anvaya-vyatireka

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>Must the anvaya-vyatireka method and the jahad-ajahal-lak.s.naa method
be=
> seen as mutually exclusive? After all, the anvaya-vyatireka method is=
> essentially the basic scientific method of changing one variable at a
time=
> and seeing what the outcome is. -- ashok aklujkar

They are indeed quite compatible, and as Mayeda notes, Sankara's use of
anvaya-vyatireka does contain many features of the lak.sa.nA arguments
developed by Padmapada and others. But anvaya-vyatireka can also be
interpreted in a bhedAbheda sense, and later authors seem to stick to
the lak.sa.nA terminology. The examples used also change, from nIlA;sva
(Sankara) or nIlotpala (Suresvara) to so'yam devadattaH/pumAn (Padmapada
and later authors). So, my question is related more to one of style
and/or chronology - since Sankara and Suresvara seem to be the only
authors who use anvaya-vyatireka (to my knowledge), could this serve as
a criterion to test the traditional attribution of works which are
doubted in modern critical scholarship? Of course, this would depend on
the usage or otherwise in the works of other known authors, hence the
curiosity.

Vidyasankar

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