रससार: Rasa Sara

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

About 64 years ago Dr. Fitz Edward Hall, in his memorable index to the Bibliography of the Indian Philosophical Systems (P.67, No.XVI), for the first time drew attention to the existence in the library of the Government Sanskrit College, Benares of the work which is now being introduced to the public. It is a commentary on the guna section of Udayanacarya's Kiranavali from the pen of the Greatest philosophers of mediaeval India, and though the manuscript is incomplete at the end the surviving portion constitutes a brilliant contribution to our knowledge of the subtleties and depths of Vaisesika metaphysics. Apart from the great historical interest which attaches to the name of this author, as Mr. M.R. Telang has shewn in his Introduction (p. XVI) to the Mahavidyavidambana , another work of the same author (Gaekwad's Oriental Series, No. XII), the manuscript being unique in importance possesses a value all its own. No apology is therefore needed, I believe, for the publication if a work of this kind.

The work is named Rasasara, a curious name which would seem to suggest its association with the Science of Medicine and Alchemy or of Rhetoric. As to why a Vaisesika treatise bears this queer name I cannot give any reason, but it may be pointed out that neither the name of the commentary nor that of its author appear anywhere at present in the body of the Ms. The name of the work however is given in the covering leaf only.

But Hall attributes the work to one Mahadeva Sarvajna Vadindra. How he came to know of this authorship is not clear to me, but it seems probable that the Ms. In Hall's time contained one leaf or rather half-leaf more at the end-the last, I believe , bearing either in the colophon or elsewhere the name and other particulars of the author. This is the only assumption which can explain Hall's entry.

Vadindra, the writer of this commentary, was the pupil of one Yogisvara. He was so called on account of his keen dialectical powers. It is under this name that he is quoted or referred to by Chitsukha and other subsequent writers. His pupil Bhatta Raghava, who was the author of a commentary on Bhasarvajna's Nyayasara, Viz. Nyayasaravicara, speaks very often of Vadindra's large following. Both Vadindra and his pupil were votaries if Siva, as their benedictory verses clearly indicate, and it is not impossible that the words Sankarakinkara as used in Madhava's Sarvadarsana Sangraha (And. Series, P. 98) and Harikinkara as in the colophon of Mahavidyavidambana are to be understood as meaning 'devotee of Siva' rather than 'pupil of the Acharya named Sankara or Hara; Vadindra describes himself in his work on the Mahavidya as the Dharmadhyaksa of king Sri Sinha, whom Mr. M.R. Telang identifies with Raja Singhana of the Yadava dynasty of Devagiri.