Hetubindu Tika

Author(s): Dharmakirti Mahaswami, Archatt Bhatt, Durvek Mishra Pandit, Sukhlal Sanghavi, Jinvijay, B Bhattacharya
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

Page 15

viii
ocean. Those who are endowed with no inconsiderable foree of reason, even they cannot fathom its depth. Those who are endowed with exceptional intrepidity of thought, even they cannot perceive its highest truth".1
"Another stanza is found in anthologies and hypothetically ascribed to Dharmakirti, because it is to the same effect. The poet compares his work with a beauty which can find no adequate bridegroom. 'What was the creator thinking about when he created the bodily frame of this beauty! He has lavishly spent the beauty-stuff! He has not spared the labor! He has engendered a mental fire in the hearts of people who thereto fore were living placidly! And she herself is also wretchedly unhappy, since she never will find a fiance to match her!"
"In this personal character Dharmakirti is reported to have been very proud and self-reliant, full of contempt for ordinary mankind and sham scholarship. Taranatha tells us that when he finished his great work, he showed it to the pandits, but he met with no appreciation and no good will. He bitterly complained of their slow wits and their envy. His enemies, it is reported, then tied up the leaves of his work to the tail of a dog and let him run through the streets where the leaves became scattered. But Dharmakirti said, "just as this dog runs through all streets, so will my work be spread in all the world."
Prof. Stcherbatsky has not discussed, in the above account, the date of Dharmakirti. Dr. Vidyabhuṣaṇa and Syt. Rahulaji, however, have discussed it. Dr. Vidyabhuṣaṇa places him between 635 to 650 A. D. while Syt. Rahulaji (in his introduction to Vädanyaya) places him a bit earlier in 625 A. D). These dates do not refer to the date of birth, but only refer to the probable period of his activity. It is, of course, not possible to arrive at a fixed date. But the deliberations of Pt. Mahendrakumara Nyāyācārya, in his introduction, (pp.18-23) to the Akalņka-granthatraya, regarding the date, are very consistant and therefore deserve careful attention. According to these deliberations Dharmakirti's time falls between 620 and 690 A. D. Whatever might be the final conclusion regarding the exact date, there is, however, hardly any doubt regarding the chronological order of the following eminent authors belonging to both the pre- and post-Dharmakirti periods, which, according to us, is as follows:
1 anadhyavasitävagahanam analpa-dhi-şaktinā
py adrṣta-paramarthatattvam adhikabhiyogair api. matam mama jagaty alabdha-sadṛs'a-pratigrāhakam prayasyati payonidhiḥ paya eva svadehe jaram-Quoted in Dhvanyaloka (N. S. P. 1891), p. 217.
2
lavanya-draviṇa-vyayo na ganitaḥ kleṣo mahan arjitaḥ, svacchandam carato janasya hṛdaye cinta-jvaro nirmitaḥ. esa pi svayam eva tulya-ramaṇābhāvad varāki hatā,
ko'rthas cetasi vedhasa vinihitas tanayas tanum tanvată-Ibid. p. 216.