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Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s2: II Authorship and Date

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s2

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English

II Authorship and Date

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Tradition from Śaṃkara downwards attributes the Sūtra to Bādarāyaṇa. The fact that the name of the latter is mentioned in several places in the third person⁷ inclines one to think that Bādarāyaṇa is not its author.⁸ Such a use of the third person is not, however, an uncommon practice in ancient India, and it need not imply a different authorship. Indian tradition identifies Bādarāyaṇa, the author of the Sūtra, with Vyāsa. Śaṃkara’s followers, Govindānanda, Vācaspati and Ānandagiri identify Vyāsa with Bādarāyaṇa; Rāmānuja, Madhva, Vallabha and Baladeva ascribe the Sūtra to Vyāsa. Sometimes this view is contested on the ground that Jaimini, whom Bādarāyaṇa quotes a number of times, is a pupil of Vyāsa, if we believe the Mahābhārata, Viṣṇu Purāṇa and the Bhāgavata, and so the cross references in the works of Jaimini and Bādarāyaṇa are not consistent with the relation of disciple and master. Śabara, Govindānanda and Ānandagiri hold that there is nothing inconsistent.¹ It is not, however, clear what opinion Śaṃkara himself held.²

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⁷ i. 3. 26; i. 3. 33; iii. 2. 41; iii. 4. 1; iii. 4. 8; iii. 4. 19; iv. 3. 15; iv. 4. 7; iv. 4. 12.

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⁸ Deussen, for example, argues that the works of Jaimini and Bādarāyaṇa, each of whom quotes both himself and the other, were compiled by a later editor into one work, which was commented upon by Upavarṣa, and that the last work was the basis of the Śabarabhāṣya on the P.M. and the Śaṃkarabhāṣya on the B.S. (D.S.V., p. 24, fn. 17).

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¹ See Belvālkar, “Multiple Authorship of the Vedānta Sūtras,” Indian Philosophical Review, October 1918, and Abhay Kumar Guha’s Jīvātman in Brahma Sūtras, p. 8.

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² In one passage of his commentary on the B.S., Śaṃkara states that at the time of the transition from the Dvāpara to the Kali age, an ancient sage and Vedic teacher named Apāntaratamas was born as Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana by direction of Viṣṇu. Since Śaṃkara does not say that this Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana is the author of the B.S., Windischmann, and after him Telang, conclude that in Śaṃkara’s eyes the two personages were distinct (“A Note on Bādarāyaṇa,” J.A.S., Bombay, vol. xvi, 1883, p. 190). Wherever Śaṃkara quotes Vyāsa, he does so without implying that Vyāsa is the author of the Sūtra (ii. 1. 12; ii. 3. 47). There are many references to the B.G. and Śāntiparva of the M.B. in the B.S., if we accept the testimony of the commentators, which cannot be easily understood if the author of the Sūtra and the writer of the M.B. were one.

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The Sūtra alludes to the views of the Sāṃkhya and the Vaiśeṣika schools and the Jains and the Buddhists. Śaṃkara, Rāmānuja, Madhva and Vallabha are unanimous in understanding references to the Gītā (xv. 7; viii. 24), in ii. 3. 45 and iv. i. 10 respectively, and the first three see a similar reference to the Gītā (vii. 11) in iv. I. 10. Many of the names mentioned in the Sūtra are also found in the Śrauta Sūtra, Āśmarathya in the Āśvalāyana, Bādari, Kārṣṇajini and Kāśakṛtsna in the Kātyāyana, Ātreya in the Taittirīya Prātiśākhya Sūtra. Ātreya, Kāśakṛtsna, Bādari are mentioned in Bodhāyana’s Gṛhya Sūtra and Ātreya in Bhāradvāja Gṛhya Sūtra as well. Kāśakṛtsna is a very old Vedic commentator. Auḍulomi is referred to in the Mahābhāṣya on Pāṇini.³ Garuḍa Purāṇa, Padma Purāṇa and Manu refer to the Vedānta Sūtra and Hariwaṃśa, assigned by Hopkins to A.D. 200, contains clear references to it. Keith holds that Bādarāyaṇa cannot be dated later than A.D. 200.⁴ Indian scholars are of opinion that the Sūtra was composed in the period from 500 to 200 B.C. Fraser assigns it to 400 B.C.⁵ Max Müller says: “Whatever the date of the Bhagavadgītā is, and it is a part of the Mahābhārata, the age of the Vedānta Sūtra and of Bādarāyaṇa must have been earlier.”⁶

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³ iv. 1. 14.

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⁴ Karma-Mīmāṃsā, pp. 5-6. Jacobi, however, believes that the Sūtra was composed between A.D. 200 and 450 (J.A.O.S., 1911).

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⁵ Literary History of India, p. 196.

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⁶ S.S., p. 113; Guha: Jīvātman in the Brahma Sūtra

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