Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts Asiatic Society Vol 11

SR No.: 020279
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hariprasad Shastri, Narendrachandra Vedanttirtha, Chintaharan Chakravarti
Publisher: Asiatic Society
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 1052
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Catalogue
File Size: 21 MB

Page 22

XIX
a long time past, even before Gotama, as there existed Mimāṁsā before Jaimini or Grammar before Panini.
It is difficult to come to a definite conclusion about the personality of many Sanskrit writers and the chronology of many Sanskrit works.
The same difficulty is felt in the case of Gotama and Gotama, founder of the Nyāya
his Nyāyasūtra. We know very little with regard to system.
Gotama except what we find revealed in his Nyāya
sūtra. Doubt is entertained even with regard to the authorship of Nyāyasūtra to Gotama. Vätsyāyana, Uddyotakara, Vācaspati, Jayanta and others are all unanimous in holding that Aksapāda is the author of Nyāyasūtra while in Padmapurāņa we get a clear evidence of Nyāya system as attributed to Gotama. Vșttikāra Visvanātha subscribes to the view expressed in Padmapurāna, Hindu tradition identifies the two and asserts that Gotama is his personal name and Aksapāda is his surname. There runs a story that Akşapāda or Gotama was so deeply rapt up in philosophical speculation that one day when he was walking, he happened to fall into a well from which he was rescued by the almighty God, who took pity upon him and provided him with power of sight on his feet in order to prevent him from future pitfalls. Many scholars are of opinion that Gotarna lived in Mithilā. We have no reasonable evidence, external or internal, to prove it beyond doubt. The fixing of the date of Nyāyasūtra has been the cause of a heated controversy among a number of eminent orientalists for a number of years and we find that there is a wide diversity of views amongst Prof. Garbe, Mm. H. P. Sastri, Mm. Dr. Vidyabhusana, Prof. Jacobi, Prof. Suali, Mr. Bodas, Dr. Keith, Dr. Randle, Mm. Gopinath Kaviraj and Mm. Kuppuswami Sastri on the subject.
Now to remark on the probable date of the Nyāyasūtra. Gotama, like most of the Sanskrit writers, does not give any clue to his date in his work. There is no way of extracting evidence, internal or external from any known source which may determine his date in exact numbers. We may determine the approximate date from quotations and references that are found in other works. Let us make an attempt here to find out the two limits, lower and upper, to his date as correctly as the data at our disposal can allow and somehow or other arrive at the lower limit from quotations and references of later writers.
Since Upavarşa, who is traditionally recorded as anterior to Pānini, was familiar with the Nyāya system of Gotama, we shall not be far wrong if we conclude that the Nyāya system of Gotama must have existed in some form, prior to Panini, i.e., prior to 700 B.C. Moreover, if greater simplicity and closer kinship to ordinary modes of thought be a test then the Nyāya and Vaiseșika systems would seem to be prior to other systems. The Nyāya system was known to Upamanyu, the predecessor of both Yäska and Pānini.