhist scholastics. Owing to their diametrically opposed metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions, the exchange of opinions with the Buddhist thinkers as reflected in the Nyāyasūtra was especially fierce and controversial; prominent examples are the questions of the existence of an individual, permanent and substantial Self (ātman) in (wo)man" or of the nature and very possibility of means of valid cognition (pramāna).
Those philosophers who were close to the tradition of the Nyāyasūtra and studied it in subsequent times must have considered their required contribution to the tradition to consist in the explanation of the pithy statements of the Sūtra under the aspect of their wording and content. This was achieved by them in accordance with their own philosophical ideas and knowledge of the tradition as such, probably taking into special consideration the explanations of their teachers; in the process they brought the philosophical discussions in the Sūtra itself and earlier commentaries on it up to date. Most of the literature of classical Nyāya thus presents itself in the form of commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra, sub-commentaries and further commentaries on these, and we know of quite a number of works belonging to these genres.
For a brief survey, cf. e.g., Franco/Preisendanz (1998b). 4 Cf. especially Oetke (1984: 247-278), Preisendanz (1994). scr. Oetke (1991).

Page #4

58
KARIN PREISENDANZ
Except for some fragments, however, these works have been lost. Only a few independent treatises belonging to the classical and early medieval periods have been preserved or are known to have existed; the major ones among them which have come down to us, such as the Nyāyamañjarī and the Nyāyabhūsaņa, frequently refer to the Nyāyasūtra, together with the earliest commentary, the Nyāyabhāsya, to its only preserved classical sub-commentary, the Nyāyavārttika, and to other lost commentarial literature, and therefore can be considered to partake to a certain degree of the nature of a commentary. From the point of view of our contemporary analysis of the situation, owing to their conciseness and resulting ambiguity the roughly five hundred ancient sūtra-s of the Nyāyasūtra were suitable to serve as directives for the discussion with rival philosophers even half a millennium after their composition, just as ancient landmarks may provide guiding points of reference even for the pilots of modern vehicles.
However, as has been observed by others with respect to Sanskritic commentarial literature in general, according to the - mostly only implicit - understanding of the authors of these commentarial works the individual aphorisms already contain the opinions and positions explicated by themselves in the light of the contemporary state of philosophical discussion; the doctrinal edifice which has been sketched in the Nyāyasūtra, including the rival critiques and positions, thus anticipates - as we would express it - the later developments or can harmoniously accommodate them. No express claim is made to personal intellectual originality or innovation on the part of the individual thinkers; it is rather explicitly denied in some cases. A further explicit authorial attitude to be encountered is that the commentarial activity serves the re-establishment of doctrinal positions expressed in the foundational work which have been misunderstood by opponents and therefore attacked or dismissed, with the result that their real meaning has become concealed. Uddyotakara, the sixth-century author of the Nyāyavārttika on the Nyāyabhāsya, states in the auspicious invocatory verse (mangalaśloka) of his work:
• For a survey of this lost commentarial literature with references to the relevant secondary literature, cf. Steinkellner (1961), to be updated with the help of more recent contributions by himself (cf. Steinkellner, 1977) and scholars such as Solomon (1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977-1978, 1980, 1986), Shah (1972), Thakur (1970, 1981, 2000: 110-111) and Wezler (1975). ? Cf. Frauwallner (1936), Gupta (1963: 24-25, 9711), Schmithausen (1965: 162ff, 248ff.), Shah (1972: 5-9) and Wezler (1975). 8 A notable exception to this is the Nyāyasāra by Bhäsarvajña.

Page #5

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
"In the following I will [now] compose a compendium of the teaching (sästra) that has been proclaimed by Akṣapāda, the foremost of sages, for the sake of the world's [mental and spiritual] peace, [a compendium] which [should] cause the misperceptions of poor logicians to vanish."9
59
10
It is generally assumed and indeed highly probable that the 'poor logicians' (kutärkika) referred to by Uddyotakara here were foremost the proponents of the rising school of Buddhist epistemology and logic, in the first place Vasubandhu and Dignaga, the major critics of relevant aspects of the early Nyaya tradition, with whose novel conceptions Uddyotakara concerned himself in extensive polemic discussions. From our point of view, but by no means explicated in this way by Uddyotakara himself, their critique resulted from the antiquity and outdatedness of the foundational text of Nyaya in logical matters, a situation which would normally require, as the appropriate reaction of a commentator whose tradition is under attack, a fresh interpretation of the old positions in the light of the new developments, here the developments in logic brought about by Buddhist thinkers. However, Akṣapäda's status of a sage (muni) addressed by Uddyotakara in his mangalaśloka may have ruled out such an interpretation in the latter's eyes. This status becomes evident also in the concluding verse of the Nyayabhäşya where Vätsyäyana refers to Akṣapāda as a ṛṣi; could it be that even though the last touches on the final redaction of the classical Nyayasutra cannot have taken place much earlier than some fifty years before the composition of the Bhasya,2 Vätsyäyana rightly realized that the core portions of the Sutra go further back in time? As regards Uddyotakara's reference to the purpose of Akṣapäda's teaching, namely, to the mental and spiritual peace of the world (jagataḥ śamaya), it could
11
12
9 Cf. NV 1, 3-4:
yad akṣapadaḥ pravaro munīnām śamāya śāstram jagato jagāda | kutärkikajananivṛttihetuh karisyate tasya maya nibandha
.
Umesh Mishra, whose account of the history of classical Nyaya displays an astonishingly fierce anti-Buddhist attitude, thinks that the verse refers to Buddhist attempts to 'destroy' or 'distort' the Nyayasutra because their own arguments had been refuted with the help of the powerful logical and dialectical means expounded there (cf. Mishra, 1966: 21).
10 Cf. already Vacaspati Miśra's commentary treated below on pp. 60-61. "Cf. NBh 320, 17-18:
yo 'kṣapadam ṛṣim nyayaḥ pratyabhad vadatām varam
tasya vatsyayana idam bhāṣyajātam avartayat ||.
12 On the date of the Nyayabhāṣya, cf. Franco and Preisendanz (1995) and Franco (2002: 282-283), corroborating Oberhammer (1964).

Page #6

60
KARIN PREISENDANZ
well have been provoked by the epithet 'desiring the good of the world' (jagaddhitaişin) assigned to the Buddha as an authority in Dignāga's famous mangalasloka of his Pramāṇasamuccaya.13
The intense controversy of the Nyāya tradition with the Buddhist epistemologists in the wake of Dharmakīrti's formidable works continued to inspire Naiyāyikas to turn to commentarial work in the described manner. In the tenth century, Vācaspati Miśra, according to the mangalasloka-s of his Nyāyavārttikatātparyațīkā, claims to have defended the Nyāyavārttika against criticism that is based on the mere distortion of Uddyotakara's explanation of Akşapāda's work.14 Vācaspati Miśra's wish concluding the mangalavāda points again towards the Buddhist logicians as 'live' opponents. He says:
"I wish to obtain at least some merit from extracting (saving) Uddyotakara's over-aged cows (words), which have become submerged in the hard-to-traverse swamp of bad compositions."
His metaphor of the 'over-aged cows' suggests that Vācaspati Miśra was well aware of the weakness and obsoleteness of Uddyotakara's logic once Dharmakīrti had developed his new ideas on the
13 Cf. Hattori (1968), Appendix A following p. 238 (Sanskrit reconstruction), p. 1, 1-2: pramāṇabhūtāya jagaddhitaişine pranamya sastre sugatāya tāyine / pramānasiddhyai svamatāt samuccayah karis yate viprasrtäd ihaikatah II. On the relationship of the various epithets according to Dharmakīrti's and his commentators' interpretation and on the relevance of this relationship for the proofstrategy of the Pramāṇasiddhi chapter of the Pramāņavārttika cf. Franco (1997, chapter 1). Also Vātsyāyana's use of the epithet 'best of speakers' (vadatām varah) relating to Aksapada (cf. n. 11 above) may have been a reaction to the mangalasloka of a prominent Buddhist treatise, namely, of Nagarjuna's Mülamadhyamakakārikā (MMK 11, 15-16), in which the Buddha is characterized as the best of speakers':
yaḥ pratityasamutpādam prapañcopaśamam śivam/ deśayāmāsa sambuddhas tam vande vadatām varam //. 14 Cf. NVTT 1, 7-8: granthavyakhyacchalenaiva nirastākhiladusana / nyāyavārtrikatät par yatīkāsmäbhir vidhāsyate //. 15 Cf. NVTT 1, 9-10: icchāmi kim api punyam dustarakunibandhapankamagnānām / uddyotakaragavinäm atijarafīnām samuddharanät //. Cf. also the first verse of the puşpikā (NVTȚ 700, 2-3): yad alambhi kim api punyam dustarakunibandhaparkamagnānām / uddyotakaragavīnām atijaratinām samuddharanāt //.... A slightly reworded form of the latter verse appears in the concluding verses of the Nyāyasūcīnibandha ascribed to Vācaspati: yad alambhi kim api punyam dustarakunibandhaparkamagnānām / śrīgotamasugavīnām atijarafinām samuddharanāt //.... According to Umesh Mishra's interpretation Vācaspati refers here to the attempts of the Buddhists to 'do wrong to the Nyāyasūtra (cf. Mishra, 1966: 22).

Page #7

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
61
foundations laid by Dignāga and his own teacher Isvarasena. This clearly contrasts with what Vācaspati has to say on Uddyotakara's mangalaśloka and the role of his commentary vis-à-vis the teaching of Akşapāda: The 'poor logicians, whom he identifies as Dignāga and other hostile scholars posterior (arvācīna) to Vātsyāyana, had covered the śāstra with the darkness of bad reasons, with the result that it was no longer suitable to determine the true nature of things; Uddyotakara, however, removed this darkness by means of the light of his composition." We can infer here that for Vācaspati Miśra Aksapāda, the venerable sage (bhagavān munih), ' remains the timeless authority; only the attempts by later scholars, such as Uddyotakara, to defend his teachings against unfair and unfounded accusations can lose their strength and become antiquated. Akşapāda's authority - as opposed to that to which the Buddhist opponents appeal - is further stressed by Vācaspati Miśra's employment of epithets that, once more, are commonly and typically applied to the Buddha. In one of his mangalasloka-s he calls Akşapāda a 'protector' (tāyin)," a term which is commonly used by Buddhists and Jains as an epithet of the Buddha and of Mahāvīra and other Tīrthamkaras respectively20 and which immediately evokes again Dignāga's mangalaśloka of the Pramānasamuccaya;?' furthermore, when referring to Uddyotakara's successful efforts in the defence of the śāstra at an earlier time in the history of Indian philosophy Vācaspati Miśra applies the epithet 'of highest compassion' (paramakāruņika) to Akşapāda22 which may take its inspiration from Dharmakīrti's stress on compassion as the proof or means of the Buddha's being an authority.25
16 Cf. also Thakur (1947: 37). " Cf. NVTT 2, 4-6: yadyapi bhāşyakstā krtavyutpādanam etat tathāpi dignāgaprabhrtibhir arvācīnaih kuhetusantamasasamutthāpanenācchäditam śāstran na tattvanirnayāya paryāptam ity uddyotakarena svanibandhoddyotena tad apanīyata iti prayojanavān ārambha iti. 18 Cf. NVTT 2, 10 (cf. the quotation below, n. 22). 19 Cf. NVTT 1, 5-6: namāmi dharmavijñānavairāg yaiśvaryaśāline / nidhaye vägviśuddhīnām akşapädāya tāyine //. 20 On the original meaning and development of the term tāyin, cf. Roth (1968). 4 Cf. Hattori, loc. cit. (cf. n. 13 above). This occurrence is evidence for the fact that the meaning of protector had been attached to the Sanskritized term täyin even before the seventh or eighth century, that is, the period which has roughly been assumed by Roth for this change (cf. Roth, 1968: 61). 22 Cf. NVT? 2, 10: paramakāruņiko hi bhagavān munir jagad eva duhkhapankamagnam uddidhirşuh śästram pranitavān. 24 Cf. PV Pramāṇasiddhi chapter, v. 34; see also Franco (1997: 19ff.).

Page #8

62
KARIN PREISENDANZ.
Aniruddha's brief commentary, written probably at the end of the tenth century on difficult passages in the Nyāyabhāşya, Nyāyavārttika and Nyāyavārttikatātparyațīkā, is not preserved for the first adhyāya24 where one would expect explicit statements as to the author's conception of his own place in the tradition and his attitude towards its foundational work; elsewhere, it does not yield any relevant information. Bhattavāgīśvara's Nyāyatātparyadipikā is the only completely preserved direct commentary on the Nyāyasūtra between the Nyāyabhāsya and the fifteenth-century Nyāyatattvāloka; because it often follows the Nyāyavārttikatātparyațīkā in its interpretation of the sūtra-s, it has to be dated between this work and Udayana's Parisuddhi (first quarter of the eleventh century), which was certainly not known to its author. Bhattavāgīśvara, who may have been from the south, merely mentions that the Nyāyabhāsya and Nyāyavārttika served as his basis, that is, that he had examined the former word by word and followed the latter in order to be able to throw light on the intention of the Sūtra.25 The final puspikā, which consists of two verses and concludes both the fifth adhyāya and the whole work, has not been completely preserved and of its reconstruction I fail to grasp some details. It is clearly implied, though, that according to Bhattavāgīśvara, the 'Indra of sages' (munīndra) Akşapāda anticipated the controversy with the Buddhists and therefore enjoys timeless authority: Śiva himself smilingly approved of his work because Akşapāda wished to provide those who partake of intimate union with God (īśasāyujyabhāj) with dexterity in speech, considering that it would be indispensable for the instant defeat of their partners in debate (vādin) who are garrulous when it comes to claiming that their opponents have been defeated and to pronouncing unjustified objections; further, Akşapāda considered that in the face of such partners in debate those close to God were also in need of dexterity in speech for achieving the knowledge of the Self and proclaiming it. Immediately before this, as the conclusion properly speaking of the fifth adhyāya in the first quarter of the verse, knowledge of the true nature of the 'points of defeat' in debate
24 However, there is a reference to his Vivarana in Udayana's Parisuddhi which presumably relates to the first chapter of this commentary and testifies to the original completeness of the work; cf. Thakur (2000: 114). 25 Cf. NTD 1, 5-6: anvīksyānupadam bhāsyam apy anukramya vārttikam / nyāyasūtrārthatātparyadipikeyam vidhāsyate //; cf. also Thakur (1970: 37).

