Vacaspatimisra's 'Tattvasamiksa: The Earliest Commentary on Mandanamisra's Brahmasiddhi.

• Author: Slaje, Walter
• Position: Book review

Vacaspatimisra's 'Tattvasamiksa: The Earliest Commentary on Mandanamisra's Brahmasiddhi. BY DIWAKAR ACHARYA. Publications of the Nepal Research Centre, no. 25. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 2006. Pp. cxxvi + 393. [euro] 70.

This is a fine example of how a lucky find of an essential text can be skillfully turned into an excellent edition within a comparatively short period of time. Diwakar Acharya's research was carried out within the scholarly framework of the Nepal Research Centre (NRC) and the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP)--from which the present Nepal-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (NGMCP) has developed.

Vacaspatimisra, a medieval polymath of the tenth century, is renowned for a number of important works: commentaries written on core traditions of Brahmanic philosophy (Mimamsa, Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya), a list of Nyayasutras (the Nydyasucinibandha), and an independent treatise, the Tattvabindu. The latter reviews doctrinal ramifications of the Vaiyakarana theory of sphota. The idea that Vacaspati would also have written a commentary on Mandanamis'ra's Brahmasiddhi was contingent on the occasional references made by Vacaspati himself elsewhere in his works and on a single mention in Anandabodha's Pramdnamala. It was not until 1994 that a fragmentary manuscript of this commentary (Tattvasamiksa) was discovered by Diwakar Acharya in the National Archives in Kathmandu. Despite the fact that the Tattvasamlksa does not seem to have exercised any noticeable influence comparable to other works of Vacaspati--it appears on the contrary to have been neglected--there is no question about its value for historical research. Not only is it by far the earliest commentary on Mandanamisra's Brahmasiddhi, but it also represents Vacaspati's first systematic examination of a structured Vedantic edifice. Mandanamis'ra was certainly the most outstanding intellectual in the realm of Vedanta philosophy besides, though independent of. Sarikara (seventh/eighth century). Unlike the first (Tattvasamiksa). Vacaspati's second critical analysis (Bhdmati) of a Vedanta treatise (Sankara's Brahmasutrabhdsya) won widespread recognition and even became the fundamental text of a special branch of interpretation.

The book under review represents in the main the critical edition of the fragmentary codex unicus of the Tattvasamiksa. Its extant parts cover approximately one third of its mula-text, the Brahmasiddhi (corresponding to pp. 20...