Authorship of Sarvadarzanasamgraha

[Rama Balasubramanian]

Dmitry Olenev <tattvarthi at YAHOO.COM> writes:

> The author starts with chArvAka and ends
>> with pata.njala yoga. Since nyAya is somewhere in the middle, it can
>> hardly have been written by a naiyAyika. Then, as I said, he says he
>> has explained advaita elsewhere.
>
>I cannot agree with this assertion; it's enough to remember a great
>naiyayika Raghunaatha Siroma.ni (or Vaacaspati Mi'sra) to understand
>the simple fact that it was well possible for Indian philosophers to
>be adepts of several traditions.

Certainly I agree with that. But, it seems I have a different version
of the sarvadarshanasa.ngraha than others! But, at least in my copy,
the author follows this method of exposition. He points out some
defect of darshana A and gives darshana B which removes that
defect. But then he points out some defect in darshana B and gives
darshana C and so on. The list (at least in my copy!) ends with
yoga. nyAyA is much before that. And then of course (in my copy) he
says the _crest jewel of all systems_, advaita, has been explained
elsewhere by him!  So you see why I thought the author must have been
an advaitin. However, it seems there are multiple versions of the same
text floating around.

>   Furthermore, nyaya is intellectual tradition, not spiritual, so I
>don't see any reasons for which a naiyayika couldn't be a vedantist,
>i. e. an adept of spiritual tradition.

Not so. If you see the some jaina texts (of the sarva darshana
sa.ngraha type), they describe the nyAya authors as pAshupata-s in
practice. References can be found in Dasgupta's (Vol 5 I think, not
sure). This is not a well known fact, but most nyAyA authors were
pAshupatas in practice. Further, they do accept and worship
Ishvara. So I fail to see why it is not "spiritual".

Rama.