Page #9

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
63
determined in the final āhnika is said to be of great consequence in the two hostile types of debate, i.e., the verbal contest (jalpa) and the contentious debate in which the opponent merely puts forth objections (vitandā). The reference to knowledge of the Self (ātmavişayajñāna) and closeness to God in connection with hostile debate thus alludes again to the heated controversy with the Buddhists - skilled in debate and convinced of their superior logic and argumentation - which centred on the two issues of the existence of the Self and God. 26
Thus, the programmatic statements of the examined major commentators of classical Nyāya27 reveal that the Nyāya scholars themselves explicitly acknowledged that what we conceive as the lively and creative development of philosophical ideas in their time took place especially in the controversy with the Buddhist philosophers; we can also observe how the Naiyāyikas managed to place this perceived evolution of ideas within the formal framework of the obviously timeless authority of the Nyāyasūtra. The debate with the Buddhists was always conducted in view of this timeless authority but nevertheless accompanied by some conception of the historical progression of ideas and concepts in the context of this exchange and
26 Cf. NTD, Thakur's introduction, pp. tha-da, for a reconstruction of the verses in śārdūlavikridita metre: evam nigrahavastutattvam akhilam nirnītam etat punah. jñātam jalpavitandayor bahu
phalam sūte svayam vādinām [sadyo nigrahajātivāda]mukharā jetum katham vādinah, sak yante katham evam ātma
visayam jrānam katham vocyate // iti jagati janānām iśasāyujyabhājām anupajanita (dākṣyam ditsate] bhāṣaneșu / paśupatir api yasmai sasmitaḥ sādhu sādhv itvadad (recte: ity avadad) avatu so 'sman
akşapădo munindrah //. My tentative translation runs as follows (reconstructed elements are placed between round brackets): “In this way the full true nature of the topic of defeat (in debate) has been determined. If this, however, is understood, it will by itself produce rich fruit in verbal contest and contentious debate (i.e., such debates in which the opponent merely contends the proponent's position) for those involved in debates. - May Aksapāda, the-Indra of sages, protect us, [he] to whom the Lord of Animals for his part smilingly said 'Excellent, excellent!' (when the former formed the wish to endow) those persons in the world who partake of intimate union with God (with dexterity) in speech which had not yet arisen (in them), wondering how partners in debate who are loquacious (in claiming defeat of their opponents and pronouncing unjustified objections) could be defeated instantly, [and] how the knowledge which has the Self as its object (could) in this way (i.e., if one is confronted with such opponents) (?) (arise) or be proclaimed (?)." 27 Within the scope of the present contribution, the important evidence of Jayanta Bhatta's Nyāyamarījarī and Bhāsarvajña's Nyāyabhūşaņa, which may be considered as part of the classical commentarial tradition in the wider sense of the word, will have to be considered separately.

Page #10

64
KARIN PREISENDANZ
thus it would be unjustified to speak of blind traditionalism or lack of historical consciousness on the part of the Nyāya scholars.
The defence of the authority of the Nyāyaśāstra against the powerful Buddhist epistemologists constituted the main inner or intellectual motivation of the commentators whose works have been preserved; the frequent references by Buddhist authors of the classical period to other, now lost commentaries allow the inference that their authors as well participated in this defence. This fruitful controversy reached its culmination in the early medieval period, in the eleventh century. Now the debate is for the first time conducted in truly independent treatises, foremost by the great logician Udayana. Udayana was obviously dissatisfied with the many commentaries and sub-(sub-)commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra which were after all formally and structurally bound by the given, partially very archaic formulations and argumentation of their root text(s), and no longer convinced about the effectiveness of works belonging to this genre when the logically impeccable establishment of the central metaphysical presuppositions of the Nyāya tradition against the formidable Buddhists was concerned. However, next to his famous treatises establishing the existence of an individual and permanent Self (ātman) and the existence of an omniscient eternal creator-god, the Atmatattvaviveka and the Nyāyakusumāñjali, and two small works which present exhaustive definitions pertaining to the central topics of the Nyāya system, the Lakşaņāvali and the Laksanamālā, Udayana also devoted himself to writing a commentary on Vācaspati Miśra's commentary on the Nyāyavārttika; this occurred demonstrably and, I think, significantly after he had completed his independent treatises.28
Commenting on Vācaspati's comments on Uddyotakara's mangalasloka, Udayana makes a few remarks that point to his historical understanding of the Nyāya tradition. He considers the Nyāyavārttika an ancient (cirantana) composition that has been embraced or recognized by great personalities (mahājanaparigrhīta), obviously a sign of its authority. Nevertheless, there are many other such compositions; why bother about this one? In the course of his discussion Udayana suggests inter alia that its tradition may have been interrupted or broken off. Elaborating upon Vācaspati's cow-metaphor (cf. above, p. 60) he speaks of Uddyotakara's philosophical tradition as the cows' (i.e., words') youth; this youth,
28 Cf. Chemparathy (1972: 22-25).

Page #11

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
however, has been lost owing to the cows' maturation in time, i.e., their getting older with time. Why then, some fictitious partner in discourse asks, should they not be rejuvenated by means of directly administrating the life-giving elixir consisting in the readily obtained teaching of Vacaspati's guru Trilocana?29 Udayana considers this suggestion to be appropriate; however, first the Varttika has to be extracted from the swamp of bad treatises and put on firm ground. again, this ground being Vacaspati's commentary on it.30 The even more ancient Nyāyabhāṣya, however, is conceived by Udayana as having the form of the body of the sastra and thus not considered by him as something additional to it, just like the Mimämsä in relation to the Veda; this statement has a predecessor already in Uddyotakara's puspika where he calls Vätsyāyana 'the likeness (pratima) of Akṣapāda,' or - following another reading of the verse - ascribes to him the intuition (pratibha) of Akṣapada.32 This close association of Sutra and Bhāṣya, not unparalleled in the early classical philosophical literature, may well account for the fact that even after
65
29 Next to Trilocana's presumed lost commentary on the Nyayabhāṣya, his main work Nyāyamañjarī could have had the form of an extensive commentary on the Nyayasutra itself (cf. Steinkellner, 1961: 157; Solomon, 1986: 560, 564); Thakur, however, considers the Nyayamañjarī to have been a commentary on the Nyayabhasya (cf. Thakur, 2000: 110). As only fragments of Trilocana's writings are preserved, it is difficult to determine the formal nature of these works (cf. also Thakur, 1947: 37) because he could have commented directly on selected sutra-s also in a commentary on the Nyayabhāṣya or even the Nyayavärttika. 30 Cf. NVTP 3, 4-11: nanu cirantane 'smin nibandhe mahajanaparigṛhīte bahavo nibandhas tathavidhāḥ santīti kṛtam anenety aha - icchamīti (cf. NVTT 1, 9, quoted in n. 15 above), nanu yadi granthakārasampradāyāvicchedena te nibandhaḥ katham kunibandhaḥ (cf. again NVTT 1, 9)? atha sampradayo vicchinnaḥ katham tavapiyam vicchinnasampradāyā tātparyaṭīkā sunibandha ity ata aha atijaratīnām (cf. NVTT 1, 10, quoted in n. 15 above) iti. uddyotakarasampradayo hy amüṣām yauvanam. tac ca kālaparipäkavakad galitam iva. kim nämätra trilocanaguroh sakāśād deśarasayanam āsāditam amūṣām punarnavibhāvāya diyata iti yujyate. na ca kunibandhapankamagnānām tad datum ucitam. atas tasmād utkṛsya svanibandhasthale sanniveśanarupasamuddharanam eva sampratam ity arthaḥ.
31 Cf. NVTP 3, 19-20: bhāṣyasya ca tadvivaranarupasya sastraśarīrarūpatayā na śāsträd adhikyam manyate mīmāmsäyä iva vedāt.
Cf. NV 530 9: yad akṣapädapratimo bhasyam vätsyāyano jagau .... This reading is confirmed by Vindhyeshvari Prasad Dvivedin's edition in Bibliotheca Indica 113 (Calcutta 1887-1914), reset as Kashi Sanskrit Series 33 in 1915 (Benares). However, in his extensive erudite introduction, the esteemed pandit refers to the relevant verse with the alternate reading -pratibho, in this context preferred by him to -pratimo, as read by some of his mss. (cf. p. 56 of his Bhumika to the B.I. edition and p. 73 of the Bhumika in KSS 33, with n. 2). The edition of the NV in the Calcutta Sanskrit Series (No. 18 and 29, Calcutta 1936-1944), which solely relies on the two editions by Vindhyeshvari Prasad Dvivedin (cf. Preface p. 7), curiously enough reads akṣapā

Page #12

66
KARIN PREISENDANZ
Uddyotakara's time quite a number of now lost commentaries were produced on both the basic sūtra-text and the Bhāsya.33
With Udayana, whom tradition places in Mithilā,54 the period of voluminous commentaries and sub-sub-)commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra seems to come to an end and a new period begins in which a large number of independent treatises are produced that continue the new development ushered in by Udayana's logical, terminological and argumentative innovations. Further, both Udayana's independent and commentarial works now become the objects of commentarial efforts; it may be owing to a large extent to this stellar personality, who was rightly recognized as an innovator of pivotal importance,"s that the classical Nyāya commentaries known to us have been preserved, for had he not chosen to comment upon Vācaspati Misra's Tātparyațīkā this work as well as the Nyāyabhāsya and -värttika might have subsequently been neglected and perhaps even lost. Admittedly, there are references to a few works commenting upon the ancient foundational text in the centuries after Udayana. In the twelfth century Srīmān(?), the teacher of the author of the so-called Sena court commentary on the Vaiseșikasütra written in Vallāla Sena's time, may have composed a Nyāyasūtra commentary. His disciple describes him as reviving Nyāya studies by means of his mature conceptualization after Gotama's words had become endangered by the speech of bad people (durjana); similarly, with
(Footnote 32 continued). dapratibho (as reported also by Thakur for NV 530, 9) without further comment. It has to be noted, though, that pratibhā may also mean 'appearance, look'; if this meaning is assumed here, rather than the more philosophical meaning 'intuition,' the semantic difference between the two compounds ending in pratimah and pratibhah would not be significant. I am indebted to Ms. Susanne Bohdal for this observation. Unfortunately, Vācaspati, Aniruddha and Abhayatilaka (in his Nyāyālankära) do not comment on this verse. 33 Vācaspati Miśra's teacher Trilocana has already been mentioned; for further information and materials on Bhāvivikta, Aviddhakarna, Sankarasvamin, Visvarūpa, Udbhata and Adhyayana, cf. the contributions listed above, n. 6. Udbhata, Sānātani, called praudhagaudanaiyāyika by Udayana, and Srivatsa are credited with commentaries on the basic text only (Thakur, 1970: 34, 2000: 113); such a commentary is also reported to have been written by the teacher of the Vaiśesika scholar Vyomasiva (cf. Thakur, 1970: 36, 1981: xxii). 34 Cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 5-7). 35 For Udayana as the actual founding figure of Navya-Nyāya, cf. e.g., Jha (1994: 18ff.), Bhattacharya (1958: 1-2 and 39-40), Mishra (1966: 237-239, 269-270), Matilal (1977: 101), Phillips (1995: 44-69) (however, with Phillips himself disagreeing with this position); Laine (1998), Wada (1990: 14, 22, 2001: 519-530).

