The Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha is, at its title indicates, a “Compendium of all philosophies”. It was composed in the fourteenth century in the South Indian Vijayanagara Empire. Its colophons attribute it to Mādhava the son of Sāyaṇa, but there are good reasons to believe that its real author was Mādhava’s contemporary Cannibhaṭṭa (Bronkhorst forthcoming).

There is no critical edition of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha. The New Catalogus Catalogorum (Dash 2015, p. 119) enumerates its surviving manuscripts, but it is not known whether any of these manuscripts were used in the existing editions. Of the existing editions, only three, as far as I can see, are based on manuscript evidence. All the other editions appear to be based on one or the other of these three editions.

These are the following:

  • The Bibliotheca Indica edition, by Īśwarachandra Vidyáságara, Calcutta 1858

  • The Ānandāśrama edition, by the Ānandāśrama Pandits, Poona 1906 and subsequent editions. (I have only had access to the third edition of 1950 and the fourth edition of 1977. The third edition appears to be an exact reprint of the second edition, but its relation to the original first edition is unknown to me. The fourth edition of 1977 has been reset and is not in all details identical with the third one. In what follows I use the third edition.)

  • The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute edition, by Vasudev Shastri Abhyankar, Poona 1924. (I have had access to the third edition of 1978, seen through the press by T. G. Mainkar, and have not so far seen reasons to believe that it is different from the first edition.)

There is no guarantee that readings that we find in all these three editions are identical with what the author of the text committed to writing more than six centuries ago. Strictly speaking, we do not know whether readings shared by all surviving manuscripts are identical with what the author wrote. That is to say, there is no guarantee that the archetype of all surviving manuscripts is identical with the author’s autograph; the same is true, a fortiori, for the “archetype” of the existing editions (which I will henceforth refer to as “the archetype of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha”). What we do know is that the manuscripts used for the editions represent two stages in the development of the text: Most manuscripts contain only 15 chapters,Footnote 1 whereas some have an additional chapter on Śaṅkara’s philosophy that does not, with the exception of some transitional remarks, refer back to earlier chapters (Bronkhorst forthcoming).

One way to obtain a text that is as reliable as possible would be to make a critical edition that takes all manuscript readings into account.Footnote 2 There is conceivably also another way, which does not replace the need for a critical edition but may in certain cases provide us with even better, i.e. more original, readings than a critical edition. The Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha makes extensive use of other texts, hereafter called its source-texts, from which it sometimes copies, with or without acknowledgment. In the best of circumstances, the identification of explicit or implicit source-texts may make it possible to correct the text of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha.

As so often, circumstances are not always perfect. In principle, we can be sure that the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha quotes in cases where it explicitly mentions the source-text (or its author). There are numerous such instances, but many of those “literal” quotations deviate in minor or major ways from their source-texts. The following two examples will illustrate this.

Chapter 12—on Jaimini’s philosophy—claims to quote the following passage from Udayana’s Kusumāñjali (p. 285 l. 12.273–276):Footnote 3


atra kusumāñjalāv udayanena jhaṭ iti pracurapravṛtteḥ prāmāṇyaniścayādhīnatvābhāvam āpādayatā praṇyagādi/

pravṛttir hīcchām apekṣate/ tatprācuryaṃ cecchāprācuryam/ icchā ceṣṭasādhanatājñānam/ tac ceṣṭajātīyatvaliṅgānubhavam/ so ‘pīndriyārthasaṃnikarṣam/ prāmāṇyagrahaṇaṃ tu na kvacid upayujyata iti/

Udayana has stated the following in his Kusumāñjali, while putting forward that much activity that takes place instantly does not depend on certain knowledge of authoritativeness:

“For activity requires desire. And abundance of activity requires abundance of desire. And desire requires knowledge that something is the means to attain the desired goal. And that knowledge requires an experience of an inferential sign (liṅga) that something is of the same kind as the desired goal. That experience, in its turn, requires contact (saṃnikarṣa) between sense organ and object. Grasping authoritativeness, however, plays no role anywhere.”

