A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s2.6

c33.s2.6

On the Bhāṣya of Çabarasvāmin we have two different systems founded, one by Prabhākara (*c.* 600) in his *Bṛhatī*,³ great (commentary), the other by Kumārila who wrote perhaps about 700. His comment¹ falls into three parts, the *Çlokavārttika* on i. i, of the Sūtra, *Tantravārttika* on i. 2–iii, and *Ṭupṭīkā* on iv–xii. Kumārila is traditionally made out to have instigated persecution of the Buddhists, but the justification for this view seems merely to have been his bitterness against them as the chief enemies of the Veda. He derides the doctrine of the Buddha as omniscient, which none of his contemporaries was competent to know, derides also the followers of the Buddha, and declares empirical means of knowledge worthless; if right be judged by causing pleasure to others, then the violation of the chastity of the wife of the teacher as giving her pleasure would be right instead of a heinous crime. Kumārila was a native of southern India, who reveals his knowledge of Dravidian languages, and recommends that borrowed words should be given Sanskrit terminations; he refers both to literature and to current practices, and his ingenuity is very considerable. His differences in philosophy from Prabhākara are considerable, but both agree with Çabarasvāmin in holding that the individual soul in some sense is immortal; both again do not accept the doctrine of illusion. A pupil of Kumārila, on one theory, of Çaṅkara on another, was Maṇḍana Miçra who wrote a *Mīmāṅsānukramaṇī* and a *Vidhiviveka*;² on the latter Vācaspati Miçra (*c.* 850) writes a comment, the *Nyāyakaṇikā*; he also set forth Kumārila’s views in his *Tattvabindu*.³ Of late works the *Nyāyamālāvistara*⁴ of Mādhava (14th cent.), the *Mīmāṅsānyāyaprakāça*⁵ of Āpadeva, and the *Arthasaṁgraha*⁶ of Laugākṣi Bhāskara are best known, but of more philosophic interest is Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa’s *Mānameyodaya*⁷ (*c.* 1600) in which Kumārila’s epistemology and metaphysics are interestingly summarized.