110. Nandapandita

Volume I: Part II pp. 915–925

110. Nandapandita

110. Nandapaṇḍita

Nandapaṇḍita was a voluminous writer on dharmaśāstra. An account of his principal works on dharmaśāstra is given below, particularly because most of them are yet unpublisheḍ He was also called Vināyaka as stated in his commentary (named Śuddhi-candrikā) on the Ṣaḍaśiti (also called Āśaucanirnaya) of Āditya of the Kauśika-gotra. Nandapaṇḍita came of the Dharmādhikāri family of Benares and is described as the son of Dharmādhikāri Rāmapaṇḍita. There were several families in Benares famous for their learned works on Dharmaśāstra and other branches such as the Bhaṭṭa family (to which belonged Bhaṭṭanārāyaṇa, Kamalākara and Nīlakaṇṭha), the Dharmādhi- kāri family and the Śeṣa family. This last had Śeṣakṛṣṇa, his son Viśveśvara, whose three pupils viz. Jagannāthapaṇḍita, Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita and Annambhaṭṭa, author of Tarkasaṅgraha, distinguished themselves as great scholars in their own special studieṣ

He composed a commentary called Vidvanmanoharā on the Parāśarasmṛti. He expressly mentions therein that he follows the commentary of Mādhavācārya.¹³⁸¹ This commentary is referred to in his Vaijayantī.¹³⁸²

He also appears to have written a commentary called Pramitākṣarā or Pratītākṣarā on the Mitākṣarā of Vijñāneśvara.¹³⁸³ This commentary was probably not completed, as only fragments are found with his descendantṣ

Nandapaṇḍita also composed a work called Śrāddhakalpalatā, which is referred to in his Śuddhicandrikā¹³⁸⁴ and in the Vaija- yanti. In this work¹ he refers to a city called Sādharana (probably modern Saharanpur) where the Sahagila family ruleḍ He speaks of Simhamalla, Vasāvana, Rūpacandra, Bhūpacandra and Paramānanda as successive members of the dynasty and says that he was urged to write the work by the last of them and that he relies upon the Śrāddhadīpikā of Govindapandita.² At the end of the mṣ of the Vaijayantī in the Deccan College Collection it is said that the Vidvanmanoharā, the Smṛtisindhu and the Śrāddhakalpalatā were the commentaries composed by Nandapaṇḍita.³ But from the contents given in the India Office Catalogue it does not appear that the work was a commentary. It is divided into five stabakas and deals with the usual topics, viz. what is śrāddha, the proper time and place for it, the proper brāhmaṇas, various kinds of śrāddhas &c. The principal authors and works named therein are given below.⁴ The Śrāddha- kalpatā was published in the Chowkhamba S. Series (1935) in 262 pageṣ In Poona Orientalist (vol. 15 pp. 60-64) Dr. S. L. Katre shows that a mṣ of the Śrāddhakalpalatā is dated in Samvat 1641 (i. e. 1584-85 A. D.). The same scholar shows (in I. H. Q. vol. 28 for 1952, pp. 91 ff.) that a mṣ of Śuddhi- candrikā (which mentions the Śrāddhakalpalatā at least five times) was copied in Samvat 1960, Śrāvana-vadi (i. e. in July 1603 A. D.). Therefore Śrāddhakalpalatā must have been composed several years earlier than 1603 A. D.

The Śuddhicandrikā of Nandapaṇḍita on the Ṣaḍaśīti of Ād- ityācārya has been published in the Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series of Benares (1928).⁵ The Śuddhicandrikā, a commentary on the 110. Nandapaṇḍita Śadaśīti or Āśaucanirṇaya of Kauśikāditya, is also one of the works of Nandapaṇḍita. It is referred to in his Vaijayanti.⁶ The Bhadkamkar collection made by Prof. Velankar contains a mṣ of this work and it has recently been published in the Chow-khamba Sanskrit Serieṣ The principal authors and works quoted therein are noted below.⁷

Another work of Nandapaṇḍita is the Smṛtisindhu, which seems to have been an extensive digest of smṛti material. Portions of it have been recovereḍ In the Deccan College Collection there is a mṣ of the Saṃskāra-nirṇayatarangā of the Smṛtisindhu, which, according to a verse at the end, was composed by Nandapaṇḍita at the command of king Harivaṃśa-varman of the Mahendra family and son of king Māṅgo.⁸

