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Circulating Scholarship: A Note on a Sanskrit Letter from Bengal circa 1535 ce*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2016

SAMUEL WRIGHT
SAMUEL WRIGHT*
Affiliation:
Nalanda University, [email protected]
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Abstract

This note examines a Sanskrit letter from Bengal dating to approximately 1535 ce. The letter was assumed to be lost. Addressed to a scholar in the discipline of nyāyaśāstra, the letter is the only available example of a personal letter between Sanskrit scholars from Bengal in the premodern period. First located in 1907 and then subsequently assumed lost, the letter has never been the subject of sustained analysis. This has resulted in a number of disagreements among modern scholars about the identities of the individuals named in the letter. This note provides a translation of the letter and presents arguments for identifying the individuals named in the letter. It then concludes by briefly reflecting upon the importance of the letter and its use in scholarly communication.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 83 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Shweta S. Banerjee (University of Toronto) for commenting on an earlier version of this essay.

References

1 Asiatic Society of Bengal, ‘April 1907’, Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series, Vol. 3, 1907, pp. lxxv (appendix).

2 Shastri, H., ‘Dakshini Pandits at Benaras’, Indian Antiquary 1912 (January), p. 9 Google Scholar.

3 Bhattacharya, D., Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān: Baṅge Nabyanyāẏacarcā (Kalikata, 1952), p. 101 Google Scholar.

4 Ingalls, D., Materials for the Study of Navya-Nyāya Logic (Cambridge, 1951), p. 22 Google Scholar.

5 Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān, p. 101; Ingalls, Materials, p. 22.

6 Shastri, H., A Descriptive Catalogue in the Collections of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Volume X, part I (Astronomy Manuscripts), (rev.) and (ed.) Sen Gupta, P. C. (Calcutta, 1945), pp. 235–236 Google Scholar.

7 The delay in locating the letter in the Society's catalogue was most likely due to the Second World War.

8 Note yet another name for the letter writer—this is the actual name used in the letter.

9 Bhattacharya, D., History of Navya Nyāya in Mithala (Darbhanga, 1958), p. 176 Google Scholar.

10 This is the name of the section as given in the manuscript (Shastri, A Descriptive Catalogue, p. 233).

11 In his remarks, Ganeri, J., The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India, 1450-1700 (Oxford, 2011), p. 81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, refers only to Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān; Shastri, ‘Dakshini Pandits at Benaras’, Indian Antiquary 1912 (January); and Ingalls, Materials.

12 This is most certainly a scribal error and should read ‘Rāmak ṣṇa’.

13 This is noted by Shastri in his reproduction of the letter (Shastri, A Descriptive Catalogue, p. 236).

14 I read this as an abstract form of pāla (i.e., ‘being a guardian/protector’) rather than a gerundive (k tya) form of ✓pāl.

15 Shastri, A Descriptive Catalogue, pp. 235-236. In transliterating the text, any emendations made by this author are inserted with curly brackets to distinguish them from emendations made by Shastri in square brackets.

16 Reading the letter literally, he may have been the brother of Rāmak ṣṇa.

17 Mitra, R., Notices of Sanskrit MSS, Vol. 5, Part I (Calcutta, 1879), p. 175 Google Scholar: iti śrījānakīnāthabhaṭṭācāryacūḍāmaṇik tā nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī samāptā | In addition, Eggeling, J., Catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts in the library of the India Office, Vol. 1, Parts 1-4 (London, 1887), p. 638 Google Scholar (MSS No. 1038b), when describing the Nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī states that “Nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī is an elementary treatise on the pramāṇas, in four paricchedas, by Jānakīnātha Śarman, in the colophons always called Bhaṭṭācārya Cūḍāmaṇi”.

18 Quoted in Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān, p. 106: śrībhaṭṭācāryacūḍāmaṇibhaṇitam idaṃ sūriṇo bhāvayadhvam |

19 His other two works are the Maṇimarīci and the Tātparyadīpikā (Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān, p. 106).

20 Quoted in ibid., p. 108: iti mahāmahopādhyāyaśrīmadbhaṭṭācāryacūḍāmaṇitanayaśrīśrīrāghavapañcānanabhaṭṭā- cāryaviracita[ṃ] vedabāhyanirāse ātmatattvaprabodhaṃ saṃpūrṇam |

21 Ibid ., p. 107.

22 As noted by Ingalls, Materials, p. 22, Jānakīnātha also uses this affix in his Nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī.

23 I am unable to find this name among scholars writing on nyāya, for example.

24 Mitra states this in the meta-data he records about the manuscript (R. Mitra, Notices of Sanskrit MSS, Vol. 6 (Calcutta, 1882), p. 235).

