3.1. The Date of the Yoga-vasistha

[Full title: Yogavasishtha studies (1): The Date of the Yoga-Vasistha]

The date of the Yoga-Vasistha is still a very complicated problem nowhere nearer solution although much has been written on it.' Like the dates of most of the earlier Sanskrit works there is no finality about it. Probably there can be none for, this work, as also most other similar works, do not furnish any real clue to their age. The only possible course, and the one generally adopted by researchers is to collect some internal or external data and hazard conjectures thereon. When this is done, arguments are adduced for a particular date and the opponent's views criticized. But there is no end to this process. Again others piece together some other evidence and arrive at a different date. The result is that dates differ and differ widely and the truth remains obscure. That is why an eminent scholar has said that 'all dates in Indian history are pins to be bowled all over again.' Nothing can be truer about the early history of India, whether literary or political. Among the five scholars who have discussed in detail the problem of the date of the Yogavasistha we may first mention B.L.Atreya. He thinks 'that the author of the Yogavasistha cannot be placed before the middle of the 5 th century A.D.'² A brief summary of his arguments in favour of this date is given below: (i) By the time of Vidyaranya, who belongs to about the first half of the fourteenth century the Yogavasistha had become an authoritative work because he quotes from it profusely, about 253 times. (ii) Gauda Abhinanda, a Bengali Brahmin of the 9 th century A.D. summarised the Yogavasishtha in 6000 verses. From

The Date of the Yoga-Vasistha 21 this it follows that the Yogavasistha must be earlier than the 9 th century A.D. (iii) The Yogavasistha is a pre-sankaran work, because the treatment of the Advaita philosophy here is rather unsystematic, vague and hazy. The author of the Yogavasistha is completely ignorant of Sankara and his philosophy. In his Vivekacudamani Sankara reproduces a number of verses and ideas from the Yoga-Vasistha . That he is indebted to the Yogavasistha and not vice versa is proved by the fact that technical terms that Sankara uses are not found in the Yogavasistha. (iv) A comparison between the Yoga-Vasistha and the Mandukya Karikas of Gaudapada, who is earlier than Sankara shows that the Advaita philosophy of the Mandukya Karikas is more akin to the Yogavasistha than to that of Sankaracarya and his successors. (v) There is a positive evidence to the effect that the Advaita philosophy as that of the Yogavasistha existed before Sankara and Gaudapada. Bhavabhuti who belongs to about the 7 th century A.D. uses the term vivarta. He draws upon the Yogavasistha and incorporates a number of its verses into his works. This shows that the author of the Yogavasistha is earlier than the 7 th century A.D. (vi) A number of verses of the Yogavasistha recur in the Vairagya Sataka and the Vakyapadiya. Now, Bhartrhari, the author of these works is said to have died in 650 A.D. This means that the author of the Yogavasistha is earlier than 650 A.D. It cannot be said as to how much earlier he is. It cannot be argued that the author of the Yogavasistha has borrowed the verses from the Vairagya Sataka and the Vakyapadiya, for the doctrine of Sabda Brahman is not mentioned in the Yogavasistha. It is impossible to believe that the author of the Yogavasistha could have omitted to mention it, if he knew it. So the verses or parts CC-0. Prof. thereof which action, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA are common to both the Yogavasistha and

the Vairagya-sataka and the Vakyapadiya are borrowed by Bharthari from the Yogavasistha. Another factor that goes in favour of this stand is that the verse in which the term vivarta is found is rare and solitary one in the Vakyapadiya while in the Yogavasistha it forms the main doctrine and there is a very large number of verses in support of it. (vii) The author of the Yogavasistha was acquainted with the philosophy of Buddhism, the Tathata philosophy of Asvaghosa, (who belongs to the 1 st century B.C.) the Sunyavada of Nagarjuna who is placed by scholars in the 2 nd century A.D. and the Vijnanavada of Asanga and Vasubandhu. Vasubandhu is believed by scholars to belong to a period between 420-500 A.D. It means the author of the Yogavasistha could not have lived before the 5 th century A.D. (viii) The way the whole of the theme of the Meghaduta is summarised in the Yogavasistha in three verses leaves no doubt that the Yogavasistha is a post- Kalidasan work. The date that is usually assigned to Kalidasa is the 5 th century A.D. The Yogavasistha, therefore, cannot be placed before the middle of the 5 th century A.D. Its author probably lived at the time of the downfall of the Gupta kings. The philosophy of the work, the descriptions of battles and wars, battle between Viduratha and Sindhu and the mention of the Hunas points to the same conclusion. (ix) The conclusion drawn from the evidence cited above is that probably the Yogavasistha is anterior to Bhartrrhari and posterior to Kalidasa. From the above summary of the arguments mustered by B.L. Atreya in support of the date suggested by him we find that he mainly rests his arguments, apart from philosophy, on Bhartrhari and Kalidasa. It appears that he thinks that both the Vairagya-sataka and the Vakyapadiya, belong to the authorship of one and the same Bharthari about CC-0. Prof. Satya

