Chapter 2 - Historical Study of Nyaya system

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pointedness. This treatise has been written by Jayanta
in prison. We get this idea from a verse of Nyaya-
Manjari in which Jayanta says: I have been thrown by the
king into this dark dungeon where even a sound is not
heard. Here I have passed my days by the diversion of
writing this book. His Nyāya Kalikā is a very brief
explanatory commentary on the first Sutra of the Nyaya
Sutra of Gautama.
About his date, we are fortunate enough es his son,
Abhinanda, in the introduction to his Kādambari-Kathāsārs,
has left a definite clue. According to Abhinanda,
Saktis vāmin, his great grand father, was a minister of
Saktisvāmin,
the king Muktipēda (alias Latitāditya) of Kashmir whose
reign ended in 735 A.D. Allowing some sixty years for
the two intervening generations, the period of Jyanta
would fall in the beginning of the ninth century. It
means that Jayanta belonged approximately to the age of
Vēcaspati Misra but we have found nothing about their
knowing of each other.
(vi) Bhasarvaina
To the close of ninth century or the beginning of
the tenth century, there flourished a great and independent
thinker named Bhāsarvajña. He wrote a book named Nyāya Sara
1. Jayanta-Bhaṭṭa, Nyāya-Manjari, Page 303.