The Kusumāñjali under verse 2.1 (p. 229) contains the passage that is here no doubt referred to:

(yad api jhaṭ iti pracuratarasamarthapravṛttyanyathānupapattyā svataḥ prāmāṇyam ucyate, tadapi nāsti/ anyathaivopapatteḥ/ jhaṭ iti pravṛttir hi jhaṭ iti tatkāraṇopanipātam antareṇānupapadyamānā tam ākṣipet/ pracurapravṛttir api svakāraṇaprācuryam /) icchā ca pravṛtteḥ kāraṇam/ tatkāraṇam apīṣṭābhyupāyatājñānam/ tad api tajjātīyatvaliṅgānubhavaprabhavam/ so ‘pīndriyasannikarṣādijanmā/ na tu prāmāṇyagrahasya kvacid apy upayogaḥ/

It is impossible to believe that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha believed that he quoted literally from the Kusumāñjali. And yet, he presents this as a quotation, thus confirming our conclusion that quotations in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha must be treated with caution, and do not in all cases justify “corrections” in the light of the source-texts.

The second example occurs in chapter 15, on Sāṃkhya. The Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha here quotes from Śaṅkara (p. 340 ll. 15.69–72):

athāto brahmajijñāsā ity atra tu brahmajijñāsāyā anadhikāryatvenādhikārārthatvaṃ parityajya sādhanacatuṣṭayasaṃpattiviśiṣṭādhikārisamarpaṇāya śamadamādivākyavihitāc chamāder ānantaryam athaśabdārtha iti śaṃkarācāryair niraṭaṅki

This is what the teacher (ācārya) Śaṅkara, rejecting the meaning “beginning” (adhikāra) for atha because desire to know Brahma cannot be begun, stated under Brahmasūtra 1.1.1 “Next the desire to know Brahma” (athāto brahmajijñāsā): The meaning of the word atha is consecutiveness after tranquillisation (śama) etc. — prescribed by the sentence beginning with śamadama… — so as to apply to a qualified person (adhikārin) who distinguishes himself by the acquisition of the four means (sādhana).

The quoted passage does indeed occur in Śaṅkara’s commentary on Brahmasūtra 1.1.1, but in an altogether different form (Brahmasūtra-Śāṅkarabhāṣya, pp. 27, 37):


tatrāthaśabda ānantaryārthaḥ parigṛhyate nādhikārārthaḥ, brahmajijñāsāyā anadhikāryatvāt/ …/ tasmād athaśabdena yathoktasādhanasaṃpattyānantaryam upadiśyate/

Once again, there can be no doubt that the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha here presents a free paraphrase of what Śaṅkara had said.

Before we proceed, it is necessary to take the following points into consideration:

  • It is not always obvious that the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha quotes directly from the source-text. In certain cases it may quote through the intermediary of other texts. As already pointed out by de la Vallée Poussin (1902, p. 391), this seems particularly clear in the chapter on Buddhism, which appears to derive at least some of its Buddhist quotations from Vācaspati’s Bhāmatī and other Brahmanical texts. It is conceivable, but hard to prove, that the same happened in other chapters.

  • We have no guarantee that the text of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha that we find in its editions (or even in its manuscripts) is identical with the text committed to writing by its author, i.e. with its autograph. We have no guarantee either that the existing editions (and indeed, the surviving manuscripts) of source-texts are in all details identical with their autographs. In comparing passages quoted in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha with their source-texts, we compare two uncertain readings.Footnote 4

  • We have no guarantee that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha intended in all cases to quote a passage from a source-text verbatim. This uncertainty is particularly pronounced in cases where the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha does not name the source-text or its author.

  • Even in cases where the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha intended to quote a passage verbatim, we do not know what reading he found in the manuscript(s) of the source-text available to him.

An example that illustrates these uncertainties occurs in the chapter on Pratyabhijñā (ch. 8). We read here (ed. Abhyankar, p. 192 l. 8.27–31):

tathopadiṣṭaṃ śivadṛṣṭau paramagurubhir bhagavatsomānandanāthapādaiḥ —ekavāraṃ pramāṇena śāstrād vā guruvākyataḥ/

jñāte śivatve sarvasthe pratipattyā dṛḍhātmanā//

karaṇena nāsti kṛtyaṃ kvāpi bhāvanayāpi vā/

jñāne suvarṇe karaṇaṃ bhāvanāṃ vā parityajet// iti/Footnote 5

The venerable Somānanda, the supreme guru, has taught this in his Śivadṛṣṭi:


“Once it is known thanks to a means of knowledge (pramāṇa), with firm understanding (pratipatti), whether from books or from the words of a guru, that the Śiva-nature is present in all, nothing remains to be done by means of instruments of knowledge or even (api) mental cultivation (bhāvanā). When knowledge is gold, one should abandon instruments and mental cultivation.”

