Indian Antiquary Vol 62

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

Page 203

OCTOBER, 1933 1
THE MANDOKYOPANIŞAD AND GAUDAPADA.
191
431, n. 1), the Buddhist writer Santirakṣita 27 refers to GaudapAda's work as 'upanisad. bâstra' and thus seems to have believed that Gauda pada's Agama-sastra as a whole (i.e., all the four sections of it) was an upanişad or śruti text. This opinion was current among some pandits in the time of Narayanaśramin28 also, whose words I have cited above; and I remember to have seen a printed edition of the 108 upanişads in which it was stated at the end of each prakarana, sti Mandúkyopanisadi prathamam prakaranam, dvitiyam prakaranam, etc. Similarly, the four prakaranas were treated as four upanişads in a manuscript examined by the late Prof. Albrecht Weber who writes, 20 "The Mandukyopanisad is reckoned as consisting of four Upanişads, but only the prose portion of the first of these, which treats of the three and half matras of the word om, is to be looked upon as the real Manddkyopanisad, all the rest is the work of Gaudapeda." The verses cited far above from the Muktikopanisad too show that the author of that text also regarded the 215 kårikås as forming part of the Mandukyopanişad ; for, his statement that the Mandukya alone is enough to lead one to liberation cannot, obviously, refer to the twelve seatences only of the Mandúkya, but also to the kårikås80, which prove that dvaita is false, and advaita alone, real. It is likewise interesting in this connection to note that the editors of the Brahmasútra-sankara bhanya with three commentaries that was published by the Nirnayasågara Press in 1904 have, on p. 320, said that the karika myl-loha-visphulingádyaih....is Måndů. 3. 15.'
I do not know when the view began to be current that the prose sentences in Gaudapåda's Agamasastra formed an upanigad, and when the name Måndakya81 was applied to them. As we have seen above, this is the view held by Anandagiri, Narayanasramin and other writers of the Advaita school, and also by Rangaramánuja of the Visiştâdvaita school.
The view that the Måndûkyopanişad comprises not only the twelve prose sentences found in the Agama-prakarana, but the 29 kårikås also occurring in it, secms to be a still later development. This is the view of Kûranarayana,32 and perhaps of Doddåcårya or Mahacârya also, both of the Visintadvaita school 88; and the words of Narayanaśramin cited above show that he too was aware that some Veda-knowers' regarded the whole of the Agamaprakarana as constituting the Mândukyopanişad. According to him, this view had its origin in the fact that the Agama-prakarana with its 29 kårikas is preponderatingly sruti, while the opinion that all the four prakaranas constituted the upanişad, had its origin in the fact that all the 215 kårikås treat of the same matters as, and are associated with, the Mindúkyaśruti; see note 20 above.
17 This writer was born in 705 A.D. and died in 765 A.D. according to the account given in 8. C. Vidydbhopapa's History of Indian Logic, p. 323.
28 The exact time in which this author lived is not known; but he mentions Sankera and Anandagiri, and is therefore later than both.
19 History of Indian Literature (translation of John Mann and Theodor Zacharice), 1802, p. 161. In the manuscript in question, the four prakaranas of the Måndükya form the upanipads numbered 25-28.
80 Compare in this connection the following observation of Deuseen on p. 533 op. cit.: "Dass die Muktikå von diesen 108 Upanishaden in erster Linie Måndakya empfiehlt, ist, wenn wir die in der Sammlung einbegriffene karike des Gaudspada darunter mit erstehen, von dogmatischem Standpunkte aus begreiflich; beide bieten eine vortreffliche Uebersicht der Vedântalehre."
31 The nearest approach to this name that is met with in the Carana-vyiha is Mandakeya ; and t is is there the name of a sdkhd of the Rgveda.
33 According to Madhva, the prose sentences only constitute the Mandokyopanipad ; but the 29 karikas in the Agama prakarena too, though not forming part of the upanipad, ere bruti; chey were seen by Brahma originally, and Varuna, when he saw 'the Mindikya, added the karikas after the various khandas of the MAndokya. Compare the stanzas, pramdnasyá pramdnam ced balavad vidyate mune Brahma-drafan ato mantran pramanam saliletoaral atra Hold bhavantiti cakdraioa prthak prihal || 'cited' by Madhva from the Garuda in his commentary on the Mandukya.
35 See Mr. B. N. Krishnamurti Sarma in Review of Philosophy and Religion, 2, 66-6.