The Date of the Yogavasistha 23 whom he says that he died in 650 A.D. It has now been conclusively proved that Bhartrhari, the author of the Satakas and Bhartrhari, the author of the Vakyapadiya are two different persons. Itsing seems to have been misled into saying that forty years before he came to India there had died a grammarian named Bhartrhari. Itsing confused the two Bhartrharis. For years scholars relying upon the statement of Itsing placed Bhartrhari, the author of the Vakyapadiya, in the 7 th century A.D. But latest researches have convincingly shown Bhartrhari, the author of the Vakyapadiya to be different from Bhartrhari, the author of the Satakas who is said to have wavered seven times between the home and the monastery. The author of the Vakyapadiya, is now placed on good grounds in the 3 rd century A.D.³ Now if the Yogavasistha, according to B.L. Atreya's own admission 4, cannot be assigned to a period earlier than the middle of the 5 th century A.D. while the Vakyapadiya belongs to the 3 rd century A.D., it is the Yogavasistha which must have borrowed from the Vakyapadiya and not vice versa. And the argument that the term vivarta occurs in a solitary verse in the Vakyapadiya while it occurs in a number of verses in the Yogavasistha proves just the other thing that the Vakyapadiya is earlier and the Yogavasistha is later, because the philosophical doctrine of vivarta is more elaborately treated in the Yogavasistha than in the Vakyapadiya where it is merely alluded to. It is a strange argument that because in the Yogavasistha vivarta is more elaborately treated, it must be earlier. Further, to say that the doctrine of Sabda Brahman which is the main doctrine of the Vakyapadiya is nowhere mentioned in the Yogavasistha is at best an argumentum exsilentio and does not prove anything. The statement that the Yogavasistha nearly summarises in three verses the theme of the Meghaduta is open to correction. The three verses in question merely give us the idea of sending the cloud as messenger and do not embody a summary of the theme of the Meghaduta . Yet the argument has a force of its own. The idea of a cloudmessenger is generally believed to have originated with Kalidasa ; but there is nothing to show that it could not have been conceived cation USA

by the author of the Yogavasistha, who is highly imaginative besides being profoundly learned. The argument is, therefore, not decisive, as Atreya says it is. There is, however, a hemistich of a verse not noticed by Atreya, in the Yogavasistha which is the same as in the Meghaduta except for the first word which is etat in the Yogavasistha etacchrngam harati pavanah kimsvid ity unmukhibhir drstotsahas cakitacakitam mugdhasiddhanganabhih.5 and adri in the Meghaduta: adreh srngam harati pavnah kimsvid ity unmukhibhir drstotsahas cakitacakitam mugdhasiddhanganabhih. This is decisive. It is 'the habit of the author of the Yoga-Vasistha, to quote P.C. Divanji, 'to borrow the language of previous works such as the Upanisad's, Bhagavadgita, Gaudapada Karikas, Vairagya-sataka, Meghaduta etc., and twist it slightly so as to fit in with his idea. In keeping with this habit the author of the Yoga-Vasistha borrows a verse from the Uttararamacarita of Bhavabhuti and twists its language so as to spoil it a little. This verse not noticed by Atreya reads: kujatkunjakathoragahvaranadikvatkaravatkicakastambhadambaramukamaukulikulah krauncacalo'yam girihi etasmin prabalakinam pracalatam udvejitah kujitair udvellanti puranarohinataruskandhesu kumbhinasah³ 11 The verse as found in the Uttararamacarita reads: gunjatkunjakutirakausikaghataghutkaravatkicakastambadambaramaunamaukulikulah krauncabhidho 'yam girih etasmin pracalakinam pracalatam udvejitah kujitair udvellanti puranarohinataruskandhesu kumbhinasah⁹11 A comparison between the verse as it is found in the Uttararamacarita and the Yogavasistha would reveal that the text of it in the Yogavasistha is a little defective. Probably it got damaged or corrupted when it reached the Yogavasistha. The readings in the first line of the stanza as found in the Yogavasistha are certainly inferior and make little sense. It is a string of words quite unrelated in sense. What are we to understand by kvatkara? Evidently it stands for ghutkara, the hooting of the owls responsible for terrifying the whole flock of crows into silence.

