A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.26.3

c6.26.3

The Brihaspatisūtras is essentially an archaic work, but one of its historical allusions, it will be seen later, brings down its date in its existing form at least to the twelfth century A. D. Like the work of Kāmandaka the Śukranītisāra is of uncertain date, but reasons will be shown in the proper place for putting it down in the late mediaeval period. Of the Jaina works with which we are concerned, the Nītivākyāmṛitam is an aphorisitc treatise written by Somadeva who was the *protege* of a feudatory Chief subject to a Western Indian potentate Kriṣṇa III (fl. 10th century A. D.). The Laghu Arhannīti was written by the well-known Jaina scholar and divine Hemachandra (1089-1173 A.D.) at the behest of his royal patron Kumārapāla of Guzerat. As regards the later Brahminical canon, the minor Smṛitis are assigned by Prof. Jolly dates ranging from the fourth to the seventh centuries A. D.∗ To the same period belong the larger Purāṇas in their existing form. Of the great commentators on the Smṛitis, Medhātithi Vijñāneśvara and Aparārka belong, as will be shown in the sequel, to the tenth and the eleventh centuries after Christ, while Mādhava distinguished himself as the minister of the first king of the famous House of Vijaynagar in the early part of the 14th century. The two mediæval Digests of the Sacred Law that have been taken up for examination in this work are the Bhagavantabhāskara and the Vīramitrodaya.