Page #13

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
67
regard to his own commentary on the Vaišeṣikasūtra he says that he is eager to demolish the positions of the heretic scholars (paşandipandita).36 The information provided by the author of the Sena court commentary in respect to his teacher's work on the Nyāyasūtra implies a general neglect of the Nyayasutra in the medieval period after the rise of Udayana.37 The then extant commentaries obviously did not enjoy sufficient popularity or were
36 Cf. especially Thakur (1965: 331) as well as Thakur (1970: 36, 1981: xxii); the ninth adhyaya of the Sena court commentary on the Vaiseṣikasūtra was edited by Thakur in 1985 as an appendix to his edition of Vädīndra's long commentary on the Vaiseṣikasūtra (Maharajadhiraja Kameshvar Singh Grantha Mala 21, Darbhanga). The two pre-colophon verses of the Newari ms. (containing the tenth and last adhyaya of the commentary) that praise Śrīmān's (?) revival of Gautama's teachings and refer to the anonymous author's own ambitions run as follows: durvärāsama drpta durjanavacovajränalenähatäḥ śrimadgotamanirmita rasayutas ta bhararivallayah yena prauḍhavikalpajālasalilair ujjīvitāḥ santatam jiyād adbhutakīrtir ujjvalagunah śrīmān asau me guruḥ ||
tatprasāda šamājvāptam mayaitat kincid Tritam/ paşandipanditafvrāta]khaṇḍanāhātakautukāt |
Śrīman, my teacher, of marvellous fame and splendid good qualities, should always be victorious, he who revived, by means of showers of water, [i.e.] the profusion of [his] mature conceptualization, the creepers, [i.e.] words, shaped (composed) by the glorious Gotama [and] full of sap (essence) [but] struck (assaulted) by lightning-fire, [which is] the speech of bad people who are difficult to be checked, mean (?) and arrogant.
Whatever [I] have said [here] out of an eagerness, provoked [by him], to demolish [the positions of] the heterodox scholars has been obtained by me thanks to his graciousness."
The rather aggressive attitude towards heterodox scholars, presumably Buddhists, may be seen in connection with the revival of Brahmanism under the Sena dynasty after the preceding Buddhist Pāla dynasty had mainly supported Buddhist scholarship (cf. Chakravarti, 1906: 157, 1929-1930: 247, 1930: 24).
37 Further post-Udayana and pre-Gangeśa commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra were a certain Bhaskara (cf. Thakur, 1970: 35, 1981: xxi; Sen, 1978) and, possibly, a Ratnakosa by Tarani Miśra (cf. Bhattacharya, 1947: 303, 1958: 76-79 as well as Bhattacharya 1978: chapter II, without reference to this work's being a commentary, and Thakur, 1981: xxi; cf. also GSP 44, 15 [see nn. 102 and 124 below]). Cakrapāṇidatta, the eleventh-century Bengali author of the Ayurvedadipika on the Carakasamhita, is credited by the late medieval commentator on the Carakasamhitā and Cakrapanidatta's Cikitsasangraha, Sivadasasena (fifteenth century), with a Nyayavṛtti (Thakur, loc. cit., unfortunately without reference), which would accord with Cakrapanidatta's obvious first-hand knowledge of the Nyayasütra, as displayed in his commentary, especially on the philosophical-dialectical portions of Carakasamhitā Vimanasthāna, adhyaya 8. However, Meulenbeld's History of Indian Medical Literature does not mention such a work of Cakrapāņidatta's or such an attribution (cf. Meulenbeld, 2000: 86). The works sometimes attributed to Cakrapäṇidatta which are listed in the History include a treatise on grammar (Vyakaranatattvacandrika), but no work in the field of Nyaya.

Page #14

68
KARIN PREISENDANZ
39
not considered relevant enough to the advancement of the Nyāya tradition to be studied, repeatedly copied and spread for the purpose of study and therefore were not preserved. This proposed development should be seen in the light of the fact that about a hundred years after Udayana's time the long-lasting and fertile controversy with the Buddhist epistemologists had come to an end.38 As is well known, the completion of the conquest of northern and eastern India towards the end of the twelfth century and the turn of the thirteenth by the Afghan-Turkish Ghurids brought an end to Buddhist learning. which was mainly located in the large monastic universities; especially Muhammad Bakhtyar Kilji's conquest of Bihar and Bengal, that is, of regions where Buddhism had previously been generously sup-. ported by the Päla dynasty, must have had disastrous effects on Buddhist scholarship. Only in remote Kashmir, next to Nepal a major refuge for Buddhist scholars, did Buddhist monastic communities continue to foster Buddhist learning until the middle of the fourteenth century.40 Even though central philosophical positions of the former Buddhist opponents were still controversially discussed in South Asia, owing to historical-political changes these opponents had ceased to be living rivals with ever novel and sharp criticism of fundamental Nyaya presuppositions and especially pointed attacks on religious beliefs, such as those in the existence of the Self and God. The new major living adversaries of the Naiyayikas were from then onwards the scholars of medieval Mimämsä and the adherents of the various branches of Vedänta philosophy, both groups within the fold of astikya as opposed to the nastikya of the Buddhists. It appears that in spite of their radically different metaphysics and epistemology the
38 Chintaharan Chakravarti, on the other hand, blames the Buddhist dominance under the preceding Pāla rule for causing an alleged decline of Brahminical scholarship during this period. According to him, the effect of the Palas' sponsoring of Buddhist scholarship was so severe that even after the revival of Brahmanism under the Sena dynasty no philosophical literature was produced in Bengal. Cf. Chakravarti (1929-1930: 247-248). Monmohan Chakravarti's opinion is less extreme; he presumes that Sanskrit Studies were not much attended to up to the time of Sena rule on account of Buddhist influences (cf. Chakravarti, 1906: 157).
39 Cf. Wink (1999: 135-149, 334-351). This does not mean, however, that Buddhism did not continue in some popular form in Bengal after these events; cf., e.g., Chakravarti (1930: 24).
40 Cf. Naudou (1980: 242-258). Orissa also provided a place of refuge for Buddhist monks from the north and was the home of Buddhist communities with now less generous, fluctuating royal support for the building of temples and upkeep of monasteries at least up to the sixteenth century (cf. Mitra, 1980: 224, 226). However, scholarly works by Buddhists living in this area of South Asia after the Muslim conquests in the north have not come down to us.

Page #15

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
69
Naiyāyikas did not consider these groups a serious threat to the doctrinal edifice of Aksapāda and its long-claimed timeless authority. As a result its defence in the form of commentary was no longer intellectually exciting and ceased to present an urgent challenge to Nyāya scholars.
It is telling that the earliest Nyāyasūtra-related commentaries that have come down to us from the post-Buddhist period are two works of a peculiar nature: different from the older commentaries known to us they do not present a running commentary with attached independent reflections on the contemporaneous state of a certain philosophical topic, often inclusive of some polemic discussion, but treat individual, philologically as well as argumentatively difficult points of the basic text and the Nyāyacaturgranthikā, that is, the four classical commentaries from the Bhāşya up to the Parisuddhi. It is a purely scholarly or almost 'antiquarian' interest in the so-called Pañcaprasthānan yāyamahātarka, and primarily in Udayana's commentary, that seems to have prompted the authors of these works. The later of the two, the Jain scholar Abhayatilaka, wrote his Nyāyālankāra in Prahlādanapattana in Gujarat in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. Abhayatilaka, who belonged to the Kharataragaccha, was a pupil of Jineśvarasūri and greatly indebted to his senior fellow student Laksmītilaka" who - according to the concluding verse of the Nyāyālankāra, which is called a pañcaprasthānanyāyamahātarkavişamapadavyākhyā in the colophon"2 – revised the work very carefully,43 as he also did in the case of Abhayatilaka's Dvyāśrayakāvyatīkā.44 The two monks thus appear to have engaged in a joint scholarly project on the classical commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra. Abhayatilaka frequently discusses variant readings to the texts and even suggests emendations, anticipating a new, pronouncedly text-critical approach towards the foundations of a philosophical tradition. Śrīkantha's earlier Tippaņaka, called a pañcaprasthānanyāyamahātarkadurgamārthavyākhyā in the Nyāyā
41 Cf. the references to Jineśvara and Laksmītilaka in the fourth introductory verse of the work (NA I, 11-12). 42 Cf. also the designation as sudurgamapadavyākhyā in NA I, 14 (fourth introductory verse). 43 Cf. NA 794, 19: śrilaksmitilakopādhyāyaih samsodhiteyam atinipunam /. 44 Cf. Thakur (1981: xxx). Further information on Abhayatilaka is provided in the Kharataragacchagurvävali: he was initiated in 1235 and became upādhyāya in 1263, the same year in which he defeated the Digambara Vidyānanda in a debate held at Ujjayini (cf. Thakur, loc. cit.).

Page #16

70
KARIN PREISENDANZ
lankāra and declared to be its model,os is preserved on only the first four sūtra-s; according to the testimony of some intermediate colophons, it contains a series of detailed topical expositions and comments (avacūrni-s).46
Together with the further development of the text-critical approach a revival of interest in commenting extensively upon the Nyāyasūtra can be noted in the fifteenth century, with the voluminous Nyāyatattvāloka by the Naiyāyika and Dharmaśāstrin Vācaspati Miśra of Mithilā." Besides offering a commentary directly on the sūtra-s, Vācaspati provides long summaries of and discussions on portions of Gangesa's Tattvacintāmaņi, thus making his commentary a vehicle of the most recent advances in Nyāya. However, he also quotes frequently from the Nyāyacaturgranthikā, which he praises as exceedingly skilful or proficient, as opposed to his own slim and unimportant work. Next to these four works, he refers to the Bhāskara, one of the few but lost post-Udayana commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra known to us.48 Being Vācaspati's first work, the Nyāyatattvāloka seems to evidence the conscious effort of a young Nyāya scholar to turn back in appreciation to the classical commentaries and to the root text of the tradition itself, this impression is strengthened by the fact that Vācaspati also compiled the Nyāyasūtroddhāra in the early part of his career.49 In this little work
45 Cf. NA 1, 15-16 (introductory verse 5): śrīśrīkanthenāhitā durgamarthavyākhyāsmabhir yāvatīkşambabhūve / pañcaprasth<ān>anyāyatarkasya tasyās tāvat yah sa*nyā vidheyeti bodhyam //. * scil. sudurgamapadavyākhyā mentioned in verse 4, cf. n. 42 above 46 Cf. e.g., ŠKȚ 57, 11: avayavāvacūrnih. 47 Before Vācaspati Miśra, Gangesa's son Vardhamana commented upon Udayana's Parisuddhi, as well as on others of his works. Vardhamāna's Anviksānayatattvabodha, which is a direct commentary on the last adhyāya of the Nyāyasūtra, does not give us any clues as to his motivation in writing this work or his attitude towards the basic text. It is doubtful whether he ever wrote a direct commentary on the whole Nyāyasūtra (cf. Preisendanz, 1994: 20-21). 48 Cf. above, n. 37, and Bhattacharya (1947: 297). Further references are to Udayana's Parisista, a commentary on the last adhyāya of the Nyāyasūtra, and to Vardhamāna's Tattvabodha (cf. above, n. 47). His reference to Sānātani (cf. above, n. 33) may be secondary inasmuch as it was taken directly from Udayana. 49 A completely different interpretation is provided in the context of Mishra's general and not very subtle anti-Buddhist attitude: there was a need to compile not only the Nyāyasūcīnibandha (cf. above, n. 15), but also the Nyāyasūtroddhāra because the text of the Nyāyasūtra had been twisted and distorted by the evil Buddhists, who went so far as to even interpolate sutra-s to do damage to this work (cf. Mishra, 1966: 292). Monmohan Chakravarti, for his part, describes Vacaspati as a smrtiwriter who could not avoid the general contagion, and touched also on Nyaya' (cf. Chakravarti, 191 5b: 432)!

Page #17

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
he established what he considered to be the authentic Nyayasutratext, assembling those sutra-s he considered genuine and presenting - without further comment or even discussion - their correct readings. In devoting himself to this task, just like in writing the Nyayatattväloka, Väcaspati must have carefully studied the earlier commentaries available to him and evaluated their testimony. For the purpose of compiling the Nyāyasūtroddhāra special attention was paid by him to the Nyayabhāṣya. This is suggested by the mangalasloka of the Nyayasütroddhära according to one of the manuscripts of the work accessible to me.50 The title word uddhāra of the compilation is telling: understood in the light of the mangalaśloka, the work constitutes an 'extraction' of the Nyayasutra from the Nyayabhäṣya, the oldest and only classical direct commentary available to Vacaspati and his contemporaries, the concise graha nakavākya-s of which had been susceptible to being taken as part of the root text in the course of transmission early on. The fact that the word uddhāra also means 'rescue' and is in this latter sense used technically to refer to the restoration of temples and cult-images, may in addition throw some light on Vacaspati's perception and evaluation of the state of his tradition's foundational text at that time.51
71
Vacaspati Miśra's historicist perception of the Nyaya tradition which is implied in the above becomes evident in the way he refers to his fellow philosophers in this tradition and their respective historical position. The expressions used by him are navyaḥ or navīnāḥ for the "new" generation(s), vṛddhaḥ, präñcaḥ and sampradayikāḥ, or even vṛddhatamaḥ for the 'older,' 'traditional' generation(s). In his recent
50 Cf. the Jodhpur ms. (ms. no. 27940 in the catalogue of the Sanskrit and Prakrit manuscripts in the Jodhpur collection of the Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, edited by T. Joshi and D. Sharma) fol. 1v 1-2:
śrīvācaspatimiśreņa mithileivarasūriņā /
śrigautamiyasüträni likhyante bhāṣyatah pṛthak II.
The same introductory verse appears at the beginning of a Nyayasūtroddhāra ms. preserved at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) (ms. no. 740 of 1887-1891, fol. Iv 1). On the problematic issue of the various published Nyayasūtroddhara-s, also in relation to the published Nyayasucinibandha, cf. Preisendanz (1994: 3-5). A comparative study of sutrapatha-mss. which bear the title Nyayasūtroddhāra and other titles and in which the respective compilation of the sutra-s is ascribed to Vacaspati Miśra II is under preparation.
51 Cf. also the expression samuddharana - relating to Uddyotakara's Nyāyavārttikaused by Vacaspati Miśra I in the introductory and concluding verses of the Nydyavärttikatätparyatika (cf. above, n. 15).
52
Cf. also the frequently used sampradayas tu..., in contradistinction to the nayvāḥ or
anye.