Three of the four quoted lines (i.e. ekavāraṃ … bhāvanayāpi vā) do indeed occur in the edition of the Śivadṛṣṭi: seventh Āhnika, v. 5cd–6ab). The final line (jñāne … parityajet), though clearly included in the quotation attributed to the Śivadṛṣṭi, does not occur in the available edition of that text, which has, at this place: jñāte ‘pi tarubhūmyādidārḍhyān na karaṇādikam. It is possible, though far from certain, that the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha here quotes an earlier version of the Śivadṛṣṭi. There is, to my knowledge, no way at present to resolve this issue.

Another example occurs in the chapter on Yoga, which quotes Yogasūtra 2.5 in the following form (ed. Abhyankar, p. 361 l. 15.298–299):


pariṇāmatāpasaṃskāraduḥkhair guṇavṛttyavirodhāc ca duḥkham eva sarvaṃ vivekinaḥ

This corresponds to the form the sūtra has in the critical edition of the Yogaśāstra, with the exception of the form guṇavṛttyavirodhāc which, in that critical edition, has guṇavṛttivirodhāc; this reading is confirmed in the Yogabhāṣya and in Vācaspati’s Tattvavaiśāradī. The negative form °vṛttyaviro° in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha is apparently supported by all manuscripts used in the preparation of the Bhandarkar and Ānandāśrama editions; only the Bibliotheca Indica edition has guṇavṛttinirodhāc. It is tempting to conclude that the “incorrect” reading °avirodhāc was not part of the autograph and must be corrected. However, Vijñānabhikṣu’s comments on this sūtra defend the reading °avirodhāc, suggesting that this reading was current in at least certain manuscripts of the Yogaśāstra.

I will below present examples that illustrate the following:

  1. I.

    The archetype of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha is different from its autograph.

  2. II.

    Its archetype is identical with its autograph but different from the source-text.


I. Archetype different from autograph


Ia. A case where the editions of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha all go back to an erroneous reading occurs in the chapter on Vaiśeṣika (ch. 10: Aulūkyadarśana). In this chapter the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha often makes use of the Padārthadharmasaṃgraha, better known by the name Praśastapādabhāṣya. While discussing the kind of division born from division (vibhāgajavibhāga) that is called “born from a division between cause and non-cause” (kāraṇākāraṇavibhāgaja), the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha has the following line in all its editions (ed. Abhyankar p. 228, l. 10.137–138):


haste karmotpannam avayavāntarād vibhāgaṃ kurvad ākāśādideśebhyo vibhāgān ārabhate/

An activity that has arisen in a hand, while making a division from another part of the body, brings about divisions from positions of ether etc.Footnote 6

The corresponding line in the Padārthadharmasaṃgraha reads (WI § 189, p. 32):

yadā haste karmotpannam avayavāntarād vibhāgam akurvad ākāśādideśebhyo vibhāgān ārabhya

The reading akurvad is confirmed by all editions and commentaries of the Padārthadharmasaṃgraha, and this is not surprising: only this reading makes sense in the Vaiśeṣika scheme of things. When one moves one’s hand, no division between the hand and other parts of the body appears, whereas a division from positions of ether does.

Since it is hard to imagine that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha introduced this change on purpose, we must conclude that a mistake entered the manuscript-tradition at an early date (unless we assume that the author’s mastery of Vaiśeṣika left to be desired, an option that cannot be totally discarded).

