Page:Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 1.djvu/505

44.0 Mr. Corrprooxr on the Philosophy of the Hindus. of delivering canons of scriptural interpretation, it incidently touches upon philosophical topics; and scholastic disputants have elicited from its dogmas, principles of reasoning applicable to the prevailing points of controversy agitated in the Hindu schools of philosophy.

The acknowledged founder of this school of scriptural interpretation is Jarmmint. He is repeatedly named as an authority in the Sttras which are ascribed to him. Other ancient writers on the same subject, who are occasionally quoted in those aphorisms, as Atréya, Bddari, Badardyan‘a,* Ldbucdyana, Aitiséyana, &c. are sometimes adduced there for authority, but oftener for correction and confutation.

It is no doubt possible, that the true author of a work may speak in it of himself by name, and in the third person. Nor, indeed, is that very unusual. A Hindu commentator will, however, say, as the scholiasts of Menws and of Ydjnyawalcya’s institutes of law do, that the oral instructions of the teacher were put in writing by some disciple ; and, for this reason, the mention of him as of a third person is strictly proper.

The sutras, or aphorisms, thus attributed to Jarmmi, are arranged in twelve lectures, each subdivided into four chapters, except the third, sixth, and tenth lectures, which contain twice as many; making the entire number sixty chapters. These again are divided into sections, cases, or topics (adhicaranas), ordinarily comprising several sztras, but not uncom- monly restricted to one; and instances may be noted where a single sentence is split into several adhicaranas; or, on the contrary, a single phrase variously interpreted becomes applicable to distinct cases; and sdtras, united under the same head by one interpreter, are by another explained as constituting separate topics. The total number of sztras is 2,652, and of adhicaranas 915, as numbered by

Like the aphorisms of other Indian sciences, those siétras are extremely obscure; or without a gloss utterly unintelligible. They must have been from the first accompanied by an oral or written exposition ; and an ancient scholiast (Vritticéra), is quoted by the herd of commentators for subsidiary aphorisms, supplying the defect of the text, as well as for explanatory comments on it.
 * Author of the Brahme-sitras.