Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 219

NOVEMBER, 1929] BENGAL'S PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE IN SANSKRIT
Thus Mahamahopadhyaya Ramakṛṣṇa Bhattacharya composed his Adhikarana-kaumudi (Chowkhamba Sanskrit series) to elucidate these principles. He refers to Śrâddha-chintamani (of Vâchaspati Miśra, p. 70). Madhava (author of Parásara-mâdhaviya, p. 20, 30), and Sraddhaviveka (of Śûlapâni, p. 62). He thus seems to have flourished about the fifteenth century at the earliest. That he was a Bengalee is shown by the fact that he interprets some texts to show that some kinds of meat may be taken (p. 57).
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Dharmadipika (H.P.S., I, 192) is an elementary work on Mîmâm â by Chandrasekharavâchaspati, grandson of a Vidyabhûsana, who is stated here to have been proficient in all the six systems of Hindu philosophy. He also wrote many works on Smriti. This book deals with Mimamsâ principles which are required for the elucidation of Smrti texts. He was a Vârendra Brahmana, who settled in Navadvipa in the beginning of the eighteenth century (H.P.S., I, Preface p. xx).
Tattvasambodhini by Chandrasekhara (C.S., III, 182) is another elementary treatise on Mîmâmsa. The author was an inhabitant of Varendra (North Bengal), whose patron is stated to have been Srî Bâlâyuta Râmajîvana.
Mimámsáratna by Raghunatha Bhattacharya Vidyâlankâra (I.O., IV, 2216) consists of two parts, one dealing with pramár s (sources of knowledge), the other with prameyas (categories) of the Mimamsa philosophy. Similar works of the Nyaya-vaiseṣika school are found in abundance in Bengal, and it is to supply the want of the Mimamsâ school in this respect that the book seems to have been compiled.
Vedanta.
Evidence of the Study of Vedanta in Bengal.
Though the Vedanta system is generally believed to have been totally neglected by the Bengalees, we have evidence, apart from the works of Bengal, of its almost continuous study here from a very early period. Bhavadeva Bhatta, minister of king Harivarmadeva (circa twelfth century A.D.), is definitely stated to have mastered the Advaita system. A fragmentary copy of a manuscript of Sankara's well-known commentary on the Vedantasútras in Bengalee characters, copied in S.E. 1361, is in the manuscript collection of the Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat, Calcutta.
Maheśvara Visârada (fifteenth century), father of the famous Naiyayika Vasudeva Sârvabhauma, is stated in the latter's commentary on the Advaita-makaranda to have been master of the Vedanta lore. Govindananda Kavikankanacharya, the famous author of Smriti digests (sixteenth century), in one of the introductory verses found in several of his works, refers to his father as a scholar of Vedanta.
In the Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat, as also in the Adyar Library, Madras, are found manuscripts in Bengalee characters of a good many upanisads with their commentaries, which form the basic works of all Vedanta studies. Some of the Upanisadic manuscripts of the Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat in Bengalee script are as old as the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Besides these, a copy of a manuscript in Bengalee script of a work called Vedanta-tattva-mañjarî attributed to Sankaracharya, apparently a different person from the great master of that name, was found by Mm. H. P. Shastri in a village in Midnapur (H.P.S., II, 194). The manuscript is dated 1667 S.E. (1745 A.D.). The work is an elementary treatise on the Vedanta system.
Bengal's Contribution to Vedanta Literature.
The earliest contribution of Bengal towards Vedanta literature seems to have been the karikas of Gauḍapada, which are supposed to have been current as early as the beginning
' स्मृतीनां च प्रकाशार्थे तनोतीमां महीपिकाम् |
• श्रीरामजीवनारान संस्थापित वारेन्द्रसम्म सम्बोधिनीम् । Ep. Ind., vol. VI, p. 203-7, v. 20. "darêzgargang: '
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