History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s58.9

v1.c6.s58.9

The question arises who is the author of the Kāmadhenu. If we rely upon a highly paronomastic passage of the Vyavahāraratnākara⁶⁵⁵ of Caṇḍeśvara, Gopāla was the author of the Kāmadhenu. In the Rājanītiratnākara (p. 81) Gopāla is said to have held, with Lakṣmīdhara and Śrīkara,⁶⁵⁶ the view that on the state wealth poor and helpless people have a claim and that the state perishes if the supreme authority is wielded by many (and not by one). The same work (p. 84) cites the opinion of Gopāla that the coronation rites mentioned in works on *rājanīti* are merely illustrative and that according to the particular usages of countries and families a king may be proclaimed without those rites by merely being seated on a throne.⁶⁵⁷ The Pitṛbhakti of Śrīdatta expressly mentions that it is based on the works of Gopāla and others. The Vīramitrodaya cites the view of Gopāla that vyavahāra comes under what is called *jalpa* in the technique of the Nyāya system and that the view of Miśra that Vyavahāra is comprised under the term *vāda* of the same system is wrong. Whether the Gopāla mentioned by Mitramiśra is the same as the author named by Caṇḍeśvara it is difficult to say. But it seems to me that they are identical. Aufrecht in his great catalogue (I. 93) ascribes the authorship of the Kāmadhenu to Śambhu. Whence he derived this information is not clear. The authors and works cited by him do not, so far as I know, ascribe the Kāmadhenu to Śambhu. It is true that Śambhu is credited by the Smṛticandrikā with a digest on *dharmaśāstra* (vide note 563 above) and the Smṛtyarthasāra also names him as one of the authorities on which it relies. Hemādri⁶⁵⁹ also tells us that Śambhu was a *nibandha-kāra* and refuted the views of Medhātithi on Manu III. 125. The Smṛticandrikā frequently cites the views of Śambhu on vyavahāra and generally refutes them. For example, on the word 'pitarau' occurring in Yāj. II. 135 Śambhu remarked that no difference should be made between the parents (father and mother) as heirs, since whoever out of the two took the wealth of their son it would come to both.⁶⁶⁰ Vide also Smṛticandrikā II, pp. 205, 216. Therefore Śambhu also, being mentioned by the Smṛticandrikā and the Smṛtyarthasāra, is certainly earlier than 1150 A. D. In this state of the authorities I am doubtful whether Śambhu was the author of the Kāmadhenu. I am inclined to hold that he was not the author of that work and that Gopāla was the author. This conclusion is somewhat strengthened by the fact that the Smṛtyarthasāra mentions both Kāmadhenu and Śambhu as authorities on which it relies. If Śambhu had been, in the opinion of the Smṛtyarthasāra the author of the Kāmadhenu, the mention of both would have been superfluous. Mr. Jayasval (in JBORS for 1927, vol. XIII, parts 3-4, p. VII) ascribes the Kāmadhenu to Bhoja, but this is wrong (vide p. 277, note 576).