History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s63.40

v1.c6.s63.40

The most cogent argument that can be advanced against the above early date assigned to Jīmūtavāhana is that neither Jīmūtavāhana nor any of his compositions is mentioned by Bengal writers and works on Dharmaśāstra belonging to the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries such as the Hāralatā, the commentary of Kullūka etc. No satisfactory explanation can be offered of this silence. But is is a very precarious thing to conclude from this silence that Jīmūtavāhana's works did not exist during those centuries. It is safer to base conclusions about his date on the positive evidence contained in his works rather than rely upon the negative argument from silence in later works. When some of his commentators say that he criticises the views of Caṇḍeśvara, Miśra and others we should not take them seriously. The commentators had no idea of the exact chronological position of writers long anterior to them. All they mean is that Jīmūtavāhana criticises views that were shared also by Caṇḍeśvara and others. Another important question is whether Jīmūtavāhana who is certainly a little later than the Mit.