Ib. In its chapter on Pratyabhijñā (ch. 8) the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha quotes a verse from the conclusion (upasaṃhāra) of the chapter on action (kriyādhikāra) of Utpaladeva’s Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā, as follows (ed. Abhyankar, p. 197, l. 8.92–94; no variants in the different editions):


upasaṃhāre ’pi —

itthaṃ tathā ghaṭapaṭādyākārajagadātmanā/

tiṣṭhāsor evam icchaiva hetukartṛkṛtā kriyā// iti/

This verse is Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā 2.4.21, which however reads somewhat differently in the critical edition (Torella 1994, p. 61):

itthaṃ tathā ghaṭapatādyābhāsajagadātmanā/

tiṣṭhāsor evam icchaiva hetutā kartṛtā kriyā//

The critical edition notes no variants, except tadā in one manuscript for tathā. Torella (1994, p. 187) translates:

Therefore causality, agency, action are nothing but the will of him who wishes to appear in the form of the universe, in the various manifestations of jar, cloth and so on.

The verse as quoted in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha is harder to translate. Cowell and Gough (1882, p. 133) propose:

The mere will of God, when he wills to become the world under its forms of jar, of cloth, and other objects, is his activity worked out by motive and agent.

The translation “activity worked out by motive and agent” for hetukartṛkṛtā kriyā hardly makes sense, and we are justified in considering that the editions of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha do not preserve the original reading of this verse. And yet, it is hard to believe that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha quoted a nonsensical verse. The conclusion must, once again, be that the archetype of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha differs at this place from its autograph.

Ic. Consider now the following lines from the chapter on Nyāya (ch. 11; l. 11.200–203):

īśvarasya jagatsarjanaṃ na yujyate/ tad uktaṃ bhaṭṭācāryaiḥ —

prayojanam anuddiśya na mando ‘pi pravartate/

jagac ca sṛjatas tasya kiṃ nāma na kṛtaṃ bhavet//

It is not right to claim that God created the world. This has been stated by the teacher Bhaṭṭa:

“Not even a dim-witted person acts without a purpose.

What has not been made by Him who creates the world?”

The two half-verses here quoted have been taken from Kumārila Bhaṭṭa’s Ślokavārttika (Sambandhākṣepaparihāra vv. 55ab and 54cd respectively), but the second line is rather different in the one edition of that text accessible to me, as we will see below.

But let us first look at the text as we find it in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha. The lines are quoted to support the view that God did not create the world. The first quoted line does support this, for it could reasonably be argued that creating the world serves no purpose to Him all of whose desires are fulfilled. The second line, on the other hand, makes no sense in this context. This does not change if we accept the reading of the Bibliotheca Indica edition and supported by several manuscripts used for the Ānandāśrama edition:

jagac cāsṛjatas tasya …

… by Him who does not create the world?

The edition of the Ślokavārttika has a different reading for this line:

jagac cāsṛjatas tasya kiṃ nāmeṣṭaṃ na sidhyati

What object of desire is not attained by Him even without creating the world?

and this makes perfect sense. Since it is hard to believe that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha quoted a nonsensical line, there are good grounds to believe that he quoted it as we find it in the edition of the Ślokavārttika. Clearly the archetype of the editions of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha contained an error, supporting the view that this archetype was different from the autograph of this text.

These examples give us reasons to think that the readings provided by the editions of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha do not always coincide with the readings of its autograph and can in certain cases be corrected with the help of the source-texts. Some scholars have raised this possibility into a principle. Uma Shankar Sharma stated already in 1964 that “the text of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha is … defective because the quotations of other works occurring in the present work sometimes present different readings when compared with the original text” (p. 22). Others have used this principle to correct the text.

Hélène Brunner, in her study of the chapter on the Śaivadarśana (1981), takes the position that in quoting verses from known source-texts, the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha did not wish to deviate from their original reading, so that we are entitled to correct the text in cases where the quoted verses differ from their source-texts. We are not, however, entitled to do so in the case of prose passages (Brunner 1981, p. 107):

Les śloka cités par [Mādhava] proviennent, à une exception près, de textes dont on possède des éditions, ou plusieurs mss.; et beaucoup d’entre eux sont couramment cités dans la littérature śivaïte. A part un ou deux détails que nous signalons, leur forme est bien assurée et on peut les corriger sans hésitation; il ne s’agit pas de suggérer pour eux des lectures nouvelles issues d’un cerveau imaginatif, mais de rétablir celles qui sont attestées partout. Il en va autrement pour la partie en prose, c’est-à-dire l’exposé de [Mādhava], dont la forme correcte ne peut être rétablie par simple comparaison avec les passages qui l’inspirent, puisque justement [Mādhava] modifie ceux-ci, peu ou prou.Footnote 7