The Date of the Yoga-Vasistha 25 What does kathora qualify? Where is hooting taking place? Certainly not in the mountain caves and the streams, etc. but in clusters of the bamboos which are said to be full of noise. Stambha and prabalakinam are perhaps scribal errors; but krauncacalah by the side of girih is inexcusable. It is the writer's overfondness for a jingle at the sacrifice of sense. There must , therefore, have been a big time-lag between the Uttararamacarita and the Yogavasishtha. That the Uttararamacarita of the two is earlier from which the verse has been taken in the Yogavasistha , becomes pretty clear. The Yoga-Vasistha , therefore, cannot be placed, as Atreya has done, before Bhavabhuti, who flourished in the 7 th century A.D. Again, the idea of the line which is the fourth pada of verse 19 in the 115 th canto of the latter half of the Nirvana Prakarana is found in verse 7 of the Mandasore Stone Pillar Inscription of Yasodharman (c. 525-535). We may well say that the Yogavasistha is of a date later than 535 A.D. From the literary study of the Yogavasistha it becomes clear that considerable literary activity had preceded it and the author, a man of prodigous learning, could not resist the temptation of incorporating into his work a line or two from earlier works which appealed to him most and which came readily to his mind to suit the context. He was not a plagiarist. His writings are characterised by originality and profundity of thought. As a poet he can stand comparison with the very best. He was a master of diction and a poet of exceptional ability but on account of these very factors efforts should not be made to place him as early as the fifth century A.D. Even later poets could be original and charming. Uptil now too much of emphasis has been laid on philsopohical and historical evidence to settle the date of the Yogavasistha and literary and linguistic evidences have been completely ignored. These can be decisive sometimes for they are unimpeachable. For one thing, we find that the Yogavasishtha poetry is characterised by excessive alliteration as also rhyme, a few examples of the latter being: CC-o kananumuktajalatapatalam uresu simhe sulatasacalami Satya Vrat Shastri Collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA

taranganirdhutasilograkaccham mahitalakasam anantakaccham 1110 senayor ubhayor asid yuddham udyatadanavami nispistanagaragramagirikananamanavami!!! atmaikaramah paripurnakamo bhavabhayo rama samabhiramah12 sarva eva jagadbhava avicarena caravahi avidyamanasadbhava vicaravisararavah 1113 Now, the use of rhyme in Sanskrit is a later development. Sten Konow is very right when he says, "Rhyme forms as essential element of versification in the poetry of the modern vernaculars and also of Prakrit but not in Sanskrit. Where rhyme occurs in Sanskrit poetry as, for instance, in that of Jayadeva, we may assume that the influence of the vernacular or of Prakrit poetry has been at work"14. It is of interest to note that Sten Konow makes these observations in connection with a work of Rajasekhara who belongs to the 10 th century A.D. Now, what are the special characteristics of the work of Rajasekhara are the special characteristics of the Yogavasistha. The obvious conclusion, therefore, from this is that the Yogavasistha belongs to a period when rhyme under the influence of Prakrit poetry had come to be accepted in Sanskrit. That period was evidently fairly late, about the second quarter of the 10 th Century A.D. The 10 th century, therefore, assigned to the Yogavasistha by P.C. Divanji, seems nearer the truth. 15 He has arrived at this date from other sources. He has not taken help of the literary evidence which would also have been very helpful. The unusual profusion of the onomatopoeic words, some 100 of which have been traced in the Yogavasistha 16 (some of these 100 have been used as many as 30 times), a number of Prakritisms, the highly ornate poetry, specially in the second half of the Nirvana Prakarana, too much of alliteration-17 all lead to this one conclusion that the Yogavasistha is a production of a fairly late period. It cannot be of the "second quarter of the 10 th century A.D." as P.C. Divanji has said, although there is nothing inherentlys against its but CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Collection, New

The Date of the Yogavasistha 27 because of the irreconcilability of this date with the fact of the existence of an abridgement of the Yogavasistha, the Yogavasisthasara, by one Gauda Abhinanda in the 9 th century A.D. P.C. Divanji, himself finds his date coming into conflict with this important piece of evidence for he himself says: It is also clear from what has preceded that he must have done that either during the first half of the 10 th century A.D. or at any rate after that and that none of the arguments advanced by Dr. Atreya for the work in its present form having been composed earlier than that is likely to present any insurmountable difficulty except that based on the existence of the abridgement of Abhinanda (italics ours). As the evidence of its composition during or after the second half of the 10 th century is so strong, the said arguments cannot be given a preponderating weight and some other explanation must be sought. This explanation he does not furnish. He concedes that he is not able to do so at present. But then how is the problem to be solved? All other mass of evidence would be of no avail for this single evidence would offset all that. It is difficult to agree with the learned scholar that it (the abridgement of Abhinanda in the 9 th century A.D.) does not present any insurmountable difficulty in the way of the second half of the 10 th century A.D. being accepted as the date of the Yogavasistha. In the absence of the satisfactory explanation of this important point it will be difficult to accept the date suggested by P.C. Divanji. We cannot set the turminus ad quem at the second half of the 10 th Century A.D. We shall have to set it at the 9 th century A.D. The work in its present form must have been in wide circulation before that date to have needed an abridgement. When we discuss the question of the date of the Yogavasistha it will not be out of point to mention here that there is a vast scope in a work like that for additions. With the passage of time the now has. work must have grown and assumed the size that Apart from the six sheaths which are a later addition, according Satya Vrat Shashi Collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA

