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INTRODUCTION.
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The fourth work on our list, the well-known Manvarthamuktavali of Kullûkabhatta, the son of Divâkarabhatta, was considered until lately the most trustworthy guide for the exposition of Manu. In the introductory verses to his commentary Kullûka informs us that he was a Gauda or Bengali by birth, his father residing in Nandana in Varendrî1, and that he wrote his work at Benares with the assistance of other Pandits. As regards his times, we only know that Narayana Sarvagia and another commentator, Dharanidhara, stood between him and Govindarâga, and that Raghunandana, who wrote in the beginning of the sixteenth century, is the earliest author who quotes him. He, therefore, lived probably in the fifteenth century.
The Manvarthamuktâvali is, as Professor Jolly has been the first to recognise, little more than an improved edition of Govindaraga's Manutika. In spite of the asperity with which Kullûka repeatedly inveighs against his predecessor, he has not disdained to copy very large portions of the Manutika, sometimes verbatim and sometimes in very insufficient extracts, where the omissions make the meaning obscure. Moreover, even where the wording of the two commentaries differs, the influence of Govinda is distinctly visible. Under these circumstances the value of the Muktavali is, since the recovery of the Manufikâ, not very great, though it is undeniable that in certain cases Kullaka's independent remarks or criticisms of the earlier works are useful. Its great fame in India and its frequent occurrence in the libraries of native lawyers in all parts of the Peninsula may be explained by the fact that it was written and approved at Benares, which town has, since remote times, been a most important literary centre and the chief source from which the Pandits draw their supplies of books. For the notes I
In the colophon of chapter XII, the place is called Vârendranandana. The district of Varendra lies between Dinajpur and the Ganges, Cunningham, Arch. Reports, XV, Plate 1, and p. 40.
'See concluding verses at the end of chapter XII.
Aufrecht, loc. cit. p. 292.
Die Juristischen Abschnitte aus dem Gesetzbuche des Manu, p. 3, des Separatabdrucks; Tagore Lectures, p. 10.
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