The Vakyartha-Matrka of Salikanatha Misra with His Own Vrtti

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The Prakarana Pancika belongs to the Prabhakara school of Purvamimamsa. It is a primer of the Prabhakara system and deals with very important tenants such as pramana, prameya and other subject which distinguish this system with the other systems. The Vakyartha-matrka is no. eleventh prakarana of the Prakarana Pancika. It is a cluster of verses on which the author has written vrtti. This prakarana has two sub section namely prathama pariccheda and dvitiya pariccheda, of which the first one serves as an introduction to the second. The prathama pariccheda of the Vakyarthamatrka consists of twenty two karikas besides the collected verses (Samgraha slokas) pertaining to the same author. In the first section the author has established Anvitabhidhanavada (The theory of expression of the correlated) and in doing so, he has criticised and refuted abhihitanvayavada (the theory of the expressed the correlation) of the Bhatta Mimamsakas and also the theory of sphota of the Grammarians.

The author has also discussed in this chapter, the three factors that lead to the comprehension of the total meaning of the sentence namely expectancy. Sannidha and Yogyata. In the second section of the said prakarana the author has established Niyoga (Moral imperative) as the meaning of the optative case-ending, apurva (unique result) as the meaning of the vedic optatives and the effect of the actions as the meaning of non-vedic optatives and in this section he has refuted the views of Mandana Misra who has in his Brahmasiddhi strongly criticized and discarded the view of the prabhakara school regarding Niygoga in the second section there are forty six karikas of which the last karika gives the name of the Vakyarthamatrka.

I had the opportunity of studying the Vakyarthamatrka of Salikanatha Misra, when I had been to Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati in 1981, in connection with participating in the All India level winter Institute on Prabhakara-Mimamsa. In course of our discussion, we found the Vakyarathamatrka as an indispensable treatise of the Prabhakara-Mimamsa and as it has no translation in any language, we felt the necessity of an English translation of the same.

The present work is an attempt to that aim. It is very difficult to present such an abstruse philosophy through translation, when the language into which it is translated differs so widely in form and in spirit from the original. But I have tried to be as literal and as true to the spirit and sequence of the sentences, as the English allows. For those who are not well-versed in Sanskrit, an English version of it is sure to be of great help and I have ventured to make an attempt. I am very much grateful to my revered teacher. Professor Dr. Mukunda Madhava Sharma, M.A., Ph.D., D. Litt. Kavya-Tirtha, Head of the Deptt. of Sanskrit, Gauhati University. who asked me to make the present attempt. I am also deeply indebted to my honourable teacher and colleague Dr. Ashok Kumar Goswami, Reader in Sanskrit, Gauhati University, who has kindly helped me very much in making the English Version and revised the manuscripts. I am also thankful to my teacher and colleague Dr. Apurva Chandra Barthakuria for his help in many ways. My thanks are also due to some others who helped me in various ways in executing this work.

I also express my sincere thanks to Messrs. Indian Books Centre, Delhi, who has undertaken the publication of this work.

I hope that the boo will facilitate the study of Prabhakara Mimamsa in respect of the theory of meaning and widely be ready by interested readers.

I am really cncious of the probable shortcomings in this work, however.

The Purvamimamsa or Karmamimamsa system of Indian' philosophy is ascribed to the great sage Jaimini who wrote the• Mimamsa-Sutras. Sabarasvamin wrote the major commentary known as Sabarabhasya, on Jaimin's Sutras. He was followed by a long line of commentators and independent writers of whom Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara Misra deserve special mention. These two scholors founded the two chief branches of Purvamimamsa known after their names, vis., the: Bhatta school and the Prabhakara school.

Prabhakara Misra composed two commentaries namely, Brhati and Laghvi on the Sabarabhasya. The reputation enjoyed by Prabhakara among scholars was mainly due to the subsequent contribution of Salikanatha Misra, a first-rate scholar and an independent writer of the Prabhakara system. Among other writers of this school are Bhavanatha Misra, author of the Nayaviveka, Nandisvara, author of the Prabhakaravijaya and Ramanujacarya, author of the Tantrarahasya. They are the only ancient writers of' the Prabhakara system. Of the modern scholars writing on this system, the names of Dr. Ganganatha Jha and MM. Kuppuswami Shastri deserve to be specially mentioned. It may perhaps be. deduced from the length of the list of scholars of this system, both traditional and modern, that there were only a few scholars who were interested in the study of the Prabhakara school and as such, this school unlike the Bhatta school was not so popular among the students of Indian philosophy. It will, however, be wrong to conclude that as the prabhakara school of Purvamimamsa . was not popular and widely studied, so it has no importance as a system of philosophy. Rather it can be said that the school at Prabhakara is more important than the Bhatta school despite it wide popularity. Dr. Ganganath Jha is of the view that Prabhakara is more faithful to the Bhasya of Sabara than Kumarila, According to professor Hiriyana, the original teaching of the Mimamsa is better preserved in the writings of Prabhakara than in those of Kumarila.! Prabhakara, however, was a more original thinker than Kumarila and he will always be remembered as the author of a -peculiar theory of knowledge known as Triputipratyaksavada or the theory of triple perception and a-theory of error called Akhyativada . or the Vivekakhyativada." To understand the Mimamsa system -fully and precisely, one must go through the works of the Prabhakara system.