to P.C.Divanji, 18 while the real Yogavasistha, "is not the whole work, going today by that name, but only a portion of it extending from the 3 rd Sarga of the Mumuksu Prakarana to the 213 th Sarga of the latter half of the Nirvana Prakarana", there seems to have been a good deal of interpolation in the text. The exact extent of it cannot be gauged at present for there is no critical edition of the work. Still there are some obvious things which cannot escape our notice. The use of the word jana in apposition with sajjana as in the expression sajjanam janam in the sense of a good person where janam is tautological is a recent one. The verses 19 in which we come across such expressions must be later interpolations. The same may be the case with highly ornate poetry found in Cantos 115-119 in the second half of the Nirvana Prakarana. The use of the classical metres like Sardulavikridita, the Vasantatilaka, the Malini, the Drutavilambita and others, long compounds like hemakhilagramaranyapurasthaligiritarusthanvagraharoccayah20, vikatakancanakutakotisanghattanasphutitajarjaracarusandhih21, etc. the detailed poetic description of the hill-side villages and the various Anyoktis which have a beauty and charm all their own point to these cantos having been composed by a later poet. Or else it will be difficult to find a satisfactory evidence for this unusual outburst of poetry in these cantos which have given us some of the finest gems of Sanskrit verses. When we say that this poetry is by a later hand we do not mean that the author of the original Yogavasistha was incapable of writing such poetry. He was one of the greatest poets. But the style here is at variance with the other parts of the work and there is such a violent break that the above conclusion would certainly be irresitible. It is not easy to determine the date of such a work as the Yoga-Vasistha which like the Ramayana and Mahabharata has continuously been strengthened by extraneous matter which is so skilfully woven into the original that it is difficult to extricate it even with the help of the best scientific aids of research. The original Yogavasistha must have been a much smaller text. The Yoga-vasishtha is said to have been composed by the sage Valmiki. CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Collection, New Delh

The Date of the Yoga-Vasistha 29 He himself appears in the dialogue between Valmiki and Aristanemi and the dialogue between Valmiki and Bharadvaja. It is possible, says P. C. Divanji that the same Valmiki, who is the author of the Ramayana "might have put his ideas about the true nature and essence of the worldly phenomena and the attitude which the thoughtful amongst men should adopt towards them if they have the desire to remain unaffected by the delusion which the phenomena naturally cause,"22 in a very brief form. We may agree with P. C. Divanji in that the Yogavasistha was originally a comparatively small, compact work by a single author. But that he was Valmiki, the author of the immortal Ramayana, we cannot accept. Why should the great Bard stop short at a small treatise, when moved to sorrow at the killing of a kraunca bird by a fowler, he could give us a long poem of six or seven kandas of the rarest charm? Certainly the original writer must have been a much humbler person than Valmiki, though this humbler later writer (who chose not to disclose his identity) created a work about the beauty of which he himself was so conscious: sastram subodham evedam salankaravibhasitam kavyam rasamayam caru drstantaih pratipaditami 23 "This is an easily comprehensible text, a charming poem with Rasa, adorned by figures of speech and explained with examples." This verse probably furnishes the clue as to the redaction of the older text. A later writer probably found the skinny older text to be a little too dry and uninteresting and set about himself to put it in a new garb, charming and beautiful. He added illustrations to explain some of the points put forward in the original so that they may be easily comprehensible to the common man. To highly abstruse philosophy he gave a poetic garb and in the process so changed it as to make it look really different from its base, the small text of an ancient sage. A mightly super-structure was raised on the old foundations. Now, the Yogavasistha did not remain a philosophical treatise, it became a rasamaya kavya. The redactor whoever he may have been, chose to withhold his by S 3 Foundation USA fdentity like many others before him for he was not writing

something new but was only putting the old thing in a new garb. How could he, therefore, give himself out as its author, although in the process of redaction he almost changed it in form, and not, of course, in content, His originality could never be questioned but such was the spirit of self-abnegation in ancient times that writers were only too silent about themselves. They effaced themselves and ascribed their works to age-old sages and saints, sages hallowed in public memory. Or perhaps there was this underlying motive that their works thus ascribed would be read more widely and preserved longer. This gave them some sort of inner satisfaction; but they did deny themselves popularity which could be theirs purely on merits. The language of the Ramayana and the Yogavasistha is so different that we cannot persuade ourselves to believe that the two works are of one and the same author. This is why some people think that the Yogavasistha, if it was from the pen of Valmiki, must have been in the form of a nucleus which served as the basis for a later writer for building upon it a work of magic drapery. As has been said above, P. C. Divanji fixed the second quarter of the 10 th Century A.D. as the date of the work, when it came to have its present form and content. This conclusion he arrives at, apart from other evidences, on historical evidence, viz., the occurrence of the name of Yasaskaradeva in the Yogavasistha, who had his palace in the town of Adhisthana. On a reference to Kalhana's Chronicles of Kashmir we find that this was the name of a Brahmana, who was made a king by a class of Brahmanas which was then in power after the overthrow of Suravarman II by one Kamalavardhana in 939. This Yasaskaradeva ruled justly till 948 A.D. and on his retirement was succeeded by his son Sangramadeva except for one day when his uncle's son Varnata ruled there at his desire. As for the city Adhisthana, it is mentioned in the Rajatarangini IV. 696. From the Introduction 24 to Stein's work it is found that one Pravarasena II who ruled in the second half of the sixth century founded a city Pravarapura which was also known as the Navadhisthana or the Nutanadhisthana in Heiuntsang's time in 631 AD to distinguish CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Collection, New Delhi. D

