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on philosophical topic did not held an isolated position in India It was rather a unk in the expanding chain of philosophical speculations and what was the object of serious concern was fidelity to the fundamentals of the shcool, and originality was more or less suspect with the adherent of the system as rather furnishing a pitfall for error or misconception We must not therefore, expect either originality of expression or of thought in the sense of an abrupt departure from the fundamental tenets which give the school a stamp of distinctive individuality What then should be the criteria of our judgement of the claim of a new book on our attention? In other words, what are the grounds for believing a book to be worthy of our study and attention ? Again, what justification would there be for the writing of a book when it does not and can not lay claim to establish a new conclusion or to throw new light on the problems that have exercised the human mind ? To make it more precise and to press the question home on the issue at hand we may ask why did Hemacandra compose his work and what was his purpose if he could not establish an original thesis?
It is an undeniable fact that Hemacandra is one of the later writers, if not the latest of the medieval period on Jaina philosophy Hemacandra was preceded by a galaxy of talented writers on Jaina logic, the foremost of whom are Akalanka, Vidyanandi and Prabhacandra of the Digambara school and Siddhasena, Divakara, Harbhadra, Siddharst and Abhayadevd of the Svetambara school He had in Vad, Deva Suri, the author of the encyclopaedic work Syadvada-ratnākara, a living contemporary All of them write on Jaina logic and epistemology and there is scarcely any topic or problem which has not been discussed throughly in their works This being the situation there scarcely seems to be any necessity of writing a book on the above lines What was then the incentive for Hemacandra to compose this work? It is a fact that Hemacandra had very little scope for making a new contribution But the previous writings were extremely elaborate and not at all calculated to satisfy the needs of average students It would tahe years of extraordinary labour to make a Study of these works and there again is every possibility for missing the forest in the trees It was necessary that there should be a work which would not degenerate into a compendious manual and at the same time would embody the solid results achieved by the previous thinkers The Pramānamımansã is not a learned work as the Syadvāda-ratnākara or the works of Prabhacandra But the Syadvada-ratnáhara is encyclopaedic both in size and scope and inspite of its wonderfully lucid and elegant treatment bound to remain a sealed book to the majority of students And as regards Prabhacandra's works, they are literally formidable for their abstruse array of agruments and their fobidding language