Page #18

72
KARIN PREISENDANZ.
paper on the new intellectuals of the seventeenth century, Sheldon Pollock has singled out usages of this kind as indicative of the new intellectual climate of the period in which, contrary to the preceding times, one's own position within a scholarly tradition is conceptualized in a historicist manner, that is, self-consciously located within a historical sequence and labelled accordingly. As Pollock points out, this intellectual attitude is to be observed in the discourse involving one's own tradition, be it a philosophical tradition or some other scholarly or scientific tradition. Additionally, the relevant rhetorical elements are expressive of some awareness of the progress, from the point of view of content, of scholarly analysis, or at least of the expectation of such progress. As the example of Vācaspati shows, this phenomenon can be registered already in the fifteenth century, and before that it can be observed with Gangesa and the preGangesa Naiyāyika Manikantha. Connected with the phenomenon and cause for some internal tension is the enduring high respect for the authority of the legendary founder of the tradition, expressed especially at the beginning and end of scholarly works. Returning to Vācaspati, I would like to point out in this connection that he speaks of Akşapāda as a great sage (mahāmuni) who founded Anvīksikī to rescue the transmigrating beings sunk into in the swamp of suffering. 54 Besides the reverence for Akşapāda expressed here, one has to note the employment of the designation Anvīksikī for the Nyāya tradition, a designation which goes back to Vātsyāyana's early efforts to establish his philosophical tradition among the orthodox sciences under the name of Nyāya, as the centrally important 'investigating [science]' praised already in Kautalya's Arthaśāstra." I consider this use of an ancient, highly suggestive designation, which occurs several times in the Nyāyatattvāloka, as indicative of Vācaspati's renewed pride in the historically conceptualized antiquity of his own tradition and of his positive evaluation of its foundational work in spite of its obsoleteness on the surface level. A further telling designation for the teaching or doctrinal edifice (śāstra) of Nyāya used by Vācaspati is Pañcādhyāyī, 50 a term that immediately effects some association with 53 Cf. Pollock (2001, especially 7-14). 54 Cf. NTĀ3, 14-16: ... iti sarvam abhisandhāya duḥkhaparkamagnān samsāriņa uddidhīrṣann akşapādo mahāmunis tadupaśamas ya paramparopāyabhūtām ānvīksikim pranināya; cf. also the appellation Aksacaranamuni in NTA 26, 19 (... manasa indriyatābhyupagamo 'kşacaranamuneh ...) and 117, 20(...asūtritamānasendriyatăbhyupagamo 'kşacaranamuneh). 55 Cf. Preisendanz (2000: 225–230). 56 Cf. NTĀ 16, 20 (pañcādhyāyī śāstram).

Page #19

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
73
Pāṇini's Astādhyāyī and accords it equal status, albeit in another basic scholarly discipline. This suggestive designation, which is uncommon in the classical and medieval period, is also found in the colophons of some Nyāyasūtrapātha manuscripts of northern India accessible to me which date from the pre-colonial and early colonial period, among them an alleged Nyāyasūtroddhāra manuscript. Anvīksikī, for its part, reappears in the title of Jānakīnātha Bhattācārya Cūdāmaņi's sixteenth-century commentary on the fifth adhyāya of the Nyāyasūtra, the Anvīksikītattvavivarana. • This revaluation of the ancient tradition, within a clear historical perspective, as an intellectual re-orientation, may be understood in a very general way within the context of the regional history of Mithila or Tirhut, a region which was much more removed from the direct political and cultural impact of the Delhi Sultanate than other parts of northern India. Already the Karnāta dynasty, from the eleventh century onwards until the invasion of Mithila by the Tughluqs in 1324,59 and afterwards the rulers of the Kāmeśvara-Oinīvāra dynasty provided a very fertile climate for the growth and development of especially Dharmaśāstra and Nyāya in Mithilā. Romila Thapar has suggested that the late medieval and early modern nonMuslim rulers of regional kingdoms in northern India turned to the promotion of Sanskritic scholarship in general to assert their cultural identity, at the same time distancing themselves from the remote
57 Cf. Sarasvati Bhavana Library (SBL) ms. no. 33181, fol. 12r 12; cf. also BORI ms. no. 25/1879-1870, fol. 14r 2. For a classical occurrence of the term, cf. NV 1, 13. Cf. also Mitramiśra's Viramitrodaya (CSS 62) 9. 26-27 on Yājñavalkyasmrti 1.3: parcădhyāyiśāstram akšapādapranītam, and Prasthānabheda (ASS 51) 6, 7. 58 Cf. SBL ms. no. 33189, fol. 166v 3. Cf. also the introduction to Rāmabhadra Sārvabhauma's Nyāyarahasya, after the six mangalasoka-s: atha bhagavatāk sapādenănviksikim samäripsamānena kim iti mangalam mahitam (SBL ms. no. 33189, fol. Ir 5-6; BORI ms. no. 28/1898-1899, fol. lv 6–7; BORI ms. no. 743/1882–1883, fol. Ir 7-8 reads bhagavatā kanādena; the Nyāyarahasya, together with the Anviksikitattvavivarana, has been edited for the first time in December 2003 by Prabal Kumar Sen, but I could procure a copy of the two volumes only after this paper was already in print). The designation Anviksikiśāsana appears twice in the introductory part (fol. lv 1) of an as yet unstudied commentary on the Nyāyasūtra together with the Nyāyabhāsya (and Vārtika?) preserved at the Sanskrit College, Kolkata (hand list of Nyāya-Vaiśesika manuscripts no. 1372 = descriptive catalogue of 1965 no. 252). For the use of the designation Anvīksiki referring to the Nyāyasūtra and - śāstra. cf. also Krsnakānta Vidyāvägiśa's Sautrasandi pani, a commentary on the Nyāyasútra written in 1818 in Bengal (cf. the second introductory verse, which I fail to understand in some details, quoted in Sastri, 1968: 520). 59 Cf. Choudhary (1970: 25-26, 31-54). 60 Cf. Choudhary (1970: 26-27, 58-94), Mishra (1979: 69-88).

Page #20

74
KARIN PREISENDANZ .
Muslim rulers and their cultural elite in this way, possibly also to bolster their own legitimization as indigenous (semi-independent rulers. The appreciative return to the ancient "roots" of Nyāya within the - from the point of view of content and scholarly sophistication - innovative and advanced intellectual climate of Navya-Nyāya, a return which we see commencing in Mithila with the Nyāyatattvāloka, may be placed within this wider context of external motivation; the latter may have promoted such an intellectual re-orientation, in any case presented a sympathetic historical setting for it and thus enhanced the internal motivation of scholars, while the indirect impact of Muslim rule and culture transmitted to Mithilā owing to the increased mobility of and social interaction between members of the intellectual elite may have been responsible for or at least reinforced the more and more pronounced historicist concept of the Nyāya tradition as such.
Unfortunately, we do not know the precise circumstances of the composition of the Nyāyatattvāloka and the compilation of the Nyāyasūtroddhāra, except that they were Vācaspati's first works. However, the evidence of either of the two alternative verses prefixed to the Nyāyasūtroddhāra manuscripts accessible to me indicates that he was already at that time a scholar connected with the court of a Mithilā ruler.62 His numerous and celebrated works in Dharmaśāstra were all written after his Nyāya works, under and for the Kameśvara rulers Harinārāyaṇa (Bhairavasimha) and his son Rūpanārāyana (Rāmabhadra),64 perhaps following a brief stay abroad in Pañ
61 Cf. Thapar (1990: 314). 62 Cf. SBL mss. no. 32672, 33181 and 33219; cf. also ms. no. 5682 (catalogued as a Nyāyasūtra ms.) of the Prajñā Pāțhaśāla Mandala, Wai: śrīvācaspatidhirena mithileśvarasūriņā / likhyate munimürdhanyaśrīgautamamatam mahat //; for the alternative verse cf. above, n. 50. 63 Cf. e.g., the introductory verses to the Dvaitanirnaya, which also refer to Queen Jaya(no) as commissioning the work, referred to in Chakravarti (1915b: 427), Bhattacharya (1958: 157), Kane (1975: 847). 64 The Mahādānanirnaya is attributed to both Harinārāyana and Rūpanārāyana in verses attached to the beginning and end of the work respectively; the authorship of Vācaspati is reduced to 'assistance' (sahakāritā) in the first case, scil. śrīvācaspatidhiram sahakāritayā samāsādya/ śrībhairavendranrpatiḥ svayam mahādānanirnayam tanute //, and not even mentioned in the second. The Pitrbhaktitararginī or Srāddhakalpa, Vācaspati's last work, was written at the request of the latter. Cf. Chakravarti (1915b: 427, 429), Bhattacharya (1958: 157-158) and Kane (1975: 849, 851-852, with n. 1288).

Page #21

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
calabhūmi.65 Born in a family of Karmamimämsakas,66 he achieved a high position at the court of Mithila owing to his expertise in Dharmasastra." Basing himself on the Mithila panji-s, introduced by the Karnata ruler Harasimhadeva in 1324, Dineshchandra Bhattacharya provides us with further details as to Vacaspati's personal and scholarly network.68 He was from the Samauli branch of a family belonging to the Vatsyagotra, with Palli as their mulagrāma, and related by his fourth wife of the famous Sodarapura family to another important Naiyayika of the fifteenth century, Sankara Miśra,70 while his first two wives linked him with the royal family." One of Vacaspati's granddaughters was married to Bhavanatha, the son of Sucikara Upadhyaya of the Kuñjapalli (Kujauli) family of Bhakharauli (Bhaura);72 Śucikara, a pupil of the illustrious Naiyayika and commentator on the Tattvacintamani Jayadeva alias Pakṣadhara Miśra (related to Sankara Miśra, who was a paternal uncle [pitrvya] of his, and thus also a member of the Sodarapura family) was the teacher of Maheśa Thakkura, the founder of the Darbhanga Raj in 1556/1557 and author of a celebrated commentary on Pakṣadhara's Aloka on the Tattvacintamani."
75
65 Cf. Bhattacharya (1947: 301-303, 1958: 148-149) on the evidence of the introduction to Vacaspati's Nyayaratnaprakasa, a commentary on Manikantha's Nyayaratna.
66 Cf. the final verse of his Krtyapradipa quoted by Bhattacharya (1947: 295, 1958: 143): vamise jätaḥ kaluşarahite karmamimämsakānām anvīkṣāyām gurukaruṇaya labdhatattyävabodhahḥ | śrīmän vācaspatir aham iha pritaye punyabhājām natvā natvā kamalanayanam krtyadipam tanomi //. 67 In the colophons to the Pitrbhaktitarangini (cf. Chakravarti, 1915b: 429; Bhattacharya, 1958: 143; Kane, 1975: 851, n. 1288) and Sudrāçāracintamani (cf. Kane, 1975: 851) Vacaspati is called sakalapanditamandaliśiromani and parişad (advisor in difficult legal points) to the two kings; in the Dvaitanirnaya we find the epithet nikhilatantravid (cf. Bhattacharya, op. cit., 157).
68 Cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 157).
69 On the illustrious Sodarapura family cf. Mishra (1966: 400-401).
70 This wife was a cousin (pitṛvyaputri) of Sankara Miśra (cf. also Mishra, 1966: 290).
7 His first wife's great-great-grandfather was Raya Bhogisvara (cf. Chakravarti, 1915b: 415-416), his second wife's father was the son of the daughter of Bhogisvara's younger brother Bhaveśvara (Bhaveśa, Bhavasimha), the first ruler over all of Mithila (cf. Chakravarti, 1915b: 417); cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 156-157) and Mishra (1966: 289).
72 Cf. also Mishra (1966: 358).
73 Cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 125-126).
74
On Mahesa Thakkura, the first ruler of the Khandavala dynasty, cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 172-176) and Mishra (1966: 355-361). The Darpana was an early work of his

Page #22

76
KARIN PREISENDANZ.
The renewed interest in the Nyāyasütra demonstrated by Vācaspati Miśra in fifteenth-century Mithilā re-manifests itself about a hundred years later in the person of Keśava Miśra, who composed a Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa." Keśava Miśra, son of Viśvadhara and brother of Umāpati, 76 was a third-generation descendent of Sankara Miśra and belonged to the Katakā branch of the Sodarapura family; besides his Nyāyasūtra commentary and another, earlier and most probably more extensive Nyāya work entitled Tarkatāndava," he wrote several works on poetics as well as Dharmaśāstra works.78 In some of the puspikā-s of his Nyāyasūtra commentary, he introduces himself as the main scholar on the advisory board of the king of
(Footnote 74 continued). and may have been written between 1535 and 1540 according to Bhattacharya; Mishra even calls it his first work (Mishra, 1966: 358) which, however, makes it impossible that it was written in 1612, as Mishra states following Parameshvar Jha (cf. Mishra, 1966: 356). Pakşadharipracāra, mentioned in the Gādhivamśavarnana (cf. Benson, 2001: 112) may have been an alternative title of this work. Mahesa Thakkura is also said to have introduced the dhautapariksā for Maithila scholars in 1550 (cf. Mishra, 1966: 360; Jha, 2001: 271). 75 This is the title of the work according to the colophon after adhyāya 1.2 in the ms. preserved at Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University (which may also be the source for the corresponding longer colophons after the other preserved adhyāya ends, i.e., 3.2, 4.2 and 5.2, as well as after the end of 5.1 printed in K.N. Jha's edition) even though the puspikä concluding adhyāya 1, just as the one after adhyāya 3, refers to a Sūtraprakāśikā; cf. GSP 24, 14-15 (1.2) and 70, 4-5 (3.2]: tīrabhukrimahipalaparisanmukhyasurina śrīkeśavakavīndreņa krtā sūtraprakāśikā // against GSP 25, n. 1: iti mahāmahopādhyāyavedantavyäsasrikeśavamiśrakrtegautamīyasūtraprakāśe ... (cf. also GSP 70, 14-15 (3.2); 97, 15-16 14.21: 114, 13-14 15.11: 124, 25-26 (5.2); in shorter form, possibly provided by the editor, GSP 17, 34 [11] and 54, 31 (3.1)). The introductory verses to adhyāya-s 2, 4 and 5 speak of a Nyāyasūtraprakāśana, unless this is not at all a title but refers to the poet's activity (GSP 25, 12 (2.1); 71, 4 [4.1); 98, 6 (5.1)): sukhenādhyāpayan kāśyām nyāyavedäntadarśane / Śrīkeśavakaviś cakre nyāyasūtraprakāśanam //; in the slightly modified verse at the beginning of adhyāya 3 this is replaced by sūtravyākhyāna (GSP 41, 4 13.11). On Keśava Miśra cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 186189); Mishra (1966: 368-370). 76 Cf. GSP 17, 32, 86, 27, 97, 13, 114, 10 and 124, 17: umäpatisagarbhena śriviśvadharajanmanā/śrīviśvadharasūnunā / ...; umāpatisagarbhasya śrīvi vadharajan manah / .... 77 Cf. GSP 23, 19 (... iti prapancitam mayaiva tarkatāndave); 104, 17 (vistaras tu tarkatāndave); 112, 19 (tat sarvam darśitamı tarkatāndave); 122, 13 (... tathā prapancitam tarkatāndave) (cf. also Bhattacharya, 1958: 188). 78 Cf. Jha (1978: [2H3]), referring to the evidence of the colophon of Keśava Miśra's Sankhyāparimāna and the Maithila parji-s.

