116. Bālakrishna or Bālambhatta
Volume I: Part II pp. 968–974
The Lakṣmīvyākhyāna, more commonly known as Bālambhaṭṭi, stands as a significant commentary on the Mitākṣarā of Vijñāneśvara, distinguished by the array of works and authors it quotes. Notably, Bālambhaṭṭi espouses latitudinarian views concerning the rights of women, a characteristic that has shaped its estimate in numerous judicial decisions. The authorship of Bālambhaṭṭi presents somewhat of an enigma. While introductory verses suggest an authoress named Lakṣmīdevī, the real author is identified as Bālakṛṣṇa, son of Vaidyanātha Pāyaguṇḍa, who was himself a pupil of Nāgojibhaṭṭa. Bālakṛṣṇa’s other contributions to scholarship include the Upākṛtatattva and Dharmaśāstrasaṁgraha. It is important to note that Vaidyanātha, the commentator on Alaṁkāra works, is a distinct personality from Vaidyanātha Pāyaguṇḍa, the father of Bālambhaṭṭa. This scholarly figure flourished between 1730 and 1820 A.D.
— Synopsis by P.V. Kane, from History of Dharmaśāstra
116. Bālakrishna or Bālambhatta
116. Bālakṛṣṇa or Bālambhaṭṭa The Lakṣmīvyākhyāna alias the Bālambhaṭṭī is a commentary on the Mitākṣarā of Vijñāneśvara, ascribed to a lady named Lakṣmīdevī. The commentary is a voluminous one and displays uneven workmanship. The commentary on the ācāra section of the Mitākṣarā is the most learned part of the whole book and is almost an independent work. The late Mr. J. R. Gharpure published all the three parts on ācāra (pp. 626), Vyavahāra (pp. 402) and Prāyaścitta (pp. 220). The portion on Prāyaścitta is very meagre as compared with the portion of the coṃ on Ācāra and Vyavahāra. The commentary on the Prāyaścitta portion of the Mitākṣarā covers in Mr. Gharpure's edition (published in 1924) 220 pages, while the Bālambhaṭṭī on the ācāra and Vyavahāra sections in the same series is very exhaustive, covering respectively pp. 626 and pp. 402.
In the Bālambhaṭṭī the author quotes by name a host of writers and workṣ As the Bālambhaṭṭī is almost the latest work of Dharmaśāstra worth special mention in this work, no useful chronological purpose will be served by giving the names of all such writers and workṣ It may, however, be stated that he names the Nirṇayasindhu, the Vīramitrodaya, the Mayūkhas of Nīlakaṇṭha, the Saṁskārakaustubha, Siddheśvarabhaṭṭa the nephew of Nīlakaṇṭha, Khaṇḍadeva the author of Bhaṭṭadīpikā on the Mīmāṁsāsūtra, the Kāyasthadharmapradīpa of Gagābhaṭṭa and the author's father's commentary thereoṇ
Of the Bālambhaṭṭī ascribed to Lakṣmīdevī, West and Bühler say ‘she generally advocates latitudinarian views and gives the widest interpretation possible to every term of Yājñavalkya. Her opinions are held in comparatively small esteem and are hardly ever brought forward by the śāstris, if unsupported by other authorities’.1509 For example, in the Bālambhaṭṭī the word ‘bhrātaraḥ’, occurring in Yājñavalkya's verses laying down the order of succession to a man dying without male issue, is interpreted as including sisters and the author says that sisters succeed immediately after brotherṣ1510 This dictum of Balam- bhaṭṭa taken along with the words of the Vyavahāramayukha seems to have influenced their Lordships of the Privy Council in _Vinayak v. Lakshmibai_ on the question of the rights of the sister as an heir.1511 In _Sakharam v. Sitabai_1512 Sir Michael Westropp C. J. went so far as to say on the construction of the term ‘brethren’ in the Mitākṣarā as including sisters, which construction was adopted in that case (in _Vinayak v. Lakshmibai_) both by the Supreme Court and the Privy Council, “we must treat the Mitākṣarā also as preferring sisters to half brothers, whom it brings in after brotherṣ” But this was a mere _obiter dictum_, since the case in which these observations were made was governed by the law of the Vyavahāramayūkha which expressly prefers full sisters to half brotherṣ It has been laid down in several cases in Bombay1513 that Bālambhaṭṭa’s doctrine that the word ‘brothers’ includes ‘sisters’ has not been accepted in that Presidency and that Sir Michael Westropp was under a misapprehension as to the exact drift of the Bālambhaṭṭī which nowhere says that the term ‘brothers’ excludes half brothers and which does not bring in the full sister before the half brother, but expressly says that the full brother inherits first, then the half brother and then comes the sister. The Bālambhaṭṭī not only brings in the sisters after full and half brothers, but places the sons and daughters of sisters after the sons and daughters of brother’s, full or half. This is in direct conflict with the order of succession expressly mentioned by the Mitākṣarā and the Bombay High Court has refused to give the sister’s son the place which the Bālambhaṭṭī assigns to him and treats him as a mere _bandhu_.1514 The Bālambhaṭṭī is regarded as of little authority in the Mitākṣarā in the Bombay Presidency and its interpretations cannot be accepted without due caution and examinatioṇ1515 Even in the Benāres1516 School where the Bālam- bhaṭṭī has been accepted as one of the leading authorities, the authority of Bālamabhaṭṭa has been held to be inferior to that of Nandapaṇḍita in matters of adoption, it being held that a widow cannot adopt in the Benāres School without express authority from her husband ( while Bālamabhaṭṭa holds that she can adopt without such authority ). Similarly it has been held that the Bālamabhaṭṭī cannot prevail over the views of the Viramitrodaya and that a daughter-in-law is not in the line of heirs at all though the Bālamabhaṭṭī says that she is so.1
The author of the Bālamabhaṭṭī is somewhat of an enigma. Such women as Sīlā, Vijjā, Avanti-sundarī have been worshippers at the shrine of the Muse of Poetry. A lady has been associated with the composition of a work on Mathematics, viz. the Līlāvatī. Inspiration for several works on Dharmaśāstra was, we know, derived from queens and princesses, as in the case of the Vivādacandra compiled by Queen Lakṣmīdevī through Misaru-miśra, the Dānavākyāvali compiled by Mahādevī Dhiramati of Mithilā through Vidyāpati, the Dvaitanirṇaya composed by Vācaspati at the bidding of queen Jayā, wife of king Bhaira-vendra. It gives one great pleasure to contemplate that at least one work on Dharmaśāstra, the Bālamabhaṭṭī, is claimed by a lady as her owṇ But this pleasure receives a rude shock if the question of the authorship of the Bālamabhaṭṭī is dispassionately considereḍ The introductory verses no doubt start by saying that Lakṣmī, the wife of Vaidyanātha Payagunda, and the daughter of Mahādeva of the Mudgala gotra and surnamed Kheradā composed the work, her maiden name being Umā.2 The colophon at the end of the ācāra portion says that the work was composed by Lakṣmī, the daughter of Mahādeva and