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

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gotram 15). Certain assumptions can be made from this fact. Asvaghosa makes the following remark in his Buddhacaritam:
jaigiṣavyo'pi janakah vṛddhaścaiva parāśarah |
imām panthānamāsāđya muktā hyanye ca mokṣinaḥ ||16)
We find here the same expression as in the Mahābhāratam. Both these passages deal with an old Parāśara who is a follower of the Samkhya; in both cases mention is made of a Janaka standing by his side. Moreover the Yuktidipikā mentions a Janaka among Pancasikha's pupils 17). Thus we can consider it as possible that Asvaghosa here refers to Pañcaśikha and this could be a terminus ad quem. Even if we do not subscribe to this view the PañcasikhaJanaka episode gives us an approximate clue to the historical position of Pañcasika. Pañcasikha must have been an important teacher (this is expressly mentioned in the epic) so that he could replace Yajnavalkya as teacher of Janaka (the fact that Yajnavalkya was the teacher of Janaka is mentioned in the Bṛhadaranyaka Upanisad) in the epic 18). The tradition that has come down to us has kept an unbroken silence concerning this important position held by Pancasikha. Besides, Pañcasikha's period must be sufficiently anterior so that historically he was sufficiently indeterminable for being introduced into an episode he was never connected with.
We may thus recapitulate the findings of the epic: Pañcasikha must have been an extraordinarily popular figure, highly esteemed and respected as a teacher. As the whole non-epic literature does not speak anything of this fact we can safely conclude that the epic has preserved a tradition that belonged to the early period of the
15) Mahabharatam XII, 325, 24.
18) Buddhacaritam XII, 67.
17) See foot-note 8.
18) Cf. R. Garbe: Samkhya-Philosophie p. 67. If the remarks of Asvaghosa and of the Yuktidipika were not influenced by the epic, one could consider the tradition as genuine and accept that the similarity in name of a pupil of Pañcasikha (or of a Samkhya-teacher closely related to Pañcaśikha) and of Janaka, the king of Videha, might have been the reason for the origin of the identification of the two pairs, Pañcasikha-Janaka and Yajnavalkya-Janaka.
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