Sambodhi 1998 Vol 22

Author(s): Jitendra B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 22

THE 'BAUDDHA-SANTĀNA DVĀTRIMŚIKĀ* OF SIDDHASENA DIVĀKARA
M A. Dhaky
As one of the sources complementary to the Buddhist proper for the study of the Buddhist doctrines, philosophy, and epistemology, are notices figuring in the Nirgrantha literature This field is particularly valuable for the period between the fifth and the ninth century A D , when several dialectical and commentanal works of the two major Nigrantha sects reviewed the Buddhist doctrinal and epistemological positions at some length, sometimes in considerable detail The discussions, whether of confutations or refutational nature or, somewhat rarely just neutral, take into account the then prevailing Buddhist conceptual as well as epistemological positions on the bases of the then available works of the famous Buddhist masters, particularly Nāgārjuna Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dinnāga and Dharmakīrt. The additional, indeed sterling, importance of such Nırgrantha notices is also due to the citations they contain of the many non-Sthaviravādın works, all in Sanskrit and now lost, some today available only in Tibetan translations The useful and relatively earlier Nirgrantha works of the Northern tradition which embody these interesting as well as very valuable data are the auto-commentary of Mallavādı called the Dvādaśāra-naya-cakra (c A D 550-600) and the elucidatory further commentary on it by Simhaśūra Ksmāśramana (c AD 675), Gandhahasti Siddhasena's commentary (c A D 760-770) on the Sa-bhāsya Tattvarthädhigama-sutra of Umāsvāti (c A D 350), and Haribhadra's Anekāntajaya-patākā, the Šāstra-vārtā-samuccaya as well as the Lalitavistarā tīkā (c A. D 770-780) The more important early commentarial works of the Southern Nırgrantha Church which carry in-depth discussions on Buddhist positions are of Akalankadeva (active C A D 725-770) and of Vidyānanda (c. 1st half of the 10th century AD) The work to be briefly introduced in this paper, the BauddhaSantānadvātrimśıkā of Siddhasena Diväkara (active c A D 400-444), possesses two distinctions First, it is the earliest known Nırgrantha work which dwells on the philosophical doctrines of the Mahāyānic (and possibly other contemporaneous and allied or otherwise) post-canonical Buddhist schools Second, it is largely free of polemics, for in its limited compass of a dvātriskā
* See Appendix to this article.