The Date of the Yogavasistha 31 it from the Puranadhisthana or the old city. It appears in course of time the short form of this, i.e. Adhisthana, came in use and was referred to in the Yogavasistha. The description of this city as found in the Yogavasistha resembles the description of it found in the Rajatarangini. It is stated in the Yogavasistha 25 that the city looked beautiful on account of the hills surrounding it. There was a peak of a mountain in the midst of it, which was named Pradyumnasikhara on the top of which stood a king of houses 26. In the Rajatarangini there is a mention of a hill named Pradyumna whose modern name is Pampar. There is a further mention of the building of two temples and a Matha for the Pasupata mendicants by King Ranaditya of Kashmir and his wife. From this it may be inferred that there may have been structures in Adhisthana or Nutanadhisthana, the alternate name of Pravarapura. From the identification of Yasaskaradeva of the Yogavasistha with the Brahmana king of the same name of Rajatarangini and the Adhisthana with Pravarapura, P. C. Divanji has built up a case for the author of the Yogavasistha to have flourished in any case after 949 A.D. or in the second half of the 10 th Century A.D., as he could put it. He has taken great pains to secure the identification which is complete. But how will this date agree with the fact of Gauda Abhinanda's abridgement of the Yogavasistha in the 9 th Century A.D.? An abridgement presupposes the existence of the original. The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that the portions of the Yogavasistha on which P. C. Divanji builds up his theory of the second half of the 10 th century A.D. do not form part of the original text. They are subsequent additions. It appears rather odd that P. C. Divanji himself says, "The second reason why I consider that these are subsequent additions in the work is that there is a distinct and unmistakable reference to a king of Kashmir of the name of Yasaskaradeva 27 and yet he tries to fix the date of the Yogavasistha on the basis of these very "subsequent additions." The whole setting there has a modern look about it. The use of the verb in the future tense was usually the modus operandi of interpolaters as would be seen from the Bhavisya-purana and CC-U. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA

other Puranas. The explanation that Vasistha, the great sage, might have had a prophetic vision of the incidents to take place is feeble and is hardly likely to carry conviction in an age of scientific thought. P. C. Divanji cannot persuade himself to believe that the unnamed author of the Yogavasistha was living in an age prior to that of Yasaskaradeva. The familiarity that the author shows in describing the places and persons residing in Kashmir makes Divanji believe that he (the author) must be writing this account when Yasaskara was ruling Kashmir and Nrsimha was his minister or when one of the successors of Yasaskara was on the throne. Now, we are in perfect agreement with Divanji so far this portion of the Yogavasistha is concerned. Any one who composed it must have been a contemporary of Yasaskaradeva or must have followed him not long after. But this we cannot say of the whole of the Yogavasistha. Even after the old nucleus of Valmiki had been put in a new garb and the new Yogavasistha had emerged, there was ample scope for interpolations in it. In a huge work like this there is enough scope for further additions and accretion of much foreign matter. Our contention is that Yogavasistha minus later additions which may never be discovered or if discovered, will be discovered with stupendous labour, must have reached its present shape earlier than the 9 th Century A.D. when Gauda Abhinanda thinking the volume of the work to be rather unwieldly set about to prepare an abridgement of it so that it may be more handy for the common man for whose upliftment it is meant. Ninth Century A.D. is, therefore, the terminus ad quem. What is then the terminus a quem? Shiva Prasad Bhattacharya fixed it in the 12 th Century A.D.28 His principal arguments for this are: (i) The Yogavasistha has a Buddhistic setting. There are certain episodes or Akhyanas which deal with cycles of births much like the Jatakas. (ii) The author shows favouritism for certain words like Malita, Buddha, Bhava, Sunya, Cit, Atman, Karman, Nirvana, etc. The rather unorthodox connotation attached CC-0. Prof. to them shows his leaning towards Buddhistic tenets.

The Date of the Yoga-vasishtha 33 (iii) The Yogavasistha mentions the Parasikas and Tamrayavanas 29 in a brief account of battle between the kings of Western India. The Parasikas were the people of Afghanistan who began to attack India after the 10 th Century A.D. in hordes for plunder and ravage and ultimately acquired mastery. In the story as given in the Yogavasistha, it is not said as to whether the Indian princes were overthrown or any part of India was conquered by these. (iv) The reference to the Vedanta philosophers as the Vedantins or the Vedantavadins 30 would point out the time of the work to be after Sankara. (v) In the Yoga-vasishtha the Puranas are called Bahupathas 31 or having many readings or recensions. Moreover, from another text, 32 it appears that the author of the Yogavasistha was familiar with the Bhagavata-purana. Its acceptance of the hard and the fast division between Amsakala and Bhagavattva of Visnu is just on the line of the Bhagavata-purana which according to Pargiter³³ was a work of the 10 th Century A.D. (vi) The commentator of the work Ananda Bodha Sarasvati, as he himself says, was the earliest to comment on the Yogavasistha.34 He belongs to the 17 th Century A.D. All these facts mentioned above lead, according to Bhattacharya, to the conclusion that the Yogavasistha must have been written between the 10 th and the 12 th Centuries A.D. The arguments put forward by Shiva Prasad Bhattacharya have all been very well examined by B.L. Atreya and P.C. Divanji who believe the Yogavasistha to have come to assume its present shape after the 5 th Century A.D. and the second half of the 10 th Century A.D. respectively. As for the mention of the Yavanas or the Parasikas we know that they had begun making inroads into India much earlier than the 10 th Century A.D. Moreover, the Parasikas were the Persians and they are mentioned in the Mahabharata. Their mention in the Yogavasistha, therefore, should not be taken as a proof for the date date of the work collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA

