Epitome of Jainism

SR No.: 006737
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K B Jindal
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi
Publication Year: 1988
Total Pages: 248
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 13 MB

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41Epitome of Jainism
Akalanka has also quoted from the work Abhidharmakosa of Vasubandhu.*
Pandit Sāstri concludes from the above that Dharmakirti flourished from 635 to 650 A.D. and that Akalanka lived in the middle of the 7th century A.D.
In my opinion, no great help is derived from the internal evidence namely that Akalanka has mentioned Dharmakirti, Vāsubandhu or Dignāga. There is a view that Väsubandhu and Dignāga were contemporaries. Udyotakara in his Nyāyavärtikā refuted the views of Dignāga while discussing Prameya of Anumāna-Pramāņa. Udyotakara has also mentioned Dharmakirti and Vinita-deva in Nyāyavārtikā. This Udyotakara has been mentioned by Subandhu the author of Vāsavadattā.+ Subandhu was earlier than Bānabhatta who lived in the court of king Harsavardhana of Kanauj (beginning of the 7th century). Bāṇabhatta has praised the work Vāsavadattā in his work Harşacharita.# Thus only this much can be mentioned with certainty that Dignāga, Dharmakirti and Vasubandhu could not have flourished later than the sixth century. Dr. Jacobi says “He (Udyotakara) may therefore have flourished in the early part of the sixth century or still earlier"8.
But Vasubandhu and Dignāga might have lived long before the 6th century A.D. Yuan Chwang who came to Nālandā Vihāra in 637 A.D. has written that within a thousand years from the death or the Nirvana of Buddha, Monaratha and his disciple Vasubandhu lived. Thomas Watters writes: "According to Yuan-Chwang, Manoratha flourished...within 1,000 years after the decease of Buddha. This, taking the Chinese reckoning, would place the date of the Sastra-master before 150 A.D.”. Samuel Beal in his note to the above passage has written that at that time the Chinese Buddhists accepted the date of Nirvāņa of Buddha as 850 B.C. On this calculation the date of Vasubandhu will fall in the 2nd century B.c. Dignāga accordingly will be of the same date.
The commentator Mallinātha has mentioned, while explaining a verse in Kalidāsa's Meghadūta, that Dignāga was a contemporary of Kalidāsa. This view has however not been generally accepted.
It is difficult to lay down definitely as has been done by Pandit Šāstri that because Akalanka has criticised the definition of only Dignåga and not that of Dharmakirti in his Tattvārtharājavārtikā, we should conclude that the work Prantānaviniśchaya of Dharmakirti was not then written. In our
*सवितर्कविचारा हि पञ्च विज्ञानधातवः । निरुपणानुस्मरणविकल्पनविकल्पकाः ।।
-Abhidharmakoșa of Vasubandhu. t raffefafaa ugula4R-FAEYTE ! --Vāsavdattā P E AT TriathachaTI -Harscharitam 8 The Dairs of the Philosophical Sūtras of the Brahmaņas by Hermann Jacobi (Journal of the merican Oriental Society, Vol. XXXI, 1911.).