________________
400 The Nimbārka School of Philosophy [CH. Madan Mohan Library, Benares, is attributed to Nimbārka. This manuscript is not procurable on loan and has not been available to the present writer. But if the account of the authors of the Catalogue is to be believed, Nimbārka is to be placed after Madhva. One argument in support of this later date is to be found in the fact that Madhava who lived in the fourteenth century did not make any reference in his Sarva-darśana-samgraha, to Nimbārka's system, though he referred to all important systems of thought known at the time. If Nimbārka had lived before the fourteenth century there would have been at least some reference to him in the Sarva-darśana-samgraha, or by some of the writers of that time. Dr Rajendra Lal Mitra, however, thinks that since Nimbārka refers to the schools (sampradāya) of Sri, Brahmā and Sanaka, he lived later than Ramanuja, Madhva and even Vallabha. While there is no positive, definite evidence that Nimbārka lived after Vallabha, yet from the long list of teachers of his school it probably would not be correct to attribute a very recent date to him. Again, on the assumption that the Madhva-mukha-mardana was really written by him as testified in the N.W.P. Catalogue, one would be inclined to place him towards the latter quarter of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century. Considering the fact that there have been up till now about forty-three teachers from the time of Nimbārka, this would mean that the pontifical period of each teacher was on the average about ten to twelve years, which is not improbable. An internal analysis of Nimbārka's philosophy shows its great indebtedness to Rāmānuja's system and even the style of Nimbārka's bhāsya in many places shows that it was modelled upon the style of approach adopted by Rāmānuja in his bhāsya. This is an additional corroboration of the fact that Nimbārka must have lived after Rāmānuja.
The works attributed to him are as follows: (1) Vedāntapārijāta-saurabha. (2) Daśa-śloki. (3) Kệşna-stava-rāja. (4) Guruparamparā. (5) Madhva-mukha-mardana. (6) Vedānta-tattva-bodha. (7) Vedānta-siddhānta-pradīpa.(8) Sva-dharmā-dhva-bodha. (9) Srikņşņa-stava. But excepting the first three works all the rest exist in MS. most of which are not procurablel. Of these the present writer
1 Vedānta-tattva-bodha exists in the Oudh Catalogue, 1877, 42 and vill. 24, compiled by Pandit Deviprasad.
Vedānta-siddhānta-pradipa and Sva-dharmā-dhva-bodha occur in the Notices