Raffaele Torella’s article “Due capitoli del Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha: Śaivadarśana e Pratyabhijñādarśana” (1980) follows by and large the same method. It proposes numerous emendations of the text of those two chapters, which it justifies with the observation that these chapters are largely based on a small number of known texts. Chapter six, on the philosophy of the followers of Śiva (śaivadarśana), Torella (1980, p. 363) states, is like a collage of passages taken from two works: Aghoraśiva’s commentary on Bhojarāja’s Tattvaprakāśa and Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha’s commentary on the Mṛgendrāgama, called Mṛgendravṛtti. Similarly, the seventh chapter, on the philosophy of recognition (pratyabhijñādarśana), makes extensive use of Abhinavagupta’s Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī.Footnote 8

The approach adopted by Brunner and Torella is understandable and no doubt justifiable in certain cases. However, there appear to be cases where their approach does not work.


II. Archetype is identical with autograph but different from source-text


IIa. The chapter on Śaiva philosophy contains a verse that begins with the words prāvṛtīśo balaṃ (ed. Abhyankar p. 188 l. 7.185). Brunner and Torella propose to emend this into prāvṛtīśabale on the basis on the reading in the text from which this verse was taken.Footnote 9 Torella (1980, p. 379) translates this: “il velame (prāvṛti), la forza del Signore (īśabala)”. Brunner (1981, p. 136), similarly, translates: “L’envelope, la Force du Seigneur”. Both follow the commentators in looking upon prāvṛti and īśabala as constituents of this compound. However, the then following lines of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha show that its author considered prāvṛtīśa (“ruler of darkness”) and bala (“force”) two separate items, which are separately discussed in the following two passages:

(a1) prāvṛṇoti prakarṣeṇācchādayaty ātmanaḥ svābhāvikyau dṛkkriye iti prāvṛtir aśucir malaḥ/

(a2) sa ca īṣṭe svātantryeṇeti īśaḥ/

tad uktam —

eko hy anekaśaktir dṛkkriyayoś chādako malaḥ puṃsaḥ/

tuṣataṇḍulavaj jñeyas tāmrāśritakālikāvad vā// iti/

(b) balaṃ rodhaśaktiḥ.

I translate:

(a) Darkness (prāvṛti) is thus called because it covers (prāvṛṇoti), i.e. conceals well (pra), its own natural vision (dṛś) and action (kriyā); it is an impurity (mala), and as such it is impure (aśuci). Its ruler (īśa) is thus called because he rules (īṣṭe) independently. …Footnote 10

(b) Force (bala) is the power of obstruction (rodhaśakti).

Clearly the text of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha as we find it in the existing editions does not support the interpretation proposed by Brunner and Torella. Torella therefore suggests another modification of the text, which now becomes:

(A) prāvṛṇoti prakarṣeṇācchādayaty ātmanaḥ svābhāvikyau dṛkkriye iti prāvṛtir aśucir malaḥ/

tad uktam —

eko hy anekaśaktir dṛkkriyayoś chādako malaḥ puṃsaḥ/

tuṣataṇḍulavaj jñeyas tāmrāśritakālikāvad vā// iti/

(B1) īṣṭe svātantryeṇeti īśaḥ/

(B1) tadīyaṃ balaṃ rodhaśaktiḥ.

I translate:

(A) Darkness (prāvṛti) is thus called because it covers (prāvṛṇoti), i.e. conceals well (pra), its own natural vision (dṛś) and action (kriyā); it is an impurity (mala), and as such it is impure (aśuci).

(B1) A ruler (īśa) is thus called because he rules (īṣṭe) independently.

(B2) His force (bala) is the power of obstruction (rodhaśakti).

