Narahari Upadhyaya's Anumanakhandadusanoddharah (Gaekwad's Oriental Series-179) (An Old And Rare Book)

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I am indeed happy to present to the world of scholars an important navyanyaya work - a commentary on Tarrva-cintamani (TC) of Gangesa Upadhyaya, the Anumana-khanda-daşanoddhara by Narahari Upadhyaya (c. 1480 A.D) of Mithila as 179th volume of the Gaekwad's Oriental Series. The work has been edited from two available manuscripts by Dr. Vasant Parikh, a worthy and beloved student of late Prof. Jitendra S. Jetley and one of the few of that fading tribe of learned and wide based Nyaya scholars in the country.

Tattva-cintamani of Gangesa (13th cent) is a land-mark in the history of Indian Philosophy, particularly of Nyaya Philosophy. Owing to its excellent style, diction and methodology, it became the source and starting point of navya-nyaya and commanded a number of commentaries giving rise to some schools of interpretation. Three or four of such school are discernible-those of Yajnapati Upadhyaya and Paksadhara Misra in Mithila, and of Vasudeva Sarvabhauma and Raghunatha Siromani in Bengal (of course Vasudeva was a pupil of Paksadhara and some deny his work the status of an independent school, but at least he initiated the navya-nyaya studies in Bengal and thus shifted the locale of navya-nyaya from Mithila to Nuddin navadvipa).

The Upadhyaya-school appears to be the oldest of the four and two scholars of this school Yajñapati and Narahari father and son have won recognition among scholars for their commentarial works, TC-prabha and Anumana-khanda-düṣaṇoddhāra respectively. The first, edited by late Dr. Gopika Mohan Bhattacharya, was published from Vienna in 1984. The second, edited by Dr. Vasant Parikh, is being presented here.

Dr. Parikh has pointed out in his introduction that the scholars of the two schools of Mithila - the Upadhyayas and the Misras were interrelated by bonds of marriage as well as by bonds of teacher-pupil relationships. Yet they had the freedom to criticise each other freely. Thus, Yajnapati was the teacher of Paksadhara, yet was criticised by him. By the same turn, Narahari studied under Paksadhara and yet criticised his teacher in defence of his father. Paksadhara had a large following and his line of pupils seems to have continued even in Nuddia through Vasudeva On the other hand, Narahari does not seem to have been survived by any other notable pupil follower of his line. He himself is virtually the last speaker of his school with all its advantages as well as disadvantages. The importance of the present work, therefore, lies not only in its being "the work of a genius with a fertile brain" as the learned editor avers but also in the fact that it embodies the final statement of the Upadhyaya school of the navya branch of Nyaya philosophy. Apart from Yajnapati's, this is the only work representing an early and important school.

In the Manuscript (Ms.) Section of the library of Oriental Institute, Baroda, some very valuable and rare manuscripts on various branches of Indian philosophy and literature are treasured. One such Ms. is of Anumanakhandadüşaṇoddhara by Narahari Upadhyaya, a worthy son of the great scholar Yajnapati Upadhyaya [15th Cent. A.D.] of Mithila. In the year 1992, Dr. RT. Vyas, the then Director of Oriental Institute, sent this Ms. to me with a suggestion to prepare a critical edition of that work. After reading the Ms. I was thrilled with joy to find that Anumanakhandadăşanoddhara was the work of a genius with a fertile brain. If published, it can be a searchlight in the most intricated labyrinth of Navya Nyaya philosophy, that is systematically presented in the Tattvacintamani of Gangesa Upadhyaya, probably in the 13th cent. A.D. The style, diction and methodology of Cintamani is superb. Vardhamana, the son of Gangesa, elaborated and popularized the technique and new thoughts of his father for some time in Mithila and subsequently in Bengal and other parts of India. But it seems that this movement was slackened afterwards. However, nearly after two hundred years ie. in about the first half of the 15th cent. A.D., it suddenly caught momentum with the rise of two great scholars viz. Yajnapati Upadhyaya and Jayadeva Misra or better known as Pakṣadhara Misra. They both wrote commentaries on the three parts [omitting Upamanakhanda] of Tattvacintamani. Yajñapati named his commentary as Prabhā, while the name of the commentary by Jayadeva was Aloka. These two scholars having a distant family relation were on good terms in the beginning Paksadhara, however, severely criticised Prabha on a number of points in his Aloka.

Narahari, the son of Yajñapati and also a pupil of Paksadhara for some time could not tolerate this attack of Pakṣadhara on the work of his father and wrote a commentary Dusanoddhara on the same three parts of Cintamani. Anumanakhandadüṣanoddhara, thus covers the second part of Cintamani. Here he refuted all the arguments of Aloka that are against the views of Prabha. Not only that, but Narahari has tried to absolve the views of Yajñapati from the criticism of other scholars like Pragalbha and Väsudeva Sarvabhauma who were the allies of Paksadhara. Thus an important missing link, of the History of Navya-Nyaya, can be traced in this work of Narahari. It highlights the healthy controversy of the great scholars divided into rival groups. In short, one can witness the revival of the dialectical spirit of that age, continued for a considerable time.