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

Page 231

Parikshamukham
219 opinion, it is very unsafe to draw such a conclusion from only this material, specially as Pandit Sāstri himself shows that Akalanka named his work “Nyāya-viniśchaya' on the line of Dharmakirti's Pramāņa-viniśchaya and the views of Dharmakirti have been refuted in other works of Akalanka.
Kumārila Bhatta was not referred to in the Nyāya Vārtikā of Udyotakara. This may support the view of Pandit Sāstri that Kumārila Bhatta was not at least earlier than the 7th century A.D.
A. B. Keith in his Karma-Mimām.sē, pp. 10-11 writes : “Kumārila's date is determinable within definite limits; he used the Vákyapadiya of Bhartrihari; neither Hieun-Thsang nor It-sing mentions him; he was before Sankara; he attacked the Jain theory of an omniscient being as propounded in the Äpta-mimāmsā of Samanta-bhadra, but is not answered by Akalanka in his Astasati which comments on the Apta-mimämsä. On the other hand he is freely attacked by Vidyānanda and Prabhāchandra who both lived before 838 A.D. Vidyananda assures us, doubtless correctly, that he criticised the Buddhist Dharmakirti and Prabhākara, on the latter point agreeing with the result above arrived from internal evidence. The upper limit is therefore, not earlier than 700 A.D. The lower limit depends on his precise chronological relation to Sankara and the latter's exact date. Later tradition, the Sankaravijayas of Mādhava and the pseudo-Ânandagiri would make him an older contemporary, but the interval may have been considerably longer".
We agree with the views of Pandit Šāstri regarding his conclusion about the time of Akalanka so far as materials are available up to the present.
We have dealt with the date of Akalanka in detail as we have no other date for fixing the date of Māņikyanandi, who we only know flourished later than Akalanka and based his work on Akalanka's writings. From what has already been discussed, we may infer that Manikyanandi flourished during the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century AD. He has mentioned the Chārvāka school of philosophy as well as the Buddhist, Sānkhya and Nyāya-vaiseșika systems of philosophy and Prabhākara and Jaimini.
III Prabhāchandra was the most celebrated commentator of Parîkşamukham. His work is entitled Prameya-kamala-mārtanda. This Prabhachandra has been mentioned by Jinasena in Âdipurāņa (838 A.D.) in the following verse :
1 praise Prabhāchandra the poet whose fame is white as the rays of the moon and who has encompassed the whole world by making 'Chandrodaya' (ʻrising of the moon'; another meaning 'the work entitled Kumudachandrodaya')*
*चन्द्रांशुशुभ्रयशसं प्रभाचन्द्रं कविं स्तुवे । कृत्वा चन्द्रोदयं येन शश्वदाच्छादितं जगत् ।।
-Adi-purāna. Jinasena lived in the cout of Amoghavarşa I who reigned according to Vincent Smith from $15 to 877 A. D. (Early History of India, Page. 328.)