History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s94.31

v1.c6.s94.31

West and Bühler in their digest¹¹³² thought that Anantadeva flourished about the same time as the author of the Nirṇayasindhu. But this requires some correction. Baz Bahadur, the patron of Anantadeva, seems to have been a scion of the Candra (or Chand) family and ruled over Almora and Nainital from 1638 to 1678 A. D. It is said in the Imperial Gazetteer¹¹³³ that the first of the Chandrarājas was Somachand who hailed from Jhūsi near Allahabad and came to the Himalayan regions in the 10th century and that in 1563 the capital was transferred to Almora by Kalyancand, whose son Rudracandra was a contemporary of Akbar and made his obeisance to the latter in 1587 A. D. at Lahore. The Smṛtikaustubha does mention the ancestors Kalyanacandra and Rudracandra of Baz Bahadur. Between Baz Bahadur and Rudracandra there are three names. Supposing that they are the three direct ascendants of Baz Bahadur and allowing a period of 25 years for each after Rudracandra's known date of 1587 A. D., we get the year 1662 A. D. for Baz Bahadur. We are told in the Gazetteer that in 1672 Baz Bahadur introduced a poll tax, the proceeds of which he remitted to Delhi as tribute. Therefore Anantadeva must have been patronised by Baz Bahadur between 1645 and 1675 A. D. A greater approximation can be made in another way. The saint Ekanātha finished his Marathi Bhāgavata at Benares in śake 1495 and 1630 of the Vikrama era on Kārtika full-moon day (i. e. 9th November 1573 ) as he himself tells us.¹¹³⁴ Anantadeva was the fourth in descent from him ( exclusive of Ekanātha ). Counting 25 years for each of the four generations, Anantadeva should have been a grown up man in 1673 A. D. There are controversies about the dates of the birth and death of Ekanātha, the commonly accepted dates being śake 1450-1521 (b. 1528-d. 1600 A. D.).¹¹³⁵ The date of his death is śake 1521 Fālguna dark half 6th day (25th February 1600 ). Others give 1548-1599 A.D. as the dates. Whichever date is correct, the literary activity of Anantadeva must be assigned to the third quarter of the 17th century. This date is confirmed by the fact that in the Āśaucanirṇaya of Jīvadeva, younger brother of Anantadeva, the Nirṇayasindhu composed in 1611-12 A. D. is cited as an authority.