It appears that he compiled a summary of the doctrines of his work Smṛtisindhu. That summary was called Tattvamuktā-valī.⁹ It is almost certain that the fragment of the Tattva-muktāvalī noticed in the BBRAS Cat. at p. 217 is a part of this work. That fragment contains 8 verses on upākarma and three on holikā with commentary and the verses are numbered from 557 to 564 and then 607–609. If the above surmise be correct, the work was a large one and contained over 610 verseṣ Two of the verses name Hemādri and Parijāta.¹⁰ A few words may be said there about the edition of Nanda-paṇḍita's commentary Vaijayantī on the Viṣṇusmṛti published (in 1960) at Adyar (in its library series). It is in two volumes containing 1070 pages in all. The text and coṃ are printed in beautiful type at the Vasant Press, the Theosophical Society of Adyar. There is a preface (4 pages), Introduction (pp. ix–xxvii) by Pandit V. Krishnamacharya, also a Bibliography. 100 chapters of the Viṣṇudharmaśāstra, the text of the Smṛti in large and beautiful type, the commentary Vaijayantī in a smaller but clear type, several Indexes, viz. alphabetical index of the sūtras of Viṣṇusmṛti, an Index of the words occurring in the sūtras, an Index of the mantras cited in the Viṣṇusmṛti, an Index of the authors and works cited in the commentary; an Index of the texts cited as authorities in the Vaijayantī (pp. 952–1667); Addenda and Corrigenda (two pages). In this work he refers to a Brāhmaṇa dynasty of the Vasiṣṭha gotra at Vijayapura (Vijayanagara ?) in Karnāṭa country, in which was born Kondapaṇāyaka, whose son was Keśavanāyaka, whose son was Ananta alias Vāvarasa, whose sons were Keśava and Rudra. Keśava, son of Kondapa, seems to have gone to Benares with his sons and grand-sons and made extensive gifts of all kindṣ¹¹ There is a hyper-bolical description of his great gifts (mahādānas including tulā, i. e. weighing against gold or silver). In verses 76–77 of the printed edition of Vaijayantī, Keśavanāyaka enjoined upon Nandapaṇḍita the task of composing a commentary on the Viṣṇusmṛti.¹² In the colophons at the end of the chapters of Viṣṇu, Koṇḍapaṇāyaka is styled Mahārājādhirāja and it is said that Nandapaṇḍita was encouraged in the task by Keśavanāyaka alias Tammananāyaka. At the end of chapter 101, we are told that Keśavanāyaka, Nandapaṇḍita's patron, secured mokṣa by breathing his last on the Maṇikarṇikā in Benareṣ¹³⁹⁷ There are six verses at the end one of which says that in the Kali age there is no one more liberal than Vāvarasa (a son of Keśavanāyaka) and no one more learned than Nandapaṇḍita.¹³⁹⁸ As he wrote on the encouragement of Keśava, the commentary is also styled Keśava- Vaijayantī. Among the authors and works mentioned in this commentary are Devasvāmī, Budhasmṛti, Bhāvadeva, Mādhavā- cārya, Vācaspati, Sarvajña, Subodhinī (coṃ on the Mit.), Hara- datta, Hemādri. In the Vaijayantī he refers to no less than six of his works viz: the Vidvan-manoharā, the Pramitākṣarā, the Śrāddhakalpalatā, the Śuddhicandrikā, the Dattaka-mīmāṁsā (vide note 1382 above). But in the Dattaka-mīmāṁsā itself he refers to his Keśava-Vaijayantī as already composeḍ¹³⁹⁹ There- fore it follows that both works were probably being composed at the same time. The Vaijayantī was held by the British Indian Courts as one of the leading authorities of the Benares School of modern Hindu Law.¹⁴⁰⁰

Nandapaṇḍita, though he generally follows the Mitākṣarā, was not a slavish admirer of Vijñāneśvara. He does not accept the explanation the Mitākṣarā gives of Yāj. II. 17 (sākṣiṣṭbha- yataḥ etc.). Similarly on Viṣṇu 8. 12, 22. 41, 23. 11, 27. 2 he emphatically says that the Mitākṣarā is wrong.¹⁴⁰¹ He prefers the father to the mother as an heir (on Viṣṇu 17. 6–7) and seems to have placed the paternal grandmother as an heir after the mother but before the brother (folio 101 b). He explains sapinḍa relationship in the same way as the Mit.¹³ doeṣ He says that the word ‘bhrātaraḥ’ in Yāj. should be explained as standing for ‘brothers and sisters’ and that in the father’s line, after the brother and brother’s son, the brother’s grandson succeeds and, on failure of the brother’s grandson, the paternal grandfather, his son and grandson are heirs one after another, i. e. in each line three generations succeed and then there is a devolution in favour of the next higher line. This view is opposed to that of the Subodhini and the Smṛticandrikā, which take only the son and grandson of each paternal ancestor. Vide my notes to the Vyavahāramayūkha for fuller details (pp. 253-254). Nanda-paṇḍita stands alone among modern nibandhakāras in having recognised a uterine brother¹⁴ (i. e. the son of the same mother but of a different father) as an heir. It is remarkable that Nandapaṇḍita preferred a person’s predeceased son’s widow (i. e. widowed daughter-in-law) as an heir to that man’s own daughter.¹⁵