Page #23

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
77
Tīrabhuktiwho may have been the last ruler of the KāmeśvaraOinīvāra dynasty, Kamsanārāyaṇa (Lakşmīnātha). So It seems, though, that he commented only upon the first adhyāya in Mithilā and then, during the troubled times following the overthrow of the Kāmeśvaras, left the region; the remaining adhyāya-s were expounded by him while he was 'happily teaching the philosophical world views of Nyāya and Vedānta in Kāśī,' as he states in his introductory verses to these chapters. 81 Chapters one, three and four are dated 1553, 1557 and 1560 (i.e., Laksmana era 434, 438 and 441) respectively in the manuscript preserved at Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University; should this manuscript actually be a rare autograph, as suggested by the editor of the work, Kishor Nath Jha,82 this would mean that Keśava did not return to Mithilā after the Darbhanga Raj had been granted by Akbar to Mahesa Thakkura- allegedly in recognition of his abridged translation of the Akbarnāma into Sanskrit under the title Sarvadeśavrttāntasangraha83 - but chose to continue teaching in the city of Kāšī,84 where Mahesa Thakkura himself had studied Mīmāmsā and Vedānta under Rāmeśvara Bhatta of the famous Gādhi family before he acquired the Raj. The autograph of the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa, however, must eventually have found its way from Kāśī to Mithilā. Jha identifies Keśava as one of the pandits who contributed to the Kavindracandrodaya, the 'Festschrift' that was compiled to praise Kavīndrācārya Sarasvati for having convinced the Moghul ruler Shah Jahan to abolish the tax for pilgrims visiting Kāśī and Prayāga earlier introduced by him. 86 Indeed, four verses in this compilation were composed by a certain Keśava Miśra, the twelfth of the altogether 69 contributors;8? however, as this tax must have been abolished at least some years after 1628, the year of Shah Jahan's
79 Cf. GSP 24, 14 and GSP 70, 4, quoted above in n. 75. Cf. also the initial verse of his Alark ārasekhara quoted in Jha (1978: [4)). 80 Cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 188), Jha (1978: [3]). On Laksminātha cf. Chakravarti (1915b: 430–431). 81 Cf. GSP 25, 11-12, 71, 3-4 and 98, 5-6 quoted in n. 75 above. Cf. also Thakur (1976: 265). 82 Cf. Jha (1978: [2]). 83 Cf. Sarma (2002: 74–75). 84 It has to be noted, though, that at the end of adhyāya 3 the reference to Keśava Miśra's position at the court of Mithilā is repeated; cf. n. 75 above. 85 Cf. Shastri (1912: 9) and Bhattacharya (1958: 173–175); cf. also Benson (2001: 112). It is chronologically almost impossible that Mahesa Thakkura spent his last years in Kaśī studying with Rāmeśvara Bhatta, as stated by Mishra (1966: 360). 86 Cf. Jha (1978: [3]). 87 Cf. Gode (1954: 366) and Upadhyaya (1994: 85).

Page #24

78
KARIN PREISENDANZ
enthronement,88 from the chronological point of view this identification seems very improbable.
90
89
92
Kesava Miśra's basic attitude towards the roots of Nyaya is not so much different from that of Vacaspati Miśra of Mithila. For him, too, the venerable author of the doctrinal edifice of Nyaya, whom he calls by his gotra-name Gotama, is a great sage, even the greatest sage, endowed with greatest compassion (paramakäruṇika). Just as Vacaspati, Kesava refers to the Nyayaśästra as Pañcādhyāyi" and Anvīkṣikī. The classical commentaries are referred to by him," but the brief references seem to be second-hand and do not attest to much genuine interest in these works or to their profound study, except maybe of the Tätparyatika or Udayana's unacknowledged - Parisuddhi. A number of positions are attributed to the 'ancient ones' (vṛddhāḥ, prāñcah), but not in opposition to the 'new' scholars. Regarding the substance of his commentary, Keśava is very much. indebted to Vacaspati's Nyayatattväloka, even though he does not take into consideration the more extensive and sophisticated digres sions in this commentary. He frequently paraphrases or summarizes the explanations of the sutra-s in the Nyayatattväloka in his own words or slightly modifies them. Sometimes the correspondences are so close that it is even possible to emend the obviously corrupt text of the edited Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa on the basis of the Nyayatattväloka. It is therefore surprising that Kesava does not mention Vacaspati or his work on the Nyayasütra explicitly anywhere in the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa. However, there may be some implicit reference after all. In his rather boastful mangalaśloka-s Kesava states that there is indeed no lack of knowledgeable scholars familiar with the ways of reasoning who previously assembled in the dense thicket of Nyaya; however, there are also some scholars of Nyäya, desirous
88 Cf. Gode (1954: 370).
89 Cf. GSP 1, 8: pāramarṣāņi sūtrāņi... (v. 3a).
90 Cf.. GSP 1, 24: atha paramakaruniko bhagavan gotamo maharṣiḥ samsārāngāreṣu pacyamanan samuddidhirsuḥ....
91 Cf. e.g., GSP 1, 12: ... pañcādhyāyiparinatarahasyapraṇayinah... (v. 4c) (cf. the full quotation in n. 96 below) and 3, 13: pañcadhyāyi śāstram.
92 Cf. the continuation of the sentence quoted in n. 90 above: dyasiroratnabhätämänvikşikim praṇītavān
sakalavi
94
I.e., there are a few quotations from the Bhasya, the Varttika and the Tikā as well as from the Nyayamañjarī, and even two references to Sanatani (cf. above, n. 33). Kesava rather uses the neutral expressions anye, apare, eke and kecit. In at least one case (GSP 98, 18), ācāryaḥ seems to refer to Vardhamana, whose position is rejected in favour of that of the 'ancient ones.'

Page #25

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
79
of knowing the fully developed secret of the Pañcädhyāyī, who are – in their interpretation of this science - disposed to go against the rule to avoid contradiction. Although there exists a commentary (vyākhyā) by an earlier learned man for the delight of those endowed with analytic understanding, Keśava continues, his (i.e., Keśava's) own composition cannot be obtained elsewhere on account of its spotless virtues, such as excellence of explanation, conciseness and simplicity of expression, mutual coherence and harmony of individual topical sequences (?). I would like to suggest that it is the author of the Nyāyatattvāloka to whom he obliquely refers to in these verses as an earlier scholar and with whose work he compares his own composition. Keśava thus would have appreciated the Nyāyatattvālokā as a demanding commentarial work meant for specialists who can follow the analytical discussions on central Navya-Nyaya topics as presented by Vācaspati with reference to the Tattvacintāmaņi; at the same time he would imply that compared to his own commentary the Nyāyatattvāloka contained less excellent explanations of the sūtra-s themselves, was too extensive and complicated in its wording, less coherent and presented a not always felicitous order of topics treated (?). Furthermore, he may have implied that the spotless qualities of the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa ensure an appropriate understanding of the 'secret' of the Pañcādhyāyī also for those interested Naiyāyikas who are prone to misunderstanding it, something which the Nyāyatattvāloka could not achieve owing to its complicated expositions taking into consideration the developed contemporary discourse as well as its more difficult, less smooth style.
Two extensive quotations in the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa come from a certain Vidyāsāgara, the author of a lost sīkā on the Nyāyasūtra whom Anantalal Thakur has identified with
9 The wording is too laconic to decide the precise nature of the contradiction. Keśava Miśra may have had in mind contradiction with reasoning in general or with relevant contemporaneous ideas, or with older, established traditional explanations. 96 Cf. GSP1, 10-17 (vv. 4-5): iha nyāyāranye prakrtigahane tarkasaranipravīņā vidvāmsah kati kati na pūrvam
samabhavan param pañcādhyāyīparinatarahasyapranayiņo virodhavyāsedhavyasanapatavah kecana
punah // āste yadyapi pūrvapanditakrtā vyākhyaiva samkhyāvatām ānandāya tathāpi keśava
kaver vācäm iyam gumphanā / vyākhyāsausthavaśabdalāghavamithahsambandhapūrvāparapratyarthapratibaddha(?)
nirmalagunā kutranyato labhyatām //.

Page #26

80
KARIN PREISENDANZ.
Pundarīkāksa Vidyāsāgara, a cousin of Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma.97 Should this identification be correct, it would imply that Kesava Miśra was aware of some sūtra-interpretations in a late fifteenthcentury Nyāyasūtra-commentary written in Bengal, if he did not even have a copy of the whole work at his disposal. Vidyāsāgara for his part refers to the pre-Gangesa Nyāyabhāskara and Vardhamāna's late fourteenth-century Tattvabodha among other works belonging to Mithilā.99
In spite of these and the few other references to earlier work done on the Nyāyasūtra, on the whole the emerging picture presented by the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa, as already indicated above (cf. p. 78), is one characterized by a lack of historical depth and perspective as compared to these aspects as they are evident in the Nyāyatattvāloka. However, another kind of intellectual interest, towards which a tendency could already be noted in the Nyāyatattvāloka in conjunction with the Nyāyasūtroddhāra, can be observed with the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa, namely, a strong concern about the constitution of the root text. The individual adhyāya-s of the commentary are followed by verses in which the number of the sūtra-s relating to the individual topics (prakarana-s) is indicated both by cardinal number words and by descriptive number words; also the topics themselves are enumerated.'00 At the conclusion of the first adhyāya, the number of prakarana-s of the whole śāstra is also indicated in a verse. In consonance with this attention to formal features, Keśava Miśra devotes more space than his predecessors to the discussion of struc
97 Cf. GSP 32. 4-8 and 76, 12-19, and Thakur (1976). Pundarīkākṣa Vidyāsāgara was a scholar of grammar (with extant works) who is said to have also composed commentaries on the Alankāraśāstra works by Dandin, Vamana and Mammata. Väsudeva Sārvabhauma's father, the scholar Narahari Viśārada, was Pundarikáksa's uncle; cf. Bhattacharyya (1940: 59). 98 Cf. above, n. 37. 99 Cf. Thakur (1976: 267). 100 cf. e.g., the verses at the conclusion of adhyāya I (GSP 24, 16-22, vv. 2-3): aksi (= 2) pañca (5) dhruvas ( 14) caiva tri (3) şad (6) aśva ( 7)* yugandharah (= 2) / paścāt tri(3)şad(6)vasu( = 8)trīņi(3) prathamādhyāyasūtrakam // sambandha[1]māna[2]meyān [3] tatpūrvāngam (4) tadaśrayah [5] // tatsvarüpam (6) cottarāngam (7) prathame, carame punah // kathā (1) ca hetvābhāsās [2] ca chalam (3) cāśaktilingakam [4] //. • aśva seems to be a mistake because the prakarana contains not seven but eight sūtra-s. For this reason, Kishor Nath Jha corrects sadaśva to sadvasu. 101 Cf. GSP 24, 23-24 (v. 4): sapta(7)śruti(= 4) grahāl = 9)mbhodhi(= 4) grahā( = 9)śvaus = 7) vāsava( = 14)
r'tukau( = 6) //

Page #27

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
81
tural considerations, such as the correct number and extent of prakarana-s02 and their sequence and coherence as regards content (sangati). Furthermore, he discusses the status of disputed sūtra-s 103 as well as the precise wording and extent of certain sütra-s. 104 I would like to suggest that with the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa a significant further step takes place in the development of what one could call Nyāyasūtra-commentaries with a 'philological and text-critical emphasis, as opposed to such commentaries with philosophical and historical emphasis.
This new tendency finds its culmination in the Nyāyatattvaparīksā, also known as Anvīksātattvaparīksā."Os According to the colophon of the manuscript preserved at the Mithila Research Institute, Darbhanga, 106 which has convincingly been argued to be an autograph by Prabal Kumar Sen, 107 this commentary was written in 1735 by Vamsadhara in the village of Mangalavani (Mangaraunī, Mangroņi) near Madhubani. The first introductory verse of two incomplete mss. of the Nyāyatattvaparīksā kept in the Sarasvati Bhavana Library108 provides the further information that Vamsadhara was the student of
(Footnote 101 continued). jīmütal = 17)(?)* vāhāv(= 7) ādyantāhnike prakaranam kramät //. * jīmūta, not recorded as a descriptive number word, is an epithet of Siva and may therefore correspond to 11; the actual number of prakarana-s in the first āhnika of the final adhyāya according to the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa is 17. 102 Cf. e.g., the discussion as to the reason why Nyāyasūtra 3.1.12-14 do not form a separate prakarana, as assumed by Tarani Miśra in his Bhāsva (cf. above, n. 37; cf. also n. 124 below), in GSP 44, 15-19 or to why the first five prakarana-s of the third adhyāya do not form an āhnika by themselves in GSP 47, 4-6 (ätmaparīkşānumitaih in line 4 should probably be corrected to read ātmaparikşāntarbhūtaih). Cf. also GSP 33, 14-16 on the possibility that the third and fourth prakarana of the first āhnika of the second adhyāya form an independent āhnika, and GSP 57,4-7 on the suggestion that the second prakarana of the second ähnika of the third adhyāya constitutes only a part of the first prakarana. 103 Cf. e.g., the discussion on Nyāyasūtra 3.1.28-30 in GSP 47, 26-28 and on 3.2.10 in GSP 56, 24–25. 104 Cf. e.g., the comments on Nyāyasūtra 3.2.10 in GSP 56, 26-29. 105 Thus, Mishra's statement that Keśava Miśra was the last Maithila scholar of the traditional type who wrote a commentary on the Nvāyasūtra (cf. Mishra, 1966: 369) has to be taken with caution. 100 Ms. no. 497. The colophon is quoted in Sen (1980: 103); however, I read the expanded title of the work mentioned there as maharsigautamapranitanyāyatati vapariksā (instead of -nyāyasya tattva-). 107 Cf. Sen (1980: 103-105). 108 SBL mss. no. 31556 (containing the commentary on the first adhyāya) and 31557 (covering the first āhnika of the first adhyāya and parts of its second āhnika, discontinuing right in the middle of the commentary on Nyāyasūtra 1.2.12), obviously not known to Sen. The two manuscripts preserved in Darbhanga (at the

