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KARIN PREISENDANZ .
Muslim rulers and their cultural elite in this way, possibly also to bolster their own legitimization as indigenous (semi-independent rulers. The appreciative return to the ancient "roots" of Nyāya within the - from the point of view of content and scholarly sophistication - innovative and advanced intellectual climate of Navya-Nyāya, a return which we see commencing in Mithila with the Nyāyatattvāloka, may be placed within this wider context of external motivation; the latter may have promoted such an intellectual re-orientation, in any case presented a sympathetic historical setting for it and thus enhanced the internal motivation of scholars, while the indirect impact of Muslim rule and culture transmitted to Mithilā owing to the increased mobility of and social interaction between members of the intellectual elite may have been responsible for or at least reinforced the more and more pronounced historicist concept of the Nyāya tradition as such.
Unfortunately, we do not know the precise circumstances of the composition of the Nyāyatattvāloka and the compilation of the Nyāyasūtroddhāra, except that they were Vācaspati's first works. However, the evidence of either of the two alternative verses prefixed to the Nyāyasūtroddhāra manuscripts accessible to me indicates that he was already at that time a scholar connected with the court of a Mithilā ruler.62 His numerous and celebrated works in Dharmaśāstra were all written after his Nyāya works, under and for the Kameśvara rulers Harinārāyaṇa (Bhairavasimha) and his son Rūpanārāyana (Rāmabhadra),64 perhaps following a brief stay abroad in Pañ
61 Cf. Thapar (1990: 314). 62 Cf. SBL mss. no. 32672, 33181 and 33219; cf. also ms. no. 5682 (catalogued as a Nyāyasūtra ms.) of the Prajñā Pāțhaśāla Mandala, Wai: śrīvācaspatidhirena mithileśvarasūriņā / likhyate munimürdhanyaśrīgautamamatam mahat //; for the alternative verse cf. above, n. 50. 63 Cf. e.g., the introductory verses to the Dvaitanirnaya, which also refer to Queen Jaya(no) as commissioning the work, referred to in Chakravarti (1915b: 427), Bhattacharya (1958: 157), Kane (1975: 847). 64 The Mahādānanirnaya is attributed to both Harinārāyana and Rūpanārāyana in verses attached to the beginning and end of the work respectively; the authorship of Vācaspati is reduced to 'assistance' (sahakāritā) in the first case, scil. śrīvācaspatidhiram sahakāritayā samāsādya/ śrībhairavendranrpatiḥ svayam mahādānanirnayam tanute //, and not even mentioned in the second. The Pitrbhaktitararginī or Srāddhakalpa, Vācaspati's last work, was written at the request of the latter. Cf. Chakravarti (1915b: 427, 429), Bhattacharya (1958: 157-158) and Kane (1975: 849, 851-852, with n. 1288).