Authorship Of Sastitantram

SR No.: 269347
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G Oberhammer
Publisher: G Oberhammer
Total Pages: 22
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 14

till knows something from the Şaşțitantram, but no more from the original as is clear from the fact that, while enumerating the ten Mūlikārthas, a Samgrahakāra is mentioned as the source of information, .and that the classification of the inference deviates from the original form in the Şastitantram. The above-mentioned identification has been possible because of this fact.
As has already been correctly pointed out by Hara Datta Sarma 32), Vācaspati refers very probably to an opinion of the Jayamangalā in his Tattvakaumudi on Kā. 51, and so presupposes the former. Therefore he might really have been of the opinion that the Şastitantram and the tradition of the school connected with it originated from Pañcaśikha. If we are in a position to show now that the fragments in the Yogabhāsyam attributed to Pañcaśikha by Vācaspati are really frayments of Vrsagana or of his school, our explanation of Facaspati's error would certainly carry weight when we shall prove that the Şaşțitantram was Vrşagana's work. This proof holds good for part of the fragments.
First we shall consider the person of Vrsagaņa. Tradition regarding him begins with Vasubandhu who makes mention of the followers of Vrşagana. In Paramartha's „Life of Vasuhandhu“ we meet with Vrsagana having a mythical form as the teacher of Vindhyavāsin 33) and therefore he must have lived about one and a half generations before the junior Vasubandhu34). Moreover we learn through K’ueiKi's commentary on the Vijñāptimātratāsiddhiḥ that he was the head of a Sāmkhya schools), a fact which is known to us also from the Yuktidīpikā as Vrsagana's followers are often mentioned there.
*** Haradatta Sarma: Jayamangal, and the other Commentaries on Sāmkhya Saptati, p. 428 f. (IHQ Vol IV, Calcutta 1928). | *) BEFEO tom IV, p. 40 f.
36) In reckoning the period of the junior Vasubandhu we follow E. Frauwallner: On the Date of the Buddhist Master of Law Vasubandhu (Serie Orientale Roma, vol. III), Roma 1951, p. 55 f.
*) BEFEO tom. IV, p. 38: „Parmi ses disciples ,les principaux formaient dix. kuit groupes dont le chef était appelé Fa-li-cha (varsa) ce qui signifie «pluie, parce qu'il était né pendant la saison des pluies. Ses compagnons étaient nommés les hérétiques de la «troupe de la pluie» (vārsaganya)." Cf, also Vasubandhu, Abhiharmakosah V, 63 f.: ,,Vous n'avez plus qu'à joindre l'école des Varsaganyas ..."