The Dattaka-mīmāṁsā is the most famous work of Nanda-paṇḍita. It was translated very early by Sutherland in 1821 A. D. (comprised in Stoke’s Hindu Law Books). In the following the edition of Bharatacandra Śiromaṇi (published in 1885 with his own commentary) has been useḍ In this work he lays down rules as to the person who may adopt, when he may adopt, who can give in adoption, who may be adopted, the motives of adoption, the necessary ceremonies of adoptions, the results of adoptioṇ Among the authors and works qouted or referred to, those mentioned below may be noteḍ¹⁶ The Anandashram Press of Poona brought out (in 1941 A. D.) an edition of the Dattakamimāṁsā with a modern Sanskrit commentary called Mañjarī by Śaṅkara, son of Raṅganātha. From very early days of the British rule in India the Dattakamimāṁsā came to be regarded as the standard work on adoptioṇ In Collector of Madura v. Mootoo Ramalinga¹⁷ the Privy Council says “Again of the Dattakamimāṁsā of Nandapaṇḍita and the Dattakacandrikā of Devannabhaṭṭa, two treatises on the particular subject of adoption, Sir William Macnaghten says that they are respected all over India; but that, when they differ, the doctrine of the latter is adhered to in Bengal and by the southern provinces of Mithilā and Benareṣ” That this estimate is somewhat too strongly put has been said by the Privy Council itself in Bhagwansingh v. Bhagwansingh¹⁸ ‘to call it infallible is too strong an expression and the estimates of Sutherland and of West and Bühler seem nearer the true mark; but it is clear that both works must be accepted as bearing high authority for so long a time that they have become embedded in the general law.’ The Privy Council furhter lays down ‘their Lordships cannot concur with Knox J. in saying that their (of the Dattakamimāṁsā and Dattaka-candrikā) authority is open to examination, explanation, criticism, adoption or rejection like any scientific treatises on European jurisprudence.’¹⁹ Even in those parts of the Bombay Presidency where the Vyavaharamayūkha is a work of paramount authority, the Dattakamimāṁsā has on the subject of adoption been preferred in certain matters to the ` Vyavahāramayūkha. For example, the Bombay High Court, following the Dattakamīmāṁsā, has laid down that among the three higher castes a man cannot adopt his own daughter's, sister's, or mother's sister's soṇ The view of the Vyavahāra-mayūkha, on the contrary, is that he can take these in adop-tioṇ The limits to which Nandapaṇḍita will be followed by the courts are laid down in Ramachandra v. Gopal: ‘The authority of Nandapaṇḍita must be accepted except where it can be shown that he deviates from or adds to the smṛtis or where his version of the law is opposed to such established custom as the Courts recognise’.²⁰

Several views expressed in the Dattakamīmāṁsā have been set at naught in the various provinces by the British Indian Courtṣ Nandapaṇḍita held that a widow could not adopt at all.²¹ Except in Mithilā this view has nowhere been entertained in India and the Courts have held that the Law of Benares, Bengal, Madras and Bombay is different. Nandapaṇḍita put forward the position that the brother's son must be preferred for adoption over any other sagotra or sapiṇḍa.²² This has, however, been treated in all provinces as no more than a mere recommendation and that failure to observe it entails no legal or religious consequences whatever. The expression ‘putra-cchāyā’ in ‘putracchāyāvaham’ occurring in the text of Śaunaka was explained by Nandapaṇḍita to mean ‘similarity to a son born’ and he said that the similarity consisted in the possibility of being begotten by means of niyoga and the like.²³ Suther-land wrongly introduced the word ‘marriage’ after niyoga in his translation and some of the High Courts in India, following this wrong translation, evolved the rule that no one could be adopted whose mother the adopting father could not have legally married in her maiden state.²⁴ But the Bombay High Court has laid down that the rule is restricted to the three Nandapaṇḍita specified cases of the daughter’s son, the sister’s son, and the mother’s sister’s soṇ²⁵ From the text ( brāhmaṇāditraye nāsti bhāgineyaḥ sutaḥ kvacit ), Nandapaṇḍita evolved the curious rule that a widow cannot adopt to her deceased husband her own brother’s soṇ But the Privy Council has refused to follow this dictum on the ground that the gloss of Nandapaṇḍita is an extension not based on the authority of any smṛti and has upheld such an adoptioṇ²⁶

It should be noted that the ‘Hindu Adoption and Main- tenance Act’ ( No. 78 of 1956 ) passed by the Indian Parliament has made far-reaching and radical changes in the Law of Hindu Adoption and section 4 of that Act overrules all texts, rules or interpretations of Hindu Law or customs and usages as part of that law, except in so far as they may have been expressly saved by that Act.