25 Ibid ., pp. 235-236: praṇamya gopālapadāravindaṃ vilokya manvādik tañ ca śāstram | avaśyakartavyavidhānahetuṃ maheśaśarmā vitanoti dhīraḥ ‖ vihitasya niṣiddhasya karmaṇo jñānakārakaḥ | vyavasthāsaṃgrahaḥ sarvaiḥ paṇḍitaiḥ parilikhyate ‖ . . .iti śrīmaheśapañcānanaviracitaṃ sm tisaṃgrahasāraṃ samāptaṃ | I know of Mitra from D. Pingree, Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, Series A, Vol. 4 (Philadelphia, 1981), p. 396.

26 Shastri, H., Notices of Sanskrit MSS., Second Series, Vol. II (Calcutta, 1904), p. 60 Google Scholar. I know of Shastri from Pingree, Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, p. 395. Also of note is that both of Maheśa's texts begin with the same, though common, trope as the letter: bowing at the feet of a revered individual.

27 Mitra, Notices of Sanskrit MSS, Vol. 6, p. 235 and Shastri, Notices of Sanskrit MSS, p. 60, respectively.

28 For a comprehensive listing of the locations of Maheśa Śarman Pañcānana's manuscripts, see entries under ‘Maheśa Pañcānana’ and ‘Maheśa Śarman Pañcānana’ in Pingree, Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, pp. 395-396.

29 Rocher, L., Jīmūtāvahana's Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal (Oxford, 2002), p. 16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 R. Cakravartin, Udbodhacandrikā, MSS No. 36291, Sarasvati Bhavan Library (Banaras). I accessed a copy of this manuscript at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi. I know of this manuscript from Pingree, D., Census of the Exact Science in Sanskrit, Series A, Vol. 5 (Philadelphia, 1994), p. 453 Google Scholar.

31 Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān, pp. 270-271. That his title ‘Bhaṭṭācārya’ is not used in the letter would parallel the way in which Maheśa refers to himself by dropping his title ‘Pañcānana’.

32 Ibid ., p. 103. This text is his Guṇadīdhitiprakāśa.

33 Ibid ., p. 270.

34 Blochmann, H. and Jarrett, H. S., Ain i Akbari by Abū al-Fazl ibn Mubārak (Calcutta, 1873), p. 542 Google Scholar.

35 Bhattacharya, D., ‘Sanskrit Scholars of Akbar's Time’, Indian Historical Quarterly XIII (1937), p. 34 Google Scholar. Bhattacharya also notes here that this person could less likely be the mīmāṃsā scholar, Rāmak ṣṇa Bhaṭṭa (c. 1543).

36 Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān, pp. 104 and 270-271, also argues that Rāmak ṣṇa lived in Banaras.

37 Quoted in Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān, p. 104: bhaṭṭācāryacakravartirāmak ṣṇaṃ jagadguruṃ | śrīmadvyāsan simhaṃ ca natagrīvo namāmy aham ‖ On the Vyāsa goṣṭhī in Banaras, see Ibid. The only complete manuscript of Yādavācārya's work is in Banaras (Kunjunni Raja, K. and Sundaram, C.S., New Catalogus Catalogorum: an Alphabetical Register of Sanskrit and Allied Works and Authors, Vol. 10 (Madras, 1978), p. 273)Google Scholar.

38 As mentioned, I do not address the identity of Paraśurāma Śarman.

39 This is not to deny the importance of minor scholars, nor is it an attempt to forge a canon, but simply to mark some parameters of analysis for this note.

40 Jānakīnātha's Nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī became a standard treatise upon which later authors commentated from across all of India. These commentators include (up to the end of the seventeenth century): Yādavācārya (1550), Rāmabhadra Sārvabhauma (1550), Rājacūḍāmaṇi Dīkṣita (1630), Janārdana Vyāsa (1650), Śrīkaṇṭha Dīkṣita (1660), Laugākṣī Bhāskara (1660), N siṃha Pañcānana (1675), and Appayya Dīkṣita (1700). Aside from the dates of Yādavācārya and Rāmabhadra, this information taken is from K. Potter, Bibliography of Indian Philosophies, http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/ckeyt/txt4.htm (accessed 28 May 2016).

41 For the evidence of these relations, see Ingalls, Materials, pp. 21-22.

42 For current estimates of their dates, see the standard reference of Potter, Bibliography of Indian Philosophies, in which 1580 is suggested for Rāmabhadra and 1620 for Jagadīśa.

43 Of course, it is entirely possible that the letter was later randomly incorporated into the manuscript bundle. However, this seems less likely as the manuscript dates very closely to the time of Jānakīnātha and the letter would likely have been lost if separated from the folia of the Jyotiḥsārasāgara. Shastri does not provide the provenance of this work when describing it in Shastri, A Descriptive Catalogue, pp. 231-234. Importantly, however, the folia of the letter also include the first, original leaf of the manuscript (Ibid. p. 236).

44 For the quotation references, see Bhattacharya, Bāṅgālīr Sārasvata Abadān, p. 107. The dates of Śūlapāṇi are from Rocher, Jīmūtāvahana's Dāyabhāga, p. 19.