Page #28

82
KARIN PREISENDANZ
Gokulanātha and that Gokulanātha, together with his younger brother, Vamsadhara's maternal uncle (mātula) Jagannātha '09 - with whom he spend some years in Garhwal under the patronage of the Muslim ruler Fateh Shah' -, taught Vamsadhara how to comment
(Footnote 108 continued). Mithila [Research] Institute and the Darbhanga Raj Library, i.e., the Library of Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University (KSDSU)) and available to Sen for his 1980 study are incomplete at the beginning the first contains the commentary on Nyāyasūtra 1.1.11 to 1.2.3 only, the second the complete text starting with adhyāya 2. A further ms. of the commentary on the first adhyāya, dated 1187 Bengali era (= 1780), has been reported by Rajendralal Mitra (cf. also Jha, 1947: 322) to be preserved at Magrāņi (= Mangalavanī), in the possession of a certain Pandit Chhoti Jha (cf. Mitra and Sastri, 1990: 193, no. 1877); beginning and end of this ms. (= M), also unknown to Sen and maybe not available any longer, have been transcribed by Mitra. Mitra correctly listed this ms. under the title Nyāyatattvapariksā. Just as in the case of the ms. belonging to the Darbhanga Raj Library (cf. Sen, 1980: 101), SBL mss. no. 31556 and 31557 of the Nyāyatattvapariksa are catalogued as containing an Anviksătatt vapariksā although the two preserved colophons after the first ähnika of the first adhyāya clearly identify the work's title as Nyāyatati vapariksä; cf. fol. 41 v 4 and fol. 37r 8: iti nyayatati vaparikṣāyām prathamādhyāyasya (ms. no. 31556 reads: prathamadhyāya-) prathamāhnikam tatt vatah pariksitam. The colophon at the end of adhyāya 1 in ms. no. 31556 (fol. 50v 6) gives the alternative title Anvīksātati vapariksa which may be the result of the scribe's having been influenced by the beginning of the immediately preceding concluding verse anvīksā'prathamādhyāye dvitīvähnikagocarāh/ tativaihparikșitäh samyak śrīvamsadharaśarmaņā // (fol. 50v 5-6); cp, the similar second introductory verse to the second ahnika of the first adhyāva which is preserved in the KSDSU ms. (as reported in Sen, 1980: 101), but not in SBL mss. no. 31556 and 31557. Also the final colophon of M confirms the title Nyāyatattvaparikșă; cf. Mitra and Sastri (1990: 194): iti nyāyatattvaparikṣāyām prathamo 'dhyāyaḥ.
M: anvīksāh; ?ms. no. 31556: tatt vai 109 cf. also Jha (1965: xiii). The syntax of the verse (cf. n. 111 below) does not attest to a third preceptor and Jha, who lists the names and aliases of the three brothers of Gokulanātha, does not mention a brother called Sambhu (loc. cit.); cf. also the genealogy of the Phanandaha or Phanadaha family given in Jha (1947: 318) and Mishra (1966: 375). The word sambhu, as an adjective meaning 'helpful, gracious,' is clearly used here to qualify Vamsadhara's maternal uncle Jagannātha (cf. also Jha, 1947: 322 on the evidence of the two introductory verses of the Nyāyatal vapariksa as quoted by Rajendralal Mitra from the Mangalavani ms. (cf. n. 108 above]), and does not refer to a further maternal uncle named Sambhu, as assumed in Sen (1980: 100) with reference to the very similar verse in the beginning of Vamsadhara's Anumānadidhititati vaparīksā. This is supported by the fact that in the second introductory verse to the Nyāyatati vaparīksā as found in SBL mss. no. 31556 and 31557 as well as in the Mangalavani ms. Jagannatha is mentioned again and designated as mätula (cf. again n. 111 below). 110 Cf. Jha (1947: 314 and 322) and Bhattacharya (1958: 195) (on Gokulanätha).

Page #29

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
83
upon the statements of Akşapāda; thus Vamsadhara was Gokulanātha's sister's son (bhāgineya), which fits well with the fact that Mangalavanī is the native village of the well-known Naiyāyika Gokulanātha. "12 Jagannātha must have assumed the role of the principal teacher of Vamsadhara while his elder brother was busy as a scholar at the court of the Kāmeśvara ruler Rāghava Simha or after he had departed for Kāśi, where he passed away at the age of ninety." This is corroborated by the fact that according to the sarayantra declaration of Datta Sarman's (cf. below) the ānvīkșikī vidyā is said to have passed on from Gokulanātha to Jagannātha to Vamśadhara."14 Vamsadhara, himself of the Dariharā family,"15 is also said to have enjoyed the patronage of Rāghava Simha of Mithilā 16 and, like several other members - including of course Gokulanātha - of the learned family of his mother and of his scholarly lineage, passed the highly demanding sarayantra examination, thus succeeding his uncle
"! Cf. SBL mss. no. 31556 (fol. lv1-2) and 31557 (fol. lv 1-2); Mangalavani ms. (= M) (Mitra and Sastri, 1990: 193-194): sūror go'kulanāthatas tadanujād yo va jagannāthataḥ śambhoh prāpimayā
kşapädavacanavyākhyāvidhir mätulāt / tati vam güdham api svabhāvagahane nyāye pariciksisoh śrīmadvamśadharas ya me 'tra
saranam sarvārthacintamanih /l. Ms. no. 31557: kuo-; - M: missing due to damage to leaf; ' Ms. no. 31556: sambho, M: missing due to damage; Mss. no. 31556 and 31557: satrvam ca cintamanih This verse is very similar to the third introductory verse to Vamśadhara's Anumānadidhititativaparikṣā quoted in Sen (1980: 100) (who there reads gurvoh instead of sūroh in the beginning, and satkrsnacintamanih[?] instead of sar vārthacintāmanih in the last pāda). The second introductory verse to the Nyāyatati vapariksā according to SBL mss. no. 31556 (fol. lv 2-3) and 31557 (fol. lv 2-3) as well as M reads as follows: mätulaśrījagannāthâd adhitya nyāyadarśanam/ śrīmadvamśadharas tatra tattvam samyak parikșate' //. 'Ms. no. 31556: pariksite, M: pariksyate 112 Cf. Jha (1965: xiii, xv) and Sen (1980: 105). 113 Cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 195-196), where Mädhava must be a mistake for Rāghava. Madhava Simha Bahadur became the ruler of Mithilā only in 1785. 114 Cf. Jha (1947: 310): iyam anvīksikī vidyā ... mahāmahopādhyāyagokulanāthaśarmasu sthapitā ... tato pi mahamahopadhyayajagannāthadvitiyena jagannathaśarmaņā samāsāditā tataś ca mahāmahopādhyāyavamsadharaśarmanālambhi .... Jha (1947: 322) speculates that Jagannātha may have taken upon himself the teaching of his sister's son after his elder brother had passed away. However, at least at the time of the completion of the Nyāyatattvaparīkşā Gokulanātha may have been still alive; cf. Bhattacharya (1958: 195) who argues that he must have died in the decade 1730-1740. His Cf. Jha (1947: 318 and 322-323), Jha (1965: xiii). 116 CC. Jha (1965: xv). The Khandavala family, which had assumed the dynastic 'surname' Thakkura after the acquisition of the Darbhanga Raj, changed its name to Simha from the time of Rāghava Simha onwards; cf. Mishra (1966: 357, n. 1) and Choudhary (1970: 171).

Page #30

84
KARIN PREISENDANZ
Jagannātha. Information about this official distinction is obtained from the valuable and interesting document (preserved in two copies) containing a declaration circulated by Gokulanātha's grandson Datta Sarman in which the latter announced his intention to take the śarayantra." Like Văcaspati Miśra of Mithilā, Vamsadhara was also renowned as a dharmaśāstrin."18
Vamśadhara's commentary on the Nyāyasūtra has been aptly described by Prabal Kumar Sen, with respect to its sources - among which the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa figures prominently - and specific text-critical methods."19 Especially noteworthy is Vamsadhara's distinction between mülasūtra-s and bhāsyasūtra-s, that is, his coinage of a new methodological term for those succinct sentences of the Nyāyabhāsya which were considered by some as original sūtra-s. 120 In this way Vamadhara distinguishes the latter from the text of the foundational work by sage Akşapāda2and at the same time suggests that they are endowed with if not equal then at least similar authority. 122 Another novel text-critical expression introduced by Vamśadhara into Nyāyasūtra exegesis is the term sesapūraka, referring to those parts of the Nyāyabhāşya which supply what remains to be said by the author of the root text, almost as if they reflected his own unsaid words.123 As in the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa, considerable space
117 Cf. Jha (1947); cf. also Bhattacharya (1958: 193-194) and Mishra (1966: 381382). According to Triloknath Jha (2001: 270-271), Vamsadhara's uncle Gokulanātha was the last śarayantri, a statement which has already been made by Ganganath Jha in 1928-1929 (cf. the reference in Jha, 1947: 321); to solve the obvious contradiction resulting from the evidence of the Datta Sarman's declaration. Ramnath Jha considers that after Gokulanātha's time the examination did no longer take place with the participation of the public (cf. Jha, loc. cit.). 118 Cf. Jha (1965: xiii). 119 Cf. Sen (1980). 120 Cf. the excerpts given in Sen (1980: 108-109, 119–120, 122-123). In general, the text as presented by Sen often requires obvious emendations and conjectures, sometimes based on the evidence of other commentaries; however, it is outside the scope of the present contribution to individually point these out and justify them. 21 Cf. the reference to Akşapāda in the concluding verse no. 3 of the Nyāyatattvaparīksā (quoted in Sen, 1980: 103): jñānāmbhonidhir akşapāda rşibhrn nyāyo 'sya sūktam mahat, tatt vam gūdham amuşya
tasya vihitā yaişā parīkşā mayā /
I fail to understand rsibhrt in the relevant first pāda of this verse and unfortunately did not prepare my own transliteration of it when I saw the ms. Could rşibhrt be a scribal mistake or misreading? 122 For an example of an extended discussion on the status of disputed sütra-s, cf. Sen (1980: 111-112; cf. also 126-127). 123 Cf. the example in Sen (1980: 114). Cf. also Sen (1980: 106).

Page #31

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
is given to the discussion of the extent and names of the prakarana-s'24 as well as of their mutual relationship and pertinence (sangati);"25 individual readings of sūtra-s, their extent and order are also discussed. 126 Here and in the discussion of disputed sūtra-s Vamśadhara often agrees with Keśava Miśra's verdict. It can therefore be assumed that he utilized the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa when composing his work, additionally borrowing the references to earlier commentaries from it.121 In one of his introductory verses, Vamśadhara mentions his exclusive desire for discernment and claims that accomplishment in discernment between what is true and false (right and wrong) will result in the disappearance of low-minded persons in this world.128 Could it be that with the term discernment (viveka) Vamsadhara also refers to his textcritical approach towards the Nyāyasūtra?
To sum up and conclude: In the eleventh century, when treatises written in the old style of proliferating sub-commentaries, sub-subcommentaries, etc., on the Nyāyasūtra were no longer considered adequate to effectively counter the increasingly sophisticated challenge of the Buddhist epistemologists, this type of literary production was discontinued and gave way to more focussed independent treatises which subsequently flourished, unburdened or unimpeded by the task of Sūtra exegesis and apologetics. After the demise of Buddhism in India and the firm establishment of Muslim rule in the north, related but categorically distinct external factors which must have jointly influenced the motivation of scholars, we can observe, in the
124 Cf. e.g., the discussion and rejection of Tarani Miśra's opinion, expressed in his Bhāsva, that Nyāyasütra 3.1.12-14 form a separate prakarana (Sen 1980: 114-115), to be compared with the one in the GSP (cf. n. 102 above); cf. also Sen, 1980: 123
124.
125 Cf. Sen (1980: 109-110). 126 Cf. Sen (1980: 106-107, 109, 116-117, 125-126, 127-128). 127 Cf. also Sen (1980: 129). The earlier commentaries, as mentioned in the Nyāyatattvapariksā and listed by Sen, are the Nyāyabhäsya, Nyāyavärttika, (Nyāyavārttikatātparya) sīkā, Nibandha (i.e., Parisuddhi), Bhāskara (cf. Sen, 1980: 106, and abovę, p. 80), Tattvabodha and Nyāyanibandhaprakāśa; the names of Sānātani (cf. Sen, 1980: 127-128; cf. nn. 33 and 93 above), Tarani Miśra (cf. Sen, 1980: 114-115; cf. nn. 37 and 102 above) and Vidyāsāgara (cf. Sen, 1980: 109, p. 80 above and already Thakur, 1976: 265), next to Keśava Miśra himself (cf. Sen, 1980: 107), suggest references to further commentaries on the Nyäyasūtra (cf. Sen, 1980: 102-103). 128 Cf. introductory verse no. 1 at the beginning of the second āhnika of the first adhyāya (SBL mss. no. 31556 fol. 41v 4-5 and no. 31557 fol. 37r 8-9; quoted from the Mithila Research Institute ms. in Sen (1980: 101): tvām vāņi vamıśadharasūrir upāsya mātar ekam vivekam abhilasapadanı* karoti / jātodaye sadasator vimale viveke loke na ke 'pi puruṣāḥ krpanā bhavanti //. * Both SBL mss. read abhilāşapade