About the personal history of Nandapaṇḍita we do not know much. Mandlik in his Hindu Law ( LXXII, ṇ 3 ) gives what information he could gather from descendants of Nandapaṇḍita living in Benareṣ According to him the founder of the family was Lakṣmīdhara who was a resident of Bidar ( now in the Nizam’s dominions ) and who went to Benareṣ Nandapaṇḍita was the sixth in descent from hiṃ Dr. Jolly visited at Benares Pandit Dhundirāja Dharmādhikārī who was 9th in descent from Nandapaṇḍita ( Tagore Law Lectures, p. 15 ) and Mandlik’s information also was gathered from persons who were 9th in descent from Nandapaṇḍita. Mandlik also gives a detailed genealogical tree. We learn from several works of Nandapaṇḍita and their colophons that he was also named Vināyakapaṇḍita and was the son of Rāmapaṇḍita of Benares who is styled Dharmā- dhikārī. Nandapaṇḍita also is described as Dharmādhikārī in the Saṁskāranirṇaya-taraṅga of the Smṛtisindhu ( vide note 1392 above ). It appears that Nandapaṇḍita was at different times patronised by rich patrons from different parts of India. He composed the Śrāddhakalpalatā for Paramānanda of the Sahagila family of Sādhāraṇa, the Smṛtisindhu for Harivaṃśavarman of the Māhendra family and the Vaijayantī for Keśavanāyaka of Madhurā.

Mandlik notes that Nandapaṇḍita is credited with the author- ship of 13 workṣ Eight works of Nandapaṇḍita have been named and described above. Mandlik names six of these. Besides these he is said to have written Navarātra-pradīpa which has been published in the Princess of Wales Sarasvatī Bhavana Series, three sections of a work named Harivaṃśavilāsa (viz. dānakautuka, āhnika- kautuka and saṃskārakautuka ), Bālabhūṣa, Tīrthakalpalatā, Kālanirṇayakautuka, Kāśīprakāśa, Mādhavananda. But we saw above (note 1393 ) that the Bālabhūṣa is only a commentary on the Tattvamuktāvalī (probably composed by another writer ). The Kāśīprakāśa was certainly composed by Nandapaṇḍita as he is described in the India Office mṣ to have been the son of Rāmapaṇḍita.²⁷ That work was composed at the order of one Sarvabhaṭṭa, who was the guru of Kṛṣṇanāyaka of Madhurā. In Mitra's Notices two works, Jyotihṣśāstrasamuccaya and Smārta- samuccaya, are described as composed by Nandapaṇḍita, son of Devaśarman and Vṛndā.²⁸ The latter seems to have been an extensive work and dealt with tithinirṇaya, intercalary month, marriage, sapiṇḍa relationship, the saṃskāras, daily observances, antyeṣṭi (funeral rites ), āśauca, śuddhi, śrāddha, prāyaścitta, dāyabhāga and vyavahāra. Though the name of the father, Deva- śarman, creates suspicion in one's mind, both these works must be regarded as the works of Nandapaṇḍita, son of Rāmapaṇḍita, as in the Smārtasamuccaya the author refers his readers to his Dattaka-mīmāṃsā for the subject of adoptioṇ It is not unlikely that just as Nandapaṇḍita had the alias Vināyaka, his father Rāmapaṇḍita was also called Devaśarmaṇ

Mandlik ( Hindu Law LXXXII, ṇ 3 ) notes that on a copy of the Mādhavānanda-kāvya composed by Nanda the year saṃvat 1655 (1599 A. D.) is given, probably in Nandapaṇḍita's own handwriting. The Vaijayantī was one of Nandapaṇḍita's latest workṣ That work, we are told, was composed at Kāśī in Vikrama saṃvat 1679 ( Nov. 1623 ) on the Full moon of Kārtika when the sun was in Scorpion and the moon in Tauruṣ²⁹ Therefore the literary activity of Nandapaṇḍita must be placed between 1580 and 1630 A. D. Mandlik in his Hindu Law (p. 281) says that the Vaijayantī of Nandapaṇḍita is referred to in the Vyavahāramayūkha of Nīlakaṇṭha. I have not been able to find the reference in the latter work.