Sambodhi 1988 Vol 15

Author(s): Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 19

HEMACANDRA’S PRAMĀNA-MIMAMSA-SOME
· STRIKING FEATURES
E. A. Solomon
Striking Features
Besides being a renowned Ācārya, Hemacandrācārya was an adept in various fields of Sanskrit and Prakrit learning-Kāvya, Vyakarana-Sāstra, Alankāra-Šāstra, Yogaśāstra, Kośa and the like. He also wrote a work on logic, viz., Pramāņa-Mimāsa in the sūtrà-style with a svopajña-vịtti (his own commentary on it). Unfortunately, the work somehow remained incomplete.
As Pt. Sukhlaljee has abundantly shown in his excellent edition of the Pramāna-Mimāṁsā, Hemacandrācārya had made on extensive and careful study of all relevant material on logic as found in the works of all the schools-Brahmanical, Buddhist and of course Jaina. He imbibed all this learning and arrived at his own judgements independently, not fighting shy of accepting a view of, or acknowledging his indebtedness to a thinker of a non-Jaina school
I shall here refer to only a few statements of Hemacandra which are thought-provoking and point to his clear-handed thinking and deep insight into the problems of logic that he is tackling.
At the very outset he says that one may be tempted to ask that if he claimed that these sūtras were his own, then which and whose were the sūtras prior to his. The reply to this is : 'You have asked very little. You might as well ask, "Which and whose were the sūtras on Vyākarana and other disciplines prior to Pāṇini, Pingala, Kaņāda, Akşapāda and the like. The truth is that these disciplines are without any definite beginning in time; but they appear to grow ever new according as they are presented in abridged or amplified form and as such are linked up with the name of this or that person."
This is a very carefully thought-out rejoinder. We are apt to regard this or that person as the founder or originator of a school of thought or of a discipline. Actually the seeds lie in the very distant past and a gradual but steady development of thought can be discerned. It is a far cry from 'vācārambhanam vikāro nämadheyam' or 'yatra dvaitam iva bhavati' of the Upanişads to the Kevalādvaita of Sankarācārya which rejects all