Book Title: Makaranda Madhukar Anand Mahendale Festshrift
Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Previous | Next

Page 84
________________ A note on Śabara's India Shripad Bhat In the development of Indian philosophy, through the ages, the Pūrvamīmāṁsā system plays an important role. The object of the Mimāṁsā seems to have been Vedārthavicāra' or the investigation into the interpretation of the Vedas. In order to understand the Vedas, Jaimini sūtras serve as an important tool of interpretation. The sūtras of Jaimini were interpreted by some Bhāsyakāras, such as Bodhāyana, Bhavadāsa Upavarsa, and so on. Among them Sabara became very popular, whose work is known as Śabarabhāsya, which, in fact, formed the basis and starting point for all later Mimāṁsā works. In this work of Sabara, along with Dharmamimāṁsā, we find a number of geographical, social and cultural references which were subjected to a critical analysis as being reliable sources of Dharma. Besides Vedic texts, Smrti and Sadācāra also got importance as the sources of Dharma. Sabara asserts the significance of the influence of Smrti texts, popular customs, rights of women etc. which are closely related and have become familiar in the life of ordinary people. He shows that there was a unity of language and culture from the Himālayas to Capecomorin. An effort has been made in the present work to being into limelight the geographical, social, and cultural facts as reflected in the Sabarabhāsya. Date of Sabara-To fix the date of Sabara, a number of attempts have already been made. A. B. Keith concludes that 400. A. D. is the earliest date of Sabara!. According to P. V. Kane, the date of Śabara is not earlier than 100 A. D. and not later than 500 A. D2. G. N. Jha assigns him as a senior contemporary of the great Vikramāditya' the founder of the 'samvat' era and therefore believed as having lived in 57 B. C. He quotes a verse which

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284