Page #32

86
KARIN PREISENDANZ.
fifteenth century, a return of concern with the Nyāyasūtra, the ancient foundational work of the Nyāya tradition, accompanied by a new kind of focussed and increasingly intense interest in its text-critical analysis which involved inter alia the evaluation of sporadic earlier text-critical remarks and positions; furthermore, the formerly prominent engagement in controversies with Buddhist philosophers occasioned either directly by topics addressed in the Sütra or indirectly by related reflections in the sub-commentaries gives way to the endeavour to present and comment upon, wherever appropriate, the relevant topical discourse found in recent and contemporary Navya-Nyāya treatises. The mentioned turn together with the new attitude may well have been part of a historicist search for originality and authenticity which in this specific case, i.e., with regard to the Nyāyasūtra, had become possible because there was no longer any psychological and ideological need to respond to the Buddhist challenge in any interpretation of and comment on the Sūtra; a second reason may be that the necessity to present the Sūtra as the internally undisputed and unambiguous foundation of the Nyāya tradition vis à vis the Buddhist critics was not felt any longer. The historicist stance indicated by the text-critical approach is also reflected in the more and more prominent historicist periodizations which had been expressed in the works of the Nyāya tradition in north-eastern India already in the thirteenth century. Both intellectual phenomena, the historicist search for originality and authenticity as well as the historicist periodizations, may have been influenced by the increasing intellectual interaction of the non-Muslim elite with Islamic culture which can be specifically demonstrated for some Nyāya scholars, the former phenomenon having possibly been motivated by the wish to assert one's own cultural identity and - in view of the clear realization of the historical antiquity of the object of examination - superiority vis à vis the Muslim rulers. This latter inner motivation may have coincided with or been reinforced by the external factor of the boosted promotion of Sanskritic scholarship by local non-Muslim rulers, some of them Sanskrit scholars themselves and some related to prominent scholars through family ties, for their own purposes of cultural self-assertion and legitimization.
APPENDIX AND OUTLOOK
The line of development regarding the major Nyāyasūtra-commentaries and the attitudes and approaches of their authors sketched

Page #33

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
87
above has, of course, only the nature of a working hypothesis which has to be corroborated in further detail or to be modified in the light of a more thorough analysis of the works and other testimonies. Also, the information about the authors themselves, their patrons and their networks is only fragmentary and remains to be fleshed out. Furthermore, the tradition of Navya-Nyāya in Navadvīpa, where after Ilyas Shah the general conditions for scholarship and for scholarly travel (foremost to centres of learning such as Mithila and Kāśi) must have improved, resulting in the production of a voluminous philosophical literature,129 could not be addressed within the scope of the present contribution. The Navadvīpa tradition of commenting upon the Nyāyasūtra is mainly represented by a small fragment of a Nyāyasūtravyākhyā by Māthurānātha Tarkavāgisa, followed by Rāmabhadra Sārvabhauma's important Nyāyarahasya (end of the sixteenth/beginning of the seventeenth century), both works that I have not yet been able to study in sufficient detail. 130 Supplementing his father's commentary on the fifth adhyāya only of the Nyāyasūtra, that is, Jānakīnātha's above-mentioned Anvīksikītattvavivarana,"51 Rāmabhadra, who was the teacher of the more famous Jagadīša Tarkālankāra,132 commented on the first four adhyāya-s. Another prominent representative of this tradition is Visvanātha Pañcānana, whose well-known, but not yet thoroughly studied Nyāyasūtravrtti was completed in 1634 in Vịndāvana, that is, some hundred years after Keśava Miśra of Mithilā wrote his Gautamīvasūtraprakāśa; his self-proclaimed motive in composing this commentary was to make the extensive Nyāyaśāstra of Akşapāda, whom he elsewhere calls a sage, 133 able to be understood easily and without much effort even
129 Cf. Chakravarti (1915a: 272, 1929-1930: 249). 130 For a first study of the Nyāyarahasya cf. Sen (1987, for Sen's recent edition of this work cf. n. 58 above). Śülapāni (Thakur. 1970: 37, 1981: xxii) and Svapneśvara (Thakur, loc. cit.), grandson of Vasudeva Sārvabhauma (Bhattacharyya, 1940: 60), are said to have written commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra, but their works have not yet been located.
Among other preceding commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra quoted by Jānakīnātha he refers to the lost Bhaskara (cf. n. 37 above) (cf. Mishra, 1966: 421, relying on information provided by Dineshchandra Bhattacharya). 132 Cf. Chakravarti (1915a: 281-282) and Kaviraj (1982: 86) with reference to the Nyāyarahasya in the latter's sabdaśaktiprakāśikā.
» Cf. the first concluding verse of the Nyāyasūtravriti in which Viśvanātha also refers to (Raghunātha) Siromani, devotee of Krsnacandra, with the help of whose utterances he composed his commentary (NVr 1201, 16-19): eşā munipravaragautamasūtravịttih śrīviśvanāthakrtinā sugamālpavarņā / śrīkrsnacandracaranambujacancarikaśrīmacchiromanivacahpracayair akāri //.

Page #34

88
KARIN PREISENDANZ.
by lazy-minded people. 134 Visvanātha Pancānana, the youngest son in the family, 135 was a student of his father Vidyānivāsa Bhattācārya, who is honoured by him in one of the intcoductory verses of the Nyāyasūtravrtti, 136 and regularly mentioned in the intermediate and final colophons of the manuscripts of this work. Quite a number of details are known about Vidyānivāsa Bhattācārya whom Dineshchandra Bhattacharya calls 'the leader of Bengali scholars in Benares for a long time': he was defeated in a dispute with the Mīmāmsaka Nārāyaṇa Bhatta of the Gādhi family (cf. above, p. 77) 37 on the occasion of a śrāddha ceremony in Todarmall's house in Delhi 38 and is mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari in the fourth category of the learned men of Akbar's time, namely, among those who look upon testimony as something filled with the dust of suspicion and handle nothing without proof'; he signed a nirnayapatra issued in 1583 in Kāśī and may have been among the contributors to the Kavindracandrodaya (cf. above, p. 77).140 According to Umesh Mishra14 he was the son of a younger brother of Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma; this statement tallies with Baldev Upadhyaya's comment that he was the son of the youngest son of Narahari Viśārada, 42 named Vidyāvācaspati.143 A grandson of his, Govinda Bhattācārya, son of Vidyānivāsa's son Rudra Nyāyavācaspati Bhattācārya, '44 may have been the 27th among the 77
134 Cf. introductory verse no. 5 (NVr 28, 25-26): alasamatir apidam vistriam nyāyaśāstram virahitabahuyatno līlayā vettu vijrah/ iti vinihitacetāh kauśalam kartukāmo gurucaranarajo 'ham karnadharikaromi //.
Cf. Mishra (1966: 434) and Upadhyaya (1994: 34). 136 Cf. introductory verse no. 4 (NVr 28, 23-24): advaitam gurudharmayor iva lasatksmāmandalimandanam rūpam kiñcana pauruşam
gira iva prāgalbhyasampädakam dāne karņam ivāvatīrņam aparam dāne dayādakșiņam tātam visvavisāricăruyaśasam
vidyāni vāsam numah //; cf. also verse 6 where Viśvanātha refers to himself as son of Vidyānivāsa (NVr 29, 24): vidyānivāsasunoh krtir eşā visvanathasya / viduşām atisükşmadhiyām amatsarānām mude bhavatu //. 137 According to Mishra (1966: 434), Vidyānivāsa was the winner, a statement which is most probably a mistake. 138 Cf. Shastri (1912: 9-10) and Upadhyaya (1994: 47); cf. also Benson (2001: 113) whose ms. evidence does not support Shastri's characterization of the nature of the dispute but points to another topic of discussion. 1.39 Cf. Bhattacharyya (1937: 34-35). 140 Cf. Shastri (1912: 12). 141 Cf. Mishra (1966: 434). 142 Cf. n. 97 above. 143 Cf. Upadhyaya (1994: 34). 144 Cf. Chakravarti (1915a: 286, 288).

Page #35

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
89
scholars who signed a nirnayapatra issued in Kāśī in 1657 (cf. be
low).145
In addition, the Nyāyasiddhāntamālā, a commentary in the broader sense on selected sūtra-s of adhyāya-s 1 and 5.2 of the Nyāyasūtra, 46 written in the second half of the seventeenth century in Kāśī by the Bengali Jayarāma Nyāyapañcānana,147 a student of Rāmabhadra Sārvabhauma, 148 remains to be examined. 149 Jayarāma Nyāyapañcānana's signature appears as the 74th name on the already mentioned vyavasthā- or nirnayapatra issued in 1657 in Kāšī;150 he also contributed to the Kavīndracandrodaya." A further unexplored, still not edited commentary is the Mitabhāșiņī by Mahadeva Bhattācārya of the last quarter of the seventeenth century, of which several manuscripts are preserved;152 Mahādeva, son of Vāgīśvarācārya and Bhāgīrathī, wrote this commentary at the request of a certain Someśvara Bhatta. He may have been a Vedāntin and also author of the Sānkhyavsttisāra. 53 Only after these available materials have been taken into consideration will our broad picture of the commentarial literature on the Nyāyasūtra from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, their authors and their contexts, become more complete, ready to be filled in with further details gained from additional sources.
145 Cf. Gode (1943: 136), Bhattacharyya (1945: 94-96) and Upadhyaya (1994: 87). 146 Cf. Shastri (1928: (1)(5), (9)-(10)); see also the characterization in Chakravarti (1929: 230) and Mishra (1966: 438). 147 Cf. Chakravarti (1915a: 283) and Kaviraj (1982: 94-95); according to Kaviraj, the work was composed in 1693. 148 Kaviraj, followed by Shastri (1928: (17H18]), identifies Jayarāma's teacher with Rāmabhadra Siddhāntavāgāśa, the grandson and student of Jagadīša (Kaviraj, 1982: 94, 89-90). However, Bhattacharyya has clearly shown that this Rāmabhadra must be Rāmabhadra Sārvabhauma because Jayarāma refers to the latter's Nyāyarahasya ascribing the quoted passage to guravah (cf. Bhattacharyya, 1945: 96-97; cf. also Mishra, 1966: 435, 437). 149 The work refers to the Nyāyabhāsya, the Nyāyavärttika, the Tatparya ikā and Vardhamana's Nyāyanibandhaprakāśa and Tattvabodha; Udayana may be referred to by ācāryāḥ. Jayarama also mentions the Bhāskara (cf. n. 37 above) and Sānātani (cf. n. 33 above) once. 150 Cf. Kaviraj (1982: 152); Shastri (1928: 19); no. 68 in the list as presented in Gode (1943: 138), no. 31 in Upadhyaya (1994: 87). 151 Cf. Gode (1943: 138) and Upadhyaya (1994: 85). 132 Cf. Kaviraj (1982: 103). 153 CE Kaviraj (1982: 103, 154). Gaurinath Sastri, relying on the Navadvipamahimä, mentions still another Vrtti on the Nyāyasūtra written in the niiddle of the eighteenth century in Navadvīpa, by a certain Sivarāma (cf. Sastri, 1968: 518). However, this work has not yet been discovered.

Page #36

90
KARIN PREISENDANZ
SOURCES
GSP: Gautamīyasitraprakāśa of Keśavamiśra, ed. Kishor Nath Jha. Allahabad:
G.N. Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, 1978. NA: Nyāyālankāra (Parcaprasthānanyāyamahātarkavişamapadavyākhyā) of Abha
yatilaka Upadhyāya, ed. Anantalal Thakur and J.S. Jetley. Gaekwad's Oriental
Series 169. Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1981. NTĀ: Nyāyatatīvāloka of Vācaspati Miśra II (Junior), ed. Kishore Nath Jha.
Ganganatha Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapitha Text Series 33. Allahabad: G.N. Jha
Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, 1992. NTD: Nyāyatātparyadipikā of Bhattavāgīśvara, ed. Kishor Nath Jha. Allahabad:
G.N. Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, 1979. N Bh: Nyayabhāsya: Gautamīyan yāyadarśana with Bhāsya of Vätsyāyana, ed.
Anantalal Thakur. Nyāyacaturgranthikā Vol. I. New Delhi: Indian Council for
Philosophical Research, 1997. NV: Nyāyavārtika: Nyāyabhāşya vārttika of Bhāradvāja Uddyotakara, ed. Anantalal
Thakur. Nyāyacaturgranthikā Vol. II. New Delhi: Indian Council for Philoso
phical Research, 1997. NVr: Nyāyasūtravrtti of Viśvanātha Pañcānana, in Nyāyadarśanam, ed. Taranatha
Nyaya-Tarkatirtha, Amarendramohan Tarkatirtha and Hemantakumar Tarkatirtha. Calcutta Sanskrit Series 18 and 19. Calcutta: Metropolitan. Publishing
& Printing House, Limited, 1936-1944. NVTT: Nyāyavärttikatätparyalikā of Vācaspatimiśra, ed. Anantalal Thakur.
Nyāyacaturgranthikā Vol. III. New Delhi: Indian Council for Philosophical
Research, 1996. NVTP: Nyāyavärttikatätparyapariśuddhi of Udayanäcärya, ed. Anantalal Thakur.
Nyāyacaturgranthikā Vol. IV. New Delhi: Indian Council for Philosophical
Research, 1996. PV: Pramānavārtika of Dharmakīrti, in: Yusho Miyasaka, 'Pramāņavārttikakārikā
(Sanskrit and Tibetan)', Acta Indologica 2 (1971/1972), 2-206. MMK: Mülamadhyamakakārikās (Mādhyamikasūtras) de Nāgārjuna avec la
Prasannapadā Commentaire de Candrakīrti, ed. Louis de La Valleé Poussin. Bib
liotheca Buddhica 4. S.-Petersburg: Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1903-1913. ŚKT: Śrikanthatippaņakam (A Commentary on the Major Nyāya-texts) By
Śrīkanthācārya, ed. Anantalal Thakur. Bibliotheca Indica 313. Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1986.
REFERENCES
Benson, J. (2001). "Samkarabhatta's family chronicle. The Gādhivamsavarnana', in
Axel Michaels (ed.), The Pandit: Traditional Scholarship in India (pp. 105-118).
New Delhi. Bhattacharya, D. (1958). History of Navya-Nyāya in Mithilā. Mithila Institute Series
2. Darbhanga. Bhattacharya, D.C. (1947). 'Nyaya works of Vācaspati Miśra II of Mithila', Journal
of the Ganganatha Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha 3(3-4), 295-312. Bhattacharya, G. (1978). Nayva-Nyāya. Some Logical Problems in Historical Per
spective. Delhi/Varanasi. Bhattacharyya, D. (1937). "Sanskrit scholars of Akbar's time", Indian Historical
Quarterly 13, 31-36. Bhattacharyya, D.C. (1940). "Väsudeva Sārvabhauma', Indian Historical Quarterly
16, 58-69.