Torella does not reject the hypothesis that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha himself changed the wording of this passage,Footnote 11 but prefers to ascribe the changes to a copyist or to a corruption in the text of the Mṛgendravṛtti used by the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha.Footnote 12 According to Brunner (1981, 136 n. 178), “il n’est guère probable que [Mādhava] lui-même ait commis cette erreur de lecture (ou accepté cette distortion)”; she therefore rejects this hypothesis (1981, 136 n. 175): “La mauvaise lecture du SDS a été source d’une série d’interprétations aberrantes chez les traducteurs et le commentateur moderne. Et c’est elle qui est à l’origine de la fâcheuse transposition d’une ligne un peu plus loin.”

In this case, then, we can only “correct” the wording of a quoted verse on condition that we change the following prose as well. Such a correction can only be justified by evoking various actors (presumably copyists) who actively and knowingly interfered with the text. This activity must then have taken place before the archetype of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha editions, and presumably at a time close to the composition of this text.Footnote 13 But obviously, Occam’s razor prefers Torella’s less preferred hypothesis, viz. that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha himself changed the wording of this verse, or that the text of the Mṛgendravṛtti used by him contained this corruption. Either way, a translation of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha must translate, or try to translate, what its author wrote, not what he should have written according to modern scholars.

In this particular case, Torella, unlike Brunner, is willing to consider that a “corruption” goes back all the way to the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha. He does so again on p. 388, where he observes that the word māyā (l. 7.181) should be mahāmāyā, then adds that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha himself may have introduced the change out of ignorance.Footnote 14 Brunner (p. 135) is less tolerant, and replaces “incorrect” māyā with “correct” mahāmāyā, without further comments.


IIb. Consider next the following verse, which the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha attributes to Bṛhaspati (ed. Abhyankar p. 177 l. 7.44–45):

iha bhogyabhogasādhanatadupādānādi yo vijānāti/

tam ṛte bhaven na hīdaṃ puṃskarmāśayavipākajñam// iti/

Brunner changes the beginning of this verse, and explains this as follows (Brunner 1981, 117 n. 66)

Nous corrigeons iha bhogya- du SDS … en bhavabhoktṛ donné par les deux [éditions] du [Mṛgendrāgama].

She provides more information in note 62:

Cf. la fin du comm. de [Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha] sur [Mṛgendrāgama], [vidyāpāda], 3, 6b-7a, passage qui conclut l’argumentation établissant Īśvara comme kartṛ: itthaṃ ca vicitratatttatkarmāśayādhivāsitabhoktṛ-bhoga-tatsādhana-tadupādānādi-viśeṣajñaḥ kartānumānāntareṇānumīyata iti na kaścid doṣaḥ/ tad idam uktaṃ tatrabhavadbṛhaspatipādaiḥ — “bhava-bhoktṛ-bhoga-sādhana …” (suite comme dans le SDS).

However, “correcting” the verse obliges her also to change the preceding prose, which contains the compound tattatkarmāśayavaśād. Brunner “corrects” this (note 64) into tat-tat-karmāśayādhivāsita-bhoktṛ, because “Le terme bhoktṛ qui apparaît dans la version correcte du śloka suivant, doit nécessairement apparaître ici.” But the term bhoktṛ does not occur in the verse as we find it in the editions of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha. We are once again in a situation where we must either accept that an early copyist did not just make a copying mistake but reworked the text, or we accept that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha did so himself. As it is, the readings as we find them in the editions of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha make perfect sense. Occam’s razor obliges us, once again, to attribute those readings to its author.


IIc. The Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha cites a line from the Kiraṇāgama, as follows (ed. Abhyankar, p. 180 l. 7.80–81):

tad uktaṃ śrīmatkiraṇe:

śuddhe ’dhvani śivaḥ kartā prokto ’nanto ’hite prabhuḥ// iti/

This has been stated in the Kiraṇāgama, as follows: “Śiva has been stated to be the agent on the pure path, on the improper path it is Ananta.”

