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492
Albrecht Wezler
the two editors, and other people also, base their conviction that Hemacandra (fl. 1150) is the author of the Vedankusa and that this work should therefore be included in his "Granthavali." Certainly they, too, will have doubted for at least a moment the trustworthiness of this statement because they are honest enough to add the remark that "according to what is said in another manuscript [this work] was composed by Haribhadrasuri" (Haribhadrasuriviracitā [iti pratyantare]). G. Bühler does not refer to the Vedankusa in his famous monograph Ueber das Leben des Jaina Mönches Hemachandra ...;19 evidently it was not only unknown to him,20 as no manuscript of it had yet been discovered, but it was obviously also not mentioned in the "biographical" text material on which his study is based. Pandit Sukhlal Sanghvi, on the other hand, seems to have taken the Dvijavadanacapeţă to be an authentic work of Haribhadra's, for he lists it along with many others in Pariśişta 221 attached to his booklet Samadarsi Acārya Haribhadra. But if I am not mistaken, he does not even refer to it in his booklet itself, not to speak of providing any evidence for the correctness of this ascription.
So we are faced with the problem of the authorship of the Vedarkusa alias Dvijavadanacapeţă. At least one attempt at solving it should be made; it is suggested by a remark of Bühler's, found on p. 35 (38) of his monograph just mentioned: "... and in the text of his work itself [viz. Hemacandra's Yogaśästra] at 3.21,26 Manu's prohibitions against the eating of meat are inserted, his name being mentioned." As the Manusmrti is the Dharmasastra work which is most often quoted in the Vedänkuśa, it will be interesting to check whether there is any agreement in this regard between the Vedänkusa and the other work the authorship of which is beyond any doubt, the Yogaśāstra.
In the first instance Manu is actually mentioned, but the preceding verse of the Yogaśästra (3.20) runs as follows:
hantā palasya vikreta samhartā bhakṣakas tatha / kretä'numantā dātā ca ghataka eva yan manuḥ Il
In the autocommentary it is explained that yan manuh has been added samvadartham, "in order to show that he agrees [with what Hemacandra himself has said]"; and the next verse which is in fact verbatim identical to
"A Slap on the Face of the Brahmins"
Manusmrti 5.51 (anumantā visasita nihantä krayavikrayi/ samskartā copaharta ca khadakaś ceti ghatakah II) is introduced, in the commentary, by the remark: mänavam evoktam darśayati. In a similar manner, viz. by dvitiyam api manavam slokam aha, the subsequent verse (3.22) is introduced which is identical to Manusmrti 5.48:
näkṛtvā prāṇinām himsäm mämsam utpadyate kvacit/
na ca prāṇivadhaḥ svargyas tasman māmsam vivarjayet ||
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In the case of the second passage referred to by Bühler we have to do with an excellent adaptation of Manusmrti 5.55, for Yogaśāstra 3.26 reads thus:
mām sa bhakṣayitāmutra yasya mamsam ihādmy aham/ elan māsasya mamsatve niruktam manur abravit ||
This corresponds to the Manu verse except for the last four words, for in the Smrti the reading is mämsatvam pravadanti manişiṇaḥ!
If now the corresponding section of the Vedänkuša, viz. the one "on meat" (atha mamse), is compared with these verses of the Yogakastra, it becomes immediately clear that not only Manu 5.51 (= YS 3.21) and 5.48 (= Y$ 5.22) are quoted there, too, (viz. 28a. 6 and 7), but also Yogaśästra 3.20 and 26 (viz. 28a. 5 and 11) and not, to be sure, Manusmrti 5.55. And finally one realizes that it is in fact only 'Yogaśästra verses' which are quoted here, and, to wit many more than just these four, namely 15 in total, viz. YS 3.18-32, and in exactly the same sequence at that (cf. Vedänkusa 28a. 3-28b. 2)123
Now, this clearly rules out the possibility that the Haribhadra who flourished A.D. 750 composed the Vedankusa; of course, one could still think of one of the later Haribhadras, just as in the case of Hemacandra of his later namesake.24 But this would certainly mean to give too much importance to the colophon of just one manuscript (provided there is no other evidence at all). It is decidedly better to regard the authorship of Hemacandra to whom we also owe the Yogaśāstra, among other works, as highly probable, i.e. to start from this working hypothesis. But there is, admittedly, still another possibility, viz. that it was a later author, perhaps even a disciple of Hemacandra, who culled verses from Hemacandra's Yogaśästra;25 and this is precisely why the quantity of slokas found in both works, the Vedarikusa as well as the