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THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN
: 3,6 I prefer the interpretation given in the last five paragraphs to the one found in the Țikā for a number of reasons:
(a) It arises out of and agrees with the context of 486. According to it, Candrācārya and his followers carry out what we would expect them to carry out in the situation described in 481-5.
(b) It appeals to no supernatural event or person.
(c) It does not necessitate the assumption of an unsubstantiated, permanent but almost inaccessible, āgama.
(d) We are not required to admit a sudden shift in the use of the word āgama-from vyākaraṇāgama to mūlabhūta vyākaraṇāgama or from 'knowledge handed down in a tradition' to 'a specific text'.
(e) Conflict with the Rāja-tarangini passage echoing 486 (see fn. 13 above) is avoided. That passage seems to speak of an āgama whose immediate usefulness was in bringing the Mahābhāsya into academic currency, in making the Mahābhāsya a respectable and hence attractive text for serious students. My interpretation presupposes precisely such an agama.
(f) The nature of the āgama that Candrācārya and others managed to salvage should be reflected in the Vākyapadīya|Trikāņdī, for as verse 487 tells us, the Vākyapadīya/Trikāņdi is based on Bhartshari's20 own view as well as the many-branched āgama or nyāya-prasthāna-mārga-s that Candrācārya and others succeeded in developing after they got the āgama. Now, even a rapid reading of Bhartshari's
20 Or Vasurāta's, if the Țikā explanation is followed.
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