Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

Page 244

9. SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
225 subject. Vidyānanda's views are partially referred to by Anantavirya in his commentary on Māņikyanandi's Parikşamukhasūtra (Pratyakşoadeśa); and it may be pointed out that most of our knowledge of the Saiva-Jaina controversy is derived from Jaina works.
The background of the controversy between the Saivas and the Jainas mentioned above is provided by Kumārila's well-known attack on the conception of an Omniscient Being; and the questions involved are part of a larger issue which brought several schools of thought into the arena of philosophical controversy. Kunlārila regarded omniscience as something impossible; and instead of positing an omniscient author of the Vedas, he maintained that they were eternal and not the composition of a personal author. Kumārila's views may be studied in Slokavārtika (Codanāsūtra) and specially in the verses quoted from him by śāntarakṣita in the last section of Tattvasargraha, many of them being not found in the extant S'lokavārtika, It is important to note that Kumārila in the course of his argument insisted on the absurdity of the Buddhist and Jaina notions that the Buddha and the Arhat respectively were Omniscient Beings. The Buddhist reply to this is elaborately given by Santaraksita in Tattvasaņgraha; and the earliest Jaina reply to Kumārila is probably that of Akalaṁka (8th century) in his Nyāyaviniscaya (chap. 3). Kumārila, for example, had written in S'lokavārtika (2. 141, 142):
एवं यः केवलं ज्ञानमिन्द्रियाद्यनपेक्षिणः। सूक्ष्मातीतादिविषयं जीवस्य परिकल्पितम् ॥
नर्ते तदागमात् सिध्येन च तेनागमो विना । दृष्टान्तोऽपि न तमान्यो नृषु कश्चित् प्रवर्तते ॥ Akalamka replied to this as follows in Nyāyaviniscaya (vv. 412, 413):
एवं यत् केवलज्ञानमनुमानविजृम्भितम् । नर्ते तदागमात् सिध्येन च तेन विनागमः ॥
सत्यमर्थबलादेव पुरुषातिशयो मतः । प्रभवः पौरुषेयोऽस्य प्रबन्धोऽनादिरिष्यते ॥ Not only Akalamka but other Jaina scholars have tried to refute Kumārila's views, and this explains the large number of quotations from Kumārila. found in later Jaina philosophical literature, e. g., in Vidyānanda's Aptapariksä, Aştasahasri and Tattvärtha-sloka-vārtika (under sūtra 1. 29). Abhavadeva's commentary on Sammatitarka, Nyāya-kumuda-candra and other works. The bitterness of the Jainas against the MimäTM attacking their fundamental doctrine of the Omniscient Being is shown in Siddharsi's Upamiti-bhava-prapañcă-katha (chap. 4), which declares that the Mimämsä is not a philosophical system at all; and after enumerating six non-Jaina systems including the Mimāṁsā, Siddharsi excludes the latter from the field of speculative thought, although he finds room for the materialistic
1 'यच महेश्वरस्य केशादिभिरपरामृष्टत्व निरतिशयत्वमैश्वर्याधुपेतत्वं तत् सर्वमपि गगनाब्जसौरभव्यावर्णनमिव निविषयवा
दुपेक्षामहति ।
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