Page #37

91
THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
Bhattacharyya, D.C. (1945). 'Bengali scholars at Benares (1657 A.D.)', Indian Historical Quarterly 21, 91-97.
Chakravarti, M. (1906 [1907]). 'Sanskrit literature in Bengal during the Sena rule', Journal & Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (New Series) 2, 157-176. Chakravarti Bahadur, R.M. (1915a). 'History of, Journal & Proceedings of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal, (New Series) 11, 259-292.
Chakravarti Bahadur, R.M. (1915b). 'History of Mithila during the pre-Mughal period', Journal & Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (New Series) 11, 407-433.
Chakravarti, C. (1929). 'Bengal's contribution to philosophical literature in Sanskrit', The Indian Antiquary 58, 201-206, 230-233, continued in Chakravarti (1930).
Chakravarti, C. (1929-1930). 'Bengal's contribution to Sanskrit literature (A chronological frame-work)', Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 11, 235-258.
Chakravarti, C. (1930). 'Bengal's contribution to philosophical literature in Sanskrit', The Indian Antiquary 59, 23-27.
Chemparathy, G. (1972). An Indian Rational Theology. Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 1. Wien.
Choudhary, R. (1970). History of Muslim Rule in Tirhut (1206-1765 A.D.). Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies 72. Varanasi.
Franco, E. (1997). Dharmakirti on Compassion and Rebirth. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 38. Wien.
Franco, E. (2002). A Mimämsaka among the Buddhists. Three fragments on the relationship between word and object', in J. Braarvig et al. (eds.), Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Vol. 2 (pp. 269-285). Oslo.
Franco, E. and Preisendanz, K. (1995). 'Bhavadasa's interpretation of Mimämsäsutra 1.1.4 and the date of the Nyayabhaṣya', Berliner Indologische Studien 8, 81-86.
Franco, E. and Preisendanz, K. (1998a). "Nyāya-Vaiśeşika', in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 7 (pp. 57-67). London. Franco, E. and Preisendanz, K. (1998b). 'Gautama, Akṣapäda', in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 3 (pp. 859-861). London. Frauwallner, E. (1936). 'Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nyaya. I. Jayanta und seine
Quellen', Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 43, 263–278. Gode, P.K. (1943-1944). 'Some new evidence regarding Devabhaṭṭa Mahāśabde, the father of Ratnakarabhaṭṭa, the guru of Sevai Jaising of Amber (A.D. 1699-1743)', Poona Orientalist 8(3-4), 129-138.
Gode, P.K. (1954). 'Bernier and Kavindrācārya Sarasvati at the Mughal court', in Studies in Indian Literary History, Vol. 2 (pp. 364–379). Bombay. Gupta, B. (1963). Die Wahrnehmungslehre in der Nyayamañjarī. Walldorf. Hattori, M. (1968). Dignaga, On Perception. Harvard Oriental Series 47. Cambridge, Mass.
Jha, G. (1994). Saḍholal Lectures on Nyaya. Sri Garib Das Oriental Series 178. 2nd ed. Delhi. (1st ed. Allahabad 1912-1916).
Jha, K.N. (1978). avataranam, in GSP (pp. [1]-[14]).
Jha, R. (1947). The declaration of a sarayantri', in A.S. Altekar (ed.), Proceedings and Transactions of the All-India Oriental Conference. Twelfth Session. Benares Hindu University 1943-4; Vol. I: Proceedings. Transactions, Bulletins, Minutes of Meetings, Lists of Members, Delegates, etc. (pp. 309-325). Benares.
Jha, T. (ed.) (1965). The Viratarangini of MM. Citradhara of Mithila. Darbhanga. Jha, T. (2001). 'Sanskrit studies in Bihar', in Vachaspati Upadhyaya (ed.), Sanskrit Studies in India, (pp. 266-276). New Delhi.

Page #38

92
KARIN PREISENDANZ
Kane, P.V. (1975). History of Dharmasastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law). Government Oriental Series Class B, No. 6. Vol. I, Part II, revised and enlarged. Poona.
Kaviraj, G. (1982). The History and Bibliography of 'Nyaya-Vaiseṣika Literature. Princess of Wales Sarasvati Bhavana Studies Reprint Series 2. Varanasi (reprinted from Vol. 3-5 and 7, 1924-1926 and 1929).
Laine, J. (1998). 'Udayana (11th century)', in Edward Craig (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 9 (pp. 512-513). London.
Matilal, B.K. (1977). Nyāya-Vaiseṣika. A History of Indian Literature VI, 2. Wiesbaden.
Meulenbeld, G.J. (2000). A History of Indian Medical Literature. Vol. 2. Groningen. Mishra, U. (1966). History of Indian Philosophy. Vol. 2. Allahabad.
Mitra, D. (1980). Buddhist Monuments. Calcutta.
Mitra, R. and Sastri, H. (1990). Notices of Sanskrit Manuscripts. Sharada Oriental Series 1. Vol. 5. Reprint Delhi: Sharada Prakashan.
Mishra, V. (1979). Cultural History of Mithila. Allahabad: Mithila Prakasana. Naudou, J. (1980). Buddhists of Kashmir. Delhi.
Oberhammer, G. (1964). 'Pakṣilasvamin's introduction to his Nyayabhāṣyam', Asian Studies 2(3), 302-322.
Oetke, C. (1984). "Ich" und das Ich. Analytische Untersuchungen zur buddhistischbrahmanischen Atmankontroverse. Alt- und Neuindische Studien 33. Wiesbaden. Oetke, C. (1991). Zur Methode der Analyse philosophischer Sūtratexte. Die Pramāṇa Passagen der Nyayasutren. Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik Monographie 11. Reinbek.
Phillips, S.H. (1995). Classical Indian Metaphysics. Refutations of Realism and the Emergence of "New Logic". Chicago/La Salle, Illinois.
Pollock, S. (2001). 'New intellectuals in seventeenth-century India', The Indian
Economic and Social History Review 38(1), 3-31.
Preisendanz, K. (1994). Studien zu Nyayasutra III.I mit dem Nyayatattväloka
Vacaspati Misras II. 2 vols. Alt- und Neuindische Studien 46. Stuttgart. Preisendanz, K. (2000). 'Debate and independent reasoning vs. tradition: On the precarious position of early Nyaya', in Ryutaro Tsuchida and Albrecht Wezler (eds.), Harānandalahari. Volume in Honour of Professor Minoru Hara on his Seventieth Birthday (pp. 221-251). Reinbek.
Roth, G. (1968). "A saint like that" and "a saviour" in Prakrit, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan literature', in Shri Mahavir Jaina Vidyalaya Golden Jubilee volume. Part I (pp. 46-62). Bombay.
Sarma, S.R. (2002). 'From Yavanī to Samskṛtam: Sanskrit writings inspired by
Persian works', Studies in the History of Indian Thought 14, 71-88. Sastri, G. (1968). 'Post-Gadadhara Naiyayikas of Bengal (1600-1800 A.D.)', in Jan C. Heesterman (ed.), Pratidānam. Indian, Iranian and Indo-European Studies Presented to Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper on his Sixtieth Birthday (pp. 516-522). The Hague/Paris.
Schmithausen, L. (1965). Mandanamiśra's Vibhramavivekaḥ. Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philologisch-historische Klasse 247,1 (= Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens 2). Wien.
Sen, P.K. (1978). 'Nyayabhaskara - a lost Nyaya work', Journal of Indian Philosophy 5, 267-274.
Sen, P.K. (1980). 'Vamsadhara's works and his textual criticism of the Nyāyasūtras', Journal of Indian Philosophy 8, 99-113.

Page #39

THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
93
Sen, P.K. (1987). "Nyāyarahasya and some disputed Nyāyasūtras', in R. Mukhopadhyaya et al. (eds.), Philosophical Essays: Professor Anantalal Thakur Felicita
tion Volume (pp. 151-165). Calcutta. Sen P.K. (ed.) (2003). Nyāyasūtras with Nyāyarahasya of Rāmabhadra Sārvabkhauma
and Anvikșikitativavivarana of Jānakīnātha Cüdāmani. 2 vols., Bibliotheca Indica
Series 324 Kolkata. Shah, N.J. (1972). Introduction, in Nagin J. Shah (ed.), Cakradhara's Nyāya
manjarīgranthibhanga. L.D. Series 35 (pp. 1-14). Ahmedabad. Shastri, H. (1912). 'Dakshini pandits at Benares, The Indian Antiquary 41, 7-13. Shastri, M.D. (1928). Introduction, in Mangal Deva Shastri (ed.), The Nyāya
Siddhānta Mālā of Jayarāma Nyāya-Pancānana Bhattācārya. The Princess of Wales Sarasvati Bhavana Texts. 21 (Part II) (pp. 1-26). Benares. Solomon, E.A. (1970). 'Aviddhakarna - a forgotten Naiyāyika', Vidya 13(1), 18-40. Solomon, E.A. (1971). 'A further note on Aviddhakarna', Vidya (Humanities) 14(2),
19-24. Solomon, E.A. (1973). "Forgotten Naiyāyikas: (2) Ācārya Adhyayana', Vidya
(Languages) 16(3), 59-70. Solomon, E.A. (1974). "Forgotten Naiyāyikas: (3) Bhāvivikta', Vidya (Languages)
17(1-2), 23–35. Solomon, E.A. (1976). "Forgotten Naiyāyikas: (4) Viśvarūpa', Vidya (Languages)
18(4), 13–28. Solomon, E.A. (1977-1978). 'Bhatta Udbhata', Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental
Research Institute 58-59 (1977-1978) (= Diamond Jubilee Volume) (pp. 985-992). Solomon, E.A. (1980). 'Trilocana: a forgotten Naiyāyika', Vidyā (Languages) 23(1), . 17-46. Solomon, E.A. (1986). "Trilocana - a forgotten Naiyāyika', in Wolfgang Morgenroth
(ed.), Sanskrit and World Culture. Proceedings of the Fourth World Sanskrit Conference of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies Weimar May 23-30. 1979 (= Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients 18) (pp. 560-566).
Berlin. Steinkellner, E. (1961). 'Die Literatur des älteren Nyāya', Wiener Zeitschrift für die
Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 5, 149-162. Steinkellner, E. (1977). "On the date and works of the Naiyāyika Sankarasvāmin',
Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 21, 213-218. Thakur, A. (1947). "The Naiyāyika Trilocana as teacher of Vācaspati', Indian Culture
14(1), 36-40. Thakur, A. (1965). "Studies in a fragmentary Vaišeşikasūtravrtti', Journal of the
Oriental Institute Baroda 14, 330-335. Thakur, A. (1970). 'Lost and little known Nyāya works', Rtam 1(2), 31-38. Thakur, A. (1976). "Vidyāsāgara and his Nyāyasūtratīkā', Journal of the Oriental
Institute Baroda 25(3-4), 265–267. Thakur, A. (1981). Introduction to NA, pp. XV-xxxi. Thakur, A. (2000). "Nyāya-Vaiseșika studies and their revival', Journal of the Asiatic
Society 42(1-2), 107-118. Thapar, R. (1990). A History of India. Vol. 1: From the Discovery of India to 1526.
New Delhi (first edition: Harmondsworth 1966). Upadhyaya, B. (1994). Kāśī kī Pānditya-Paramparā. Varanasi. Wada, T. (1990). Invariable Concomitance in Navya-Nyāya. Sri Garib Dass Oriental
Series 101. Delhi. Wada, T. (2001). "The analytical method of Navya-Nyāya', Journal of Indian
Philosophy 29(5-6), 519-530.

Page #40
94 KARIN PREISENDANZ Wezler, A. (1975). "Zur Identitat der "acaryah" und der "vyakhyatarah" in Jayantabhattas Nyayamanjari, Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sud- und Osta siens 19, 135-146. Wink, A. (1999). Al-Hind. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vol. 2: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquests 11th-13th Centuries. New Delhi. Institute for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies University of Vienna Spitalgasse 2, 2.1 A-1090 Vienna Austria E-mail: karin.preisendanz@univie.ac.at