This corresponds to Kiraṇāgama, vidyāpāda 3.27cd (Vivanti 1975, p. 14), with this difference that the edition of the Kiraṇāgama has ‘site (‘black’) instead of ‘hite (‘improper’). Brunner (1981, p. 121) and Torella (1980, p. 387) “correct” the verse, but are then confronted with a difficulty in the immediately preceding sentence, which expresses essentially the same meaning, but has kṛcchrādhvaviṣaye “in the area of the evil path”, which supposedly corresponds to the “corrected” expression asite ‘dhvani “on the black path”. They now feel free to “correct” this to kṛṣṇādhvaviṣaye “in the area of the black path”, even though they know that this modification is not, apparently, supported by any of the source-texts. This form is found in one of the manuscripts used by the editors of the Ānandāśrama edition, but even this manuscript had ahite rather than asite (as far as we can tell), which suggests that it is no more than a corruption inspired by the opposition with śuddhādhvaviṣaye “in the area of the pure path” earlier in the same sentence. Brunner and Torella’s “correction” would imply that a corruption from asite to ahite has subsequently motivated an early copyist to change kṛṣṇa into kṛcchra, because kṛcchra ‘evil’ and ahita ‘improper’ have overlapping meanings. This sequence of assumptions can be avoided if we accept that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha consciously introduced both the words ahita and kṛcchra.


IId. The first chapter of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha contains two verses that are quoted twice over, but not in identical form.

On p. 5 ll. 1.50–51 it quotes the following proverb (ābhāṇaka):

agnihotraṃ trayo vedās tridaṇḍaṃ bhasmaguṇṭhanam/

buddhipauruṣahīnānāṃ jīviketi bṛhaspatiḥ//

The Agnihotra sacrifice, the three Vedas, the triple stave of the religious ascetic, covering oneself in ashes, these constitute the livelihood of those devoid of intelligence and exertion. This is what Bṛhaspati says.

On p. 13 ll. 1.112–113 it quotes the same verse in this form:

agnihotraṃ trayo vedās tridaṇḍaṃ bhasmaguṇṭhanam/

buddhipauruṣahīnānāṃ jīvikā dhātṛnirmitā//

The Agnihotra sacrifice, the three Vedas, the triple stave of the religious ascetic, covering oneself in ashes, these constitute the livelihood, made by the creator (dhātṛnirmitā), of those devoid of intelligence and exertion.

Bhattacharya (2011, pp. 207–211) argues that the reading ending in … jīviketi bṛhaspatiḥ is original, while the ending … jīvikā dhātṛnirmitā is a modification introduced by the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha in order to avoid mentioning Bṛhaspati twice over in short succession. Indeed, in all parallel instances (ten out of eleven) the reading is jīviketi bṛhaspatiḥ (p. 73)

The same chapter quotes another verse twice over, first on p. 2 ll. 1.17–18:

yāvajjīvaṃ sukhaṃ jīven nāsti mṛtyor agocaraḥ/

bhasmībhūtasya dehasya punar āgamanaṃ kutaḥ//Footnote 15

One should live happily as long as life lasts, for nothing is beyond the reach of death. Why should we believe that a body that has been reduced to ashes will come back into this world?

and then again on p. 14 ll. 1.122–123:

yāvaj jīvet sukhaṃ jīved ṛṇaṃ kṛtvā ghṛtaṃ pibet/

bhasmībhūtasya dehasya punar āgamanaṃ kutaḥ//

One should live happily as long as life lasts; having incurred a debt one should drink ghee. Why should we believe that a body that has been reduced to ashes will come back into this world?

According to Bhattacharya (2011, p. 73), the reading ṛṇaṃ kṛtvā ghṛtaṃ pibet is spurious. It occurs only once (viz., in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha) in the fourteen instances he found in the literature in which the verse is wholly or partly quoted or adapted.

In these two cases, then, we have reason to think that, on purpose or out of carelessness, verses were quoted in two different forms by the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha.


IIe. The chapter on Yoga (pātañjaladarśana) of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha explains a number of Yogasūtras, staying in general close to the Yogabhāṣya. However, when discussing the postures (āsana), it states (in all editions) that there are ten of them, which it enumerates: sthirasukham āsanaṃ padmāsanabhadrāsanavīrāsanasvastikāsanadaṇḍakāsanasopāśrayaparyaṅkakrauñcaniṣadanoṣṭraniṣadanasamasaṃsthānabhedād daśavidham (p. 376, ll. 15.463–464). It appears that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha skipped one, the hastiniṣadana, which is yet included in all surviving editions and manuscripts of the Yogaśāstra under sūtra 2.46 (Maas 2018). The mistake is easily understood, since the Yogabhāṣya does not explicitly state that there are eleven postures, even though it enumerates eleven of them. It seems reasonable to conclude that we are here confronted with a simple mistake by the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha.


IIf. Chapter 6—on the philosophy of the Pāśupatas who follow Nakulīśa—quotes a line that it attributes to Haradattācārya (pp. 162–163, l. 6.17–18):

tad āha haradattācāryaḥ —

jñanaṃ tapo ‘tha nityatvaṃ sthitiḥ śuddhiś ca pañcamam// iti

As stated by Haradattācārya:

Knowledge, asceticism, permanence, stability and purity as fifth.

The quoted line is Gaṇakārikā 6ab,Footnote 16 which however has siddhiś instead of śuddhiś. Hara (1958, pp. 14–15) therefore “corrects” the text of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha. However, the reading śuddhi is shared by all editions of this text and was therefore presumably part of its archetype. One might conjecture that it is the result of a simple scribal error, but this cannot be the case, for the immediately preceding line reads (p. 162, l. 6.16–17):

jñānatapodevanityatvasthitiśuddhibhedāt pañcavidhaḥ

once again with śuddhi. If the autograph had siddhi, a conscious scribal modification must be held responsible for the text as we have it. It is less cumbersome to assume that śuddhi was already part of the autograph, which the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha found in his source-text or introduced himself.


* * *


The examples just considered should discourage us from “correcting” the text of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha too hastily. They suggest that its author did not always blindly copy the source-texts, either willingly or because the manuscripts he used were not identical with those used for their modern editions (or indeed out of carelessness). Either way, it makes sense to understand, and translate, even the quoted passages in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha as we find them in its editions, on condition that those readings are intelligible and make sense. Proceeding otherwise may expose us to serious misunderstandings, as I will now show.

The chapter on the Pratyabhijñādarśana contains, in all editions, the following description of one form of causal efficiency (arthakriyā):

(1) ihāpy aham īśvara ity evaṃbhūtacamatkārasārā parāparasiddhilakṣaṇajīvātmaikatvaśaktivibhūtirūpārthakriy[ā]Footnote 17

Torella (1980, p. 409) considers the compound °lakṣaṇajīvātmaikatvaśaktivibhūtirūpā corrupt, and proposes a different reading, which he finds in the Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī of Abhinavagupta: °lakṣaṇā jīvanmuktivibhūtiyogarūpā. The whole passage now becomes:

(2) ihāpy aham īśvara ity evaṃbhūtacamatkārasārā parāparasiddhilakṣaṇā jīvanmuktivibhūtiyogarūpārthakriyā

Torella (1980, p. 400) translates this:

(2) Quella che ha per essenza la presa-di-coscienza-meravigliantesi (camatkāra), ‘il Signore sono io!’, produce la perfezione assoluta o perfezioni parziali determinando l’ottenimento della liberazione in vita o dei poteri sovranormali.Footnote 18

However, passage (1) makes perfect sense:

(1) Causal efficiency (arthakriyā) has as essence the miraculous realization “I am the Lord” and has the form of supernatural power (vibhūti) that is the power related to the identity of jīva and ātman, characterized by the highest or partial perfection.

This, as pointed out above, is sufficient reason to stick to the reading of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha editions. However, there is more. Torella’s emendation contains the word jīvanmukti “liberation while alive”. This word is nowhere found in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha,Footnote 19 and there are reasons to think that it was avoided on purpose. Claiming liberation while alive for certain members of a school or sect has political implications. It means that that school or sect is superior to others, since it obviously teaches the right path. It seems probable that the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha wanted to avoid such issues—in spite of the fact that his uncle (or at any rate someone close to him) had composed the Jīvanmuktiviveka, a text that does not eschew such a claim. Since I have dealt with this issue elsewhere (Bronkhorst forthcoming), I will say no more about it. Let it be sufficient here to state that if we “correct” the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha in the light of a source-text we run the risk of introducing a notion that its author had taken care to avoid.