Even if the work be conceded to be post-Sankaran on account of the mention of the followers of the Vedanta school by the term Vedantins or Vedantavadins, we are nowhere nearer the period of the 10 th-12 th Century A.D. when the work might have been composed. This evidence only leads to the conclusion that the work is of a period later than 820 A.D. when Sankaracarya is said to have died. But there is reason to infer that the work is pre- Sankaran. At any rate the Vedanta philosophy did not originate with Sankara. Sankara only made the mass of Vedantic theories afloat much before his time into a system. The occurrence of the term vivarta in the Vakyapadiya of Bhartrhari which the latest modern researches have proved to be a work of the 3 rd Century A.D., if not earlier 35 and the Uttararamacarita of Bhavabhuti, a work of the 7 th Century A.D.36 and the presence of the seeds of the Vedantic thought even in as early a period as that of the Vedas 37 and the Upanisads would lead inevitably to the conclusion that the Yogavasistha had enough to draw upon so far as its Vedanta philosophy was concerned. "The Yogavasishtha, because of its palpable inconsistencies and its sweet vagueness in technology"38 precludes the possibility that its author had before him a highly systematic and philosophical work of Sankara. "That no writer and scholiast on Philosophy earlier than Vijnanabhiksu had used it as an authority" to refute or defend a position³⁹ would only strengthen the above contention that it was a work of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata style which are compendia of all the information and, therefore, efforts should not be made to make it subsequent to any particular writer, much less Sankara. "The philosophical groundwork of the Yogavasistha is a complex fabric of theories and doctrines, not very closely and systematically joined"40. The other contention of Shiva Prasad Bhattacharya that the author of the Yogavasistha shows the influence of the Bhagavatapurana, a work according to Pargiter of the 10 th Century A.D., can be effectively countered as P. C. Divanji has done, by pointing out that the lates. researches have fixed the date of the Bhagavatapurana much earlier. As B. N. Krishnamurti Sarma has said, "The CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 5 Foundation USA

The Date of the Yogavasishtha 35 Bhagavata-purana was well-known in the 10 th Century, extant in the Seventh, not unknown in the sixth and had very likely been composed in the 5 th Century A.D., if not earlier still."41 If the Bhagavata-purana had been composed in the 5 th Century A.D. or even earlier than that, the author's (of the Yogavasistha) whose date we have fixed before the 9 th Century A.D. familiarity with Bhagavata-purana would be very natural and would not lead to any such conclusion as the one Bhattacharya has arrived at. If the Bhagavata-purana belongs to at least 5 th century A.D. if not earlier and the date of the most of the older Puranas is earlier or later than this date, it would not be surprising if by the time of the Yogavasistha, i.e. before the 9 th Century A.D., they come to have many readings or recensions. The argument of the Puranas being called Bahupathas in the Yogavasistha is not conclusive and should not be stressed a little too much. That the earliest commentator on the work belongs to the 17 th Century A.D. is no proof positive for the late production of the work. There have been instances where works produced quite early did not have commentators until a very late date. Even in the case of the Rgveda the earliest work of the mankind, the earliest well-known commentary so far available is that of Sayana who belongs to the 14 th Century A.D. Helaraja, the earliest commentator 42 on the Vakyapadiya of Bhartrhari, a work, as has been stated above, of the 3 rd Century A.D. or of a period earlier than that belongs to the first half of the 10 th Century A.D.43 The late appearance of the commentators may be an indication in the case of the Yogavasistha, of the comparative neglect that it suffered as would be evident from the fact that "no scholiast and writer on philosophy earlier than Vijnanabhiksu seems to use it."44 This neglect may be due to the Yogavasistha's "palpable inconsistencies and its sweet vagueness in technology"45. As for the Buddhist influence Shiva Prasad Bhattacharya himself concedes that..."This does not help us much beyond proving that there was an admixture of Buddhistic doctrines; as to time it does not take us much beyond the sixth Century A.D., Vrat Shastri Collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA

even if the author be regarded as a rather late follower of the Yogacarin teacher Asanga"46. Now, that all the arguments of Bhattacharya have been effectively dealt with, we cannot fix the terminus a quem at the 12 th Century A.D. Nor can we agree with P.C. Divanji to fix it at "the fourth quarter of the 10 th Century"47. It must be fixed, as we have stated above, at the 9 th Century, A.D. when an abbreviation of it by the name of the Yogavasisthasara by Gauda Abhinanda appeared while we are prepared to concede that additions and interpolations were carried on in the work even down to a very late period. Even allowing a period of one hundred or at the most two hundred years from the redaction of the nucleus to the appearance of its abridgement, we may say that the work might have been a product of the 8 th or at the most of the 7 th Century A.D. This date does not come into conflict with the fact of the "Kavya style paraphernalia with which the work is permeated" which together with rhetorical effects and conceits" would go to show that it is a specimen of the later exhuberant but extravagant Kavya style." This extravagance or exhuberance in Kavya was as much a characteristic of the period between the 7 th to 9 th Century A.D. as it was that of the period between the 10 th to 12 th Century A.D. V. Raghavan is the last to approach the problem of the date of the Yogavasistha. He has taken great pains to controvert the theory of B. L. Atreya that the Yogavasistha is a post-Sankaran work. Even if we agree on the basis of Raghavan's argument and the fact of direct attacks on Sankara's doctrines in the Yogavasistha and a pointed reference to a verse in Vivekacudamani to which P. C. Divanji has drawn attention in his paper, 49 we do not find ourselves in insuperable difficulty for the last date for Sankara as proposed by some scholars which is 820 A.D. The Yogavasistha might have come to its present shape round about 850 A.D. Forty to forty five years should be a sufficient period for the Yogavasistha to have become so popular with the masses as to necessitate an abridgement of it. However, cc-there is a powerful body of opinion among on among scholars which

The Date of the Yogavasistha 37 believes that there have been many Sankaracaryas and among them the first one, the Adi Sankaracarya, the author of the Bhasya on the Vedanta-sutras and the Vivekacudamani belongs to the 1 st century B.C.50 The Sankara evidence which has been pressed a little too much by some scholars does not prove anything conclusively and, therefore, not much importance needs be attached to it. It is rather interesting that there is a mention quite a few times 51 of inscriptions in the Yogavasistha in the form of standard of comparison, Upamana. This may well lead to the surmise that the author or the redactor of the Yogavasistha was very familiar with inscriptions and that he was living in a period when these were quite in abundance in the country. Surely the thing with which a person is more familiar generally comes to his mind when he seeks to compare one thing with the other. This fact would go against the theory of the early date of the Yogavasistha. It is in the 8 th or the 9 th Century A.D. that we find that India is dotted with inscriptions on stone slabs and pillars. This must have been very much in the mind of the author of the Yogavasistha, when he gave it the form in which we find it today, of course even in the 5 th Century A.D., the date proposed by B.L Atreya, we have a number of inscriptions of the Guptas and the Vakatakas and before them the inscriptions of the Indo-Greeks and IndoBactrians and the Mauryans, yet all of them taken together do not reach the vast figures which we find in the later centuries which seems to have very much struck the author of the Yogavasistha. However, there is bound to be difference on this point because apart from throwing some vague hints this does not take us anywhere nearer to the definite date of the Yogavasistha. The date of the Yogavasistha, therefore, must remain a problem as the date of any other Sanskrit work the author of which has unfortunately left no biographic details about himself. Arguments and counter-arguments will continue to be given in support of one view or the other, till some conclusive evidence CC-0, Prof. Saiya Vrat Shastri Collection as wat presentedwes can only put is available. As matters stands

forward a theory which will be one of the many in the field. The above discussion leads us to these three conclusions:- (i) That the Yogavasistha is a work of the first quarter of the 9 th Century A.D. while in the last quarter of it there had appeared an abridgement of it. (ii) That there was a nucleus of the Yogavasistha which must have been very ancient. In the 9 th Century A.D. some master genius adopted it as a basis and built upon it a super-structure. It was he, the anonymous writer, who gave to the Yogavasistha its present form. (iii) That the Yogavasistha continued to be enriched with extraneous matter from time to time and interpolations in it continued to be made inspite of definite form which was given to it in the 9 th Century A.D. REFERENCES 1. See B.L. Atreya, The Philosophy of the Yogavasistha (Section: The Probable date of the Yogavasistha), Chapter II, pp. 11-27; P.C. Divanji, The Date and Place of Origin of the Yogavasistha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal, Vol. 1., 1933-34, pp. 153-170; Shiva Prasad Bhattacharya, Proceedings of the All-India Oriental Conference, Madras, Vol. III, 1924, pp. 545-554; V. Raghavan, The Date of the Yogavasistha, Journal of Oriental Research, Madras, 1947-48, Vol. XVII. 2. The Philosophy of the Yogavasistha, Section II; p. 26. 3. Sadhu Ram, Bharthari's Date, Journal of the Ganganath Jha Research Institute, Allahabad, Vol. IX, 1952 pp. 135-151. 4. The Philosophy of the Yogavasistha, Chapter II. But if on the ground of the mention of the cloud-messenger the Yogavasistha is held to have borrowed from Kalidasa, it must also be later than Bhavabhuti for it has a number of verses common to Bhavabhuti's works. Indeed it is inconceivable that the great poet Bhavabhuti could have borrowed these verses from the Yogavasistha and passed them on as his own. 5. VI (i). 115-19. CC-0. Puf. Jatyarat Shastri Collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA

