Date and Authorship of Nyayavatara

Author(s): M A Dhaky
Publisher: Z_Nirgrantha_1_022701.pdf and Nirgrantha_2_022702.pdf and Nirgrantha_3_022703.pdf

Page 5

Vol. 1-1995
The date and....
(character of probans) reflects sense-agreement, even partial verbal concordance with the verses from Pātrasvāmi's (Pātrakesari's) Trilaksanakadarthana cited by the Buddhist scholiast śāntaraksita in his Tattvasangraha (c. 2nd quarter of the 8th century A. D.)». Moreover, Sanghvi, but more definitely Kailashchandra Shastri, has shown that the qualification badha-vivarjitam (incontrovertible) (emphasized as obligatory) for the pramāna in the opening kārikā of the Nyāyāvatāra has been adopted from Kumarila Bliatta (c. A. D. 575-625) 33; indeed that specific qualification is earlier nowhere noticeable in the Nirgranthist or Buddhist or Brahmanical works either. What is more, the kārika 9 of the Nyāyāvatāra is the wholesale appropriation of the verse 9 of the Ratnakarandaka ascribed to Yogīndra by Vädirāja of Drāvida Sanigha in Karnātadeśa (A. D. 1025) and to Samantabhadra by Prabhācandra (c. A. D. 1050), probably of the Mula Saingha, in Mālavadeśa. The opinion of the Digambara scholars, as a result, is sharply divided into two camps on the authorship of the Ratnakarandaka. My own view is that the style of the Ratnakarandaka, though, seeming not later than the seventh century A. D., does not correspond with that of Samantabhadra. ( The work is also in part doginatic as well as sectarian.) In any case, all aforenoted points considered, it clearly emerges that the author of the Nyāyāvatāra is posterior to the first half of the seventh century A.D. This is further confirmed by the use of the term abhrānta (inerrant) and the truths consequently emerging therefroin in the karikās 5-7 of the Nyāyāvatāra. For ablıránta, in lieu of the earlier term avyabhicari as one of the qualificatory as well as requisite attribute of the pratyaksa-pramāna, was popularised (even perhaps revived, if Asanga and Maitreyanatha, c. 4th century A. D., had employed it) by Dharınakīrti. The influence of the imposing figure of Dharmakirtis in the field of epistemology was all-pervasive since the days he wrote his famous Pramāņavārtika, tlie Nyāyabindu, and other cognate works. The author of the Nyāyāvatāra does not in reality refute, but sides with Dharmakirti as demonstrated by Mookerjee in his brilliant analysis. Looking at the fact that the author of the Nyāyāvatāra is posterior to Dinnaga, Samantabhadra, Kunarila, Yogindra, and Pātrakesari, little wonder if he were also familiar with Dharmakīrti's notions which he indirectly accepts in his own layout. Malwaniya had further shown that, even when there is no close verbal agreement between the Nyāyāvatāra and the corresponding works of the great Digambara dialectician Akalankadeva (active c. A. D. 725-760), there is often a fairly close sense-correspondence at several places. In that event the author of the Nyāyāvatāra has to be placed after the first half of the eighth century.
And now we may look at the vivitti of Siddharși. As noted in the beginning, Siddharsi does not ascribe the Nyāyāvatara to Siddhasena Divākara or to a different Siddhasena or for that matter to any other author. Nor does he mention it as a composition of a purvācārya, vrddhācārya, or some cirantanācārya. Also, in his verse by verse exposition, he nowhere uses qualificatory phrases such as the śāstrakāra, sūtrakāra, kārikākara, acarya, etc., which may have denoted a second, an earlier revered personage, as the kārikās' author. And had the original author been Siddhasena Divãkara, the five