History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s91.1

v1.c6.s91.1

Kamalākarabhaṭṭa was one of the foremost scions of the Bhaṭṭa family. He was a grandson of the famous Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa and a son of Rāmakṛṣṇabhaṭṭa. He was one of three brothers, the eldest being Dinakara *alias* Divākara¹⁰⁷⁶ and the youngest was Lakṣmaṇabhaṭṭa,¹⁰⁷⁷ who studied under Kamalākarabhaṭṭa. Kamalākarabhaṭṭa's father Rāmakṛṣṇa also was a very¹⁰⁷⁸ learned man and a profound *mīmāṁsaka* and his mother Umā immolated herself as a *satī*. Kamalākara was a man of profound erudition and composed works on almost every śāstra. In some of his own works there are high eulogies of his learning and proficiency in Tarka, Nyāya, grammar, mīmāṁsa (in both the schools of Kumārila and Prabhākara), Vedānta, Poetics, dharmaśāstra and Vedic sacrifices.¹⁰⁷⁹ He composed more than twenty-two works. At the end of his Vivādataṇḍava, it is said that he composed the Nirṇayasindhu, a commentary on the Vārtika (of Kumārila), a work on the *mīmāṁsā* (śāstratattva) and a series of 20 other works.¹⁰⁸⁰ At the end of a ms. of the Śāntiratna in the Bhau Daji collection there is a list of 22 works of his out of which the Nirṇayasindhu is said to have been the first.¹⁰⁸¹ More than half of these works are concerned with topics of Dharmaśāstra, viz. the Nirṇayasindhu, the Dānakamalākara, Śāntiratna, Pūrtakamalākara, Vratakamalākara, Prāyaścittaratna, Vivādatāṇḍava, Bahvṛcāhnika, Gotrapravaradarpaṇa, Karmavipākaratna, Śūdrakamalākara, Sarvatīrthavidhi. The Śūdrakamalākara, the Vivādatāṇḍava and the Nirṇayasindhu are the most famous of his works on dharmaśāstra. Brief references may be made here to some of the works of Kamalākara-bhaṭṭa other than the three mentioned above. It appears from the introductory verses of the Vratakamalākara that Kamalākara intended to compose a digest on dharma called Dharmatattva in ten paricchedas¹⁰⁸² and not only carried it out but added some more works on dharma. It will be noticed that nine out of these 10 sections are enumerated under the same names at the end of the Śāntiratna quoted above, the one not named being the section on *ācāra*. Burnell mentions a work called Ācāradīpa by Kamalākara on daily duties and on the same page notices another work on āhnika by Kamalākara.¹⁰⁸³ It is difficult to say whether both are names of the same work. It is not unlikely that the ācāra section of the digest Dharmatattva is the same as the Bahvṛcāhnika enumerated at the end of the Śāntiratna. There is a ms. of the Bavṛcāhnika at Bikaner.¹⁰⁸⁴ It deals with daily duties commencing with rising