Nyayavatara and Nayakarnika

SR No.: 003992
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Siddhasena Divakar, Vinayvijay, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal
Publication Year: 1971
Total Pages: 376
Language: Sanskrit, Hindi
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 24 MB

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Siddhasena and his Works
Hemacandra refers to Siddhasena as the greatest poet, but no epic or poem of Siddhasena is known to us. A comparative study of his Dvātrimśikās with the works of Kalidasa and Asvaghoṣa will easily convince the reader that there is close similarity in style, phraseology and striking ideas. Kalidasa was influenced by Asvagoșa. It cannot be definitely said about their relative priority or their being contemporaries. Many common points and parallel contexts and striking ideas from Siddhasena's works can be spotted in the poems of Asvaghosa and Kālidāsa.
Dinnaga was an exponent of Vijñānavāda and the greatest Buddhist logician. There are reasons to believe that Dinnāga and Siddhasena were almost contemporaries. There are close similarities between their works: whether it is due to mutual influence or common inheritence cannot be definitely said. Some of the statements of Siddhasena in his Nyāyāvatāra are not necessarily levelled against Dinnaga but perhaps against some other school which was respected by Dinnaga.
About the individuality of Sankarasvāmi there is a good deal of doubt. In case he is the author of the Nyāyapravesa, then either Siddhasena and himself have influenced each other or have inherited common legacy.
Whatever may be the relative chronology of Dharmakirti and Bhamaha, we feel convinced that Siddhasena was the predecessor of these two. Dharmakīrti is assigned to the 7th century and Bhamaha was a great rhetorician. The Nyāyāvatāra of Siddhasena can be compared with the Nyāyabindu of Dharmakirti. What Siddhasena says in his Nyāyāvatāra is directed against earlier Sautrāntika and other Bauddha traditions and not against Dharmakirti and Bhamaha. The earlier exponents were Maitreya, Asanga and others. A mere similarity between the Nyāyabindu and Nyāyāvatāra cannot lead us to conclude that Siddhasena was a contemporary of Dharmakirti. In the field of Indian logic and philosophy, which is a flux of different currents, it cannot be always said who was an originator of a certain doctrine. All that can be said is that Dharmakirti and Siddhasena had a common
source.
The COMMENTATOR ABHAYADEVA- Abhayadeva, the pupil of Pradyumnasūri, has written a commentory, Tattvabodhavidhāyinī,