The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s2.66

v2.c40.s2.66

Unfortunately the evidence for these conclusions is peculiarly unsatisfactory. The work for which the title of Māṭhara-Vṛtti is claimed bears this title on the strength of a single colophon only in a MS. apparently of A. D. 1400, which is a very slender piece of evidence. The careful analysis of Belvalkar himself shows that it contains up to 3 per cent. of what he regards as contaminations with Gauḍapāda, and 20 per cent. of students’ additions, including a reference to the Hastāmalaka attributed to Çaṅkara, while it gives apparently an extra Kārikā, which certainly has no real claim to be original. In these circumstances, instead of claiming that we have the Māṭhara-Vṛtti established as the source of Paramārtha and Gauḍapāda, the natural conclusion seems to be that this is a compilation derived from the original commentary, now lost, to which the style of Māṭhara-Vṛtti has been given without authority in the lighthearted manner of scribes and owners of MSS. Practically fatal to the theory of Māṭhara as the author of the original comment is the fact that the translator nowhere gives or hints at this name, which is also ignored by Gauḍapāda. What we really do know of an early Māṭhara is that Jain texts¹ which refer to the Saṭṭhitanta add to it the Māḍhara, which means probably that Māṭhara wrote on the Ṣaṣṭitantra, with which agrees precisely the assertion of Guṇaratna Sūri in his commentary on the Ṣaḍdarçanasamuccaya that Māṭhara's Bhāṣya was Ṣaṣṭitantroddhāra-rūpa. Otherwise, the silence regarding Māṭhara as a commentator of the Kārikā is complete. We are, therefore, left without any evidence of the real authorship of the original commentary, which, if not by Īçvarakṛṣṇa himself, need not go back earlier than A.D. 500.