________________
216
ERNST STEINKELLNER
syațīkā, a *Kṣaṇabhangasiddhidūşaņam and an *Iśvarasiddhiḥ14, the last two being the first known attempt of the Nyāya-school to answer Dharmakirti's criticisms directly.
II
The evident supposition that a Buddhist author in Dharmakirti's tradition knowing the works of Sankarasvāmin would not pass over the latter's polemics against Dharmakirti in total silence helps us in this particular case to determine Sankarasvāmin's date quite precisely. Although in commenting on Sāntarakṣita's verses Kamalasila offers a large number of quotations from Sankarasvāmin which from their contents we can take as fragments of his Nyāyabhāşyaţikā, he does not quote even once, in the Isvaraparikşā or the Sthirabhāvaparīkņā or elsewhere, any of the arguments or criticisms we know from Sankarasvāmin's *Kşanabhangasiddhidūşaņam or *Távarasiddhiḥ.
The material Sāntarakşita compiles for the Pūrvapakşa of his Isvaraparikşā is from authors who predate Dharmakirti15. The signature of his refutation is completely Dharmakirti. And nowhere a hint of Sankarasvāmin's counter-attacks. The same is true of the Sthirabhāvapariksā: as far as the Nyāya is concerned there is only material from the period before Dharmakirti 16. In both cases no new, post-Dharmakirtian sources are referred to. Considering the depth and care of Šāntarakṣita's presentation and the minuteness of Kamalasila's comments I think we may safely conclude that both did not refer to these two works of Sankarasvāmin, simply because they did not know of them. That means that Sankarasvāmin must have been a contemporary of, śāntarakṣita and Kamalasīla and that his commentary on the Nyāyabhāsyam was drawn upon by both as a recent production. As the Tattvasangrahaḥ was written with a good reference-library, i. e. in all probability before śāntarakṣita left for Tibet in 76317, Sankarasvāmin's Nyāyabhāșyatīkā must have been written before 760.
The time of Kamalaśīla's finishing his commentary could serve as terminus post quem for Sankarasvāmin's *Kṣaṇabhangasiddhidūşaņam and *Išvarasiddhiḥ. For we know of at least one case where Kamalasila
14 Source of the following fragments: J234, 1—15; R46, 27–30; J 298, 19-24; J 236, 1–2 + 298, 25—26; J 298, 26—299, 1; J 239, 3—5 + 234, 16-17 + 299, 1–5; R 35, 10-16; J 278, 3; J 278, 4.
15 Aviddhakarņa, Uddyotakara, Prasastamati. 16 Uddyotakara, Bhāvivikta. 17 Cf. E. FRAUWALLNER, loc. cit., 143.