The Date of the Yogavasishtha 39 7. The Date and Place of Origin of the Yoga-vasishtha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal, 1933-34; p 160. 8. VI (ii) 115.11. 9. Uttararamacarita, II.29. 10. VI (ii). 117.5. 11. IV. 26.26. 12. VI (ii). 28.33. 13. II. 13.26. Here, only a few examples are given. For an exhaustive treatment of the subject, see Section III in Chapter 'Yoga-vasishtha -A Literary Study', of the author's forthcoming book, Studies in the Language and the Poetry of the Yogavasistha." 14. Karpuramanjari, Introduction, p. 505, Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, 1963. 15. The Date and Place of Origin of the Yogavasistha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal, 1933-34, p. 166. 16. See the author's article: Onomatopoeia in the Yogavasistha, Transactions of the Linguistic Circle of Delhi, 1968, pp. 13-28. 17. The Date and Place of Origin of Yogavasistha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal, 1933-34, p. 166. 18. ibid., p. 156-57. 19. VI (ii). 1.8.25. 20. VI (ii). 115.7. 21. VI (ii) 115.41. 22. P. C. Divanji; The Date and Place of Origin of the Yogavasistha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal, 1933-35, p. 158. 23. II. 18.33. 24. Chapter V, para 82, pp. 84-85. 25. IV. 32.11-15. 26. IV. 32.16; VI. 32.11.13. So, when we talk of the author of the work we mean by it the writer who gave the Yogavasistha its present shape. For us that anonymous poet is the author. 27. The Date and Place of Origin of the Yogavasistha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal, 1933-34, p. 160. 28. The Yogavasistha Ramayana: Its probable date and place of inception, Proceedings of All India Oriental Conference , Madras, Volume III. 1924. pp. 545-554. CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Gollection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA 29. III. 37.20-24, Cf. also.

. IV. 21.26; III. 4.5; III. 13.35; III. 3.33; III. 3.40; III. 4.68; II. 2.8.9; IV. 2.29; IV. 11.63; IV. 11.20; IV. 21.39. 31. VI. 22.20-27. 32. VI. 64.31-33. 33. This statement of Bhattacharya is questionable. Pargiter merely says that the Bhagavatapurana belongs to a period later than the 7 th century A.D. Purana Texts of the Dynasties of the Kali Age, App. II, pp. 85- 86, Motilal Banarasidas, 1961. 34. Ananyapurvavyakhyatam grantham me vyacikirsatah, introductory verses to the commentary, verse 24. 35. Vide Sadhu Ram, The Date of Bhartrhari, Journal of the Ganganath Jha Research Institute, Allahabad, 1952. 36. S. K. Balvelkar, Later Life of Rama (Uttararamacarita), Harward Oriental Series Vol. 21, Introduction, p. XLIV. 37. Satya Vrat Shastri, Advaitavadah, Sarasvati Susama, (Journal of the Sanskrit University) Varanasi, Vol. XII, Parts 3-4, Samvat 2014. 38. Shiva Prasad Bhattacharya, The Yogavasistha Ramayana, Its probable Date and Place of Inception, Proceedings of the All India Oriental Conference, 1924, Madras, p. 549. 39. ibid., p. 240. 40. ibid., p. 550. 41. The Date of the Bhagavata Purana, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, Vol. XIV, Part III-IV, pp. 182- 218. 42. There is no certainty about the date of the other commentator on the Vakyapadiya, Punyaraja. 43. ibid p. 652. 44. The Yogavasistha Ramayana, The Probable Place and Date of Inception, Proceedings of the All India Oriental Conference, Vol. III. Madras, 1924, p. 549. 45. ibid., p. 549. 46. ibid., p. 548. 47. The Date and Place of Origin of the Yoga-vasishtha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal, 1933-34, last line, first paragraph, p. 167. 48. The Date of the Yogavasistha, Journal of Orientala Resen CC-0. Madras, Vol. Xvir, 1947-48. Collection, New Research,

The Date of the Yogavasistha 41 49. The Date and Place of Origin of the Yogavasistha, The Calcutta Oriental Journal. 1933-34, p. 167. 50. V.B. Athwale, The Date of Adya Sankaracarya (The First Century A.D.), The Poona Orientalist, Vol. XIX, January, October, 1954, S. Srikantaya, Date of Sankaracarya, Journal of the Mythic Society of India, Vol. XXXXVI, 1955-56. 51. III. 61.8; III. 62.16; IV. 2.20; VI (1) 46.33. VI (i) 46.36. 52. We are unable to agree with Prof. Stecherbasky "that Prof. Atreya has brought the problem (of the Date of the Yogavasistha) very nearer to its final solution"... Vasistha Darsanam, chapter, II. p. 19.