Sambodhi 1988 Vol 15

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

Page 20

15
modification and duality of every sort, and yet none can decry that the thought expressed as such did play an important part in the formulation of the Kevaladvaita though the process was very slow and hardly noticeable, surprisingly perhaps giving rise to the Buddhist concept of pointinstant (svalaksana, sarvam kşanikam) and then emerging in the purged form of kevalădvaita. There is always a steady dev clopment and growth in the case of each concept, but the seeds lie in the hoary 'beginningless' time.
It is thus easy to understand why Indian thinkers have respected the testimony of the early seers and the Vedic word. When they feel that they find their own views and convictions in the words of the Vedic seers it is not that they are dishonest and knowingly twist their Upanişadic exprcssions to yield the meaning they want in order to support their own views. On the contrary it appears that thcir line of argument and firm conviction must have been that well-reasoned out truth could be but one, and so what they believe to be the truth and the only truth must certainly have been realised by the ancient sects. This is sufficient justification for the Samanvayādhyāya of the Brahmansūtra, wherein Bādarā yaņa has shown that the apparently conflicting statements in the Upanişads have the same import. And this also explains why the different Acāryas of Vedānta sought and found proof and approval of their vic ws in the Śruti and the Brahma-sūtra. As a matter of fact, a rational approach shows that the distant sources of these various views can certainly be found in the utterances of different Vedic seers, who perhaps were indebted in some way or the other to their predecessors.
Again, Hemacandrācārya says that one may be inclined to ask why he did not write a Prakarana type of work as Akalanka and Dharmakirti and others did, but chose to compose the Pramāņa-Mimārsă even though the Tattvārtha-sūtra of Umāsvāti, a standard work, already existed. The answer to this is that his taste is different and there is no public opinion or royal ordinance that could put a restraint upon the free exercise of his will.2
This idea came to Hemacandra's mind, because ordinarily in other systems there is only one sūtra-work (e.g. Nyāya-sutra, Vaiśesika-sūtra) and the later writers write commentaries and sub-commentaries. But even here we cannot be sure that there was cnly one sūtra-work for each system or school. It is likely that there were other sūtra-works, but faded away in comparison to the one which was found to be superior. Bādarāyaṇa, for example, refers to Bādari. Kāśakrtsņa, Jaimini and others who interpreted the Upanişads in accordance with their own convictions,