Sanskrit Manuscripts : Saptapadārthī

Śivāditya

Sanskrit Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> A 17th-century Jaina manuscript of Śivāditya’s <i>Saptapadārthī</i>. This short treatise, probably written around 1150 (Bhattacharya, D.C. 1958: 64), is among the earliest known works combining Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika. If the order of exposition of the text globally follows that of the Vaiśeṣika "categories" (<i>padārtha</i>), topics of epistemology are dealt with in some detail in the section on cognition (<i>jñāna</i>), one of the twenty-four qualities (<i>guṇa</i>). Śivāditya is also one of the first Vaiśeṣika authors to consider absence (<i>abhāva</i>) as a distinct category, a position originally typical of the Nyāya system. Several other works by Śivāditya are known to later Navya-Naiyāyikas (including Gaṅgeśa, who mentions Śivāditya by name), most of which have not been found yet. The present manuscript, dated 1682 saṃvat (= 1625-6 CE), is the oldest dated manuscript of a work on Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika kept in the Cambridge collection. According to the colophon, it was written in Campāvatī (possibly modern Chaksu, South of Jaipur in Rājasthān) for the personal study (<i>paṭhana</i>) of one Ṛṣiśrīsiṃhajī. </p>