________________
THE NYAYASŪTRA COMMENTARIAL TRADITION
81
tural considerations, such as the correct number and extent of prakarana-s02 and their sequence and coherence as regards content (sangati). Furthermore, he discusses the status of disputed sūtra-s 103 as well as the precise wording and extent of certain sütra-s. 104 I would like to suggest that with the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa a significant further step takes place in the development of what one could call Nyāyasūtra-commentaries with a 'philological and text-critical emphasis, as opposed to such commentaries with philosophical and historical emphasis.
This new tendency finds its culmination in the Nyāyatattvaparīksā, also known as Anvīksātattvaparīksā."Os According to the colophon of the manuscript preserved at the Mithila Research Institute, Darbhanga, 106 which has convincingly been argued to be an autograph by Prabal Kumar Sen, 107 this commentary was written in 1735 by Vamsadhara in the village of Mangalavani (Mangaraunī, Mangroņi) near Madhubani. The first introductory verse of two incomplete mss. of the Nyāyatattvaparīksā kept in the Sarasvati Bhavana Library108 provides the further information that Vamsadhara was the student of
(Footnote 101 continued). jīmütal = 17)(?)* vāhāv(= 7) ādyantāhnike prakaranam kramät //. * jīmūta, not recorded as a descriptive number word, is an epithet of Siva and may therefore correspond to 11; the actual number of prakarana-s in the first āhnika of the final adhyāya according to the Gautamīyasūtraprakāśa is 17. 102 Cf. e.g., the discussion as to the reason why Nyāyasūtra 3.1.12-14 do not form a separate prakarana, as assumed by Tarani Miśra in his Bhāsva (cf. above, n. 37; cf. also n. 124 below), in GSP 44, 15-19 or to why the first five prakarana-s of the third adhyāya do not form an āhnika by themselves in GSP 47, 4-6 (ätmaparīkşānumitaih in line 4 should probably be corrected to read ātmaparikşāntarbhūtaih). Cf. also GSP 33, 14-16 on the possibility that the third and fourth prakarana of the first āhnika of the second adhyāya form an independent āhnika, and GSP 57,4-7 on the suggestion that the second prakarana of the second ähnika of the third adhyāya constitutes only a part of the first prakarana. 103 Cf. e.g., the discussion on Nyāyasūtra 3.1.28-30 in GSP 47, 26-28 and on 3.2.10 in GSP 56, 24–25. 104 Cf. e.g., the comments on Nyāyasūtra 3.2.10 in GSP 56, 26-29. 105 Thus, Mishra's statement that Keśava Miśra was the last Maithila scholar of the traditional type who wrote a commentary on the Nvāyasūtra (cf. Mishra, 1966: 369) has to be taken with caution. 100 Ms. no. 497. The colophon is quoted in Sen (1980: 103); however, I read the expanded title of the work mentioned there as maharsigautamapranitanyāyatati vapariksā (instead of -nyāyasya tattva-). 107 Cf. Sen (1980: 103-105). 108 SBL mss. no. 31556 (containing the commentary on the first adhyāya) and 31557 (covering the first āhnika of the first adhyāya and parts of its second āhnika, discontinuing right in the middle of the commentary on Nyāyasūtra 1.2.12), obviously not known to Sen. The two manuscripts preserved in Darbhanga (at the