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 21

We have now come to the end of our study of the author of the Şaşțitantram, and we can thus sum up the results of our research:
1. All the traditions point to Pancasikha' as a Sāmkhya authority of the early period of the system.
2. During the classical period of the system in which we have to place the Şastitantram hardly anything more than the name of Pañcaśikha is known whereas Vrşagaña is clearly verified to helong to the period in question. He is the author of the fundamental work of the school of the time. This work can be reconstructed to a great extent by means of fragments, and it is identical with the Şasțitantram.
3. The authority of Vācaspati concerning the attribution of the anonymous quotations in the Yogabhāşyam to Pañcaśikha is entirely insufficient. On the contrary, we can show in four cases that Vrsagaña is the Sāmkhya-authority for the Bhāsyakāra.
4. Due to the fading knowledge about Vrşagaņa during the post. classical period the knowledge about Pañcaśikha as a predominant Sámkhya-teacher, kept alive in the epic and the Purāņas, comes to the foreground, until at last, supported by the incorrect interpretation of Isvarakļşna's testimony, Pañcaśikha takes Vrşagaņa’s. place as the author of the Şaşțitantram. The mistake of Vācaspati is to be attributed to this circumstance.
5. At the time of the Sāņkhya Renaissance the epic portrait of Pañcaśikha is practically the only trace which remained of the old tradition. Besides, at the same time we come across the doctrine of a Pancasikha concerning the problem of the vyāptiḥ so that now the name of the old teacher of the same name revived.
BIBLIOGRAPHY (We give here only the literature not mentioned by Garbe in his
„Die Samkhya-Philosophie")
V. M. Bedekar: Studies in Sāmkhya: Pañcaśikha and Cäraka (ABORI, vol. 38.
pp. 140-147), Poona 1958. V.M. Bedekar: Studies in Samkhya: The Teachings of Pancasikha in the Maha
bhārata (ABORI, vol. 38, pp. 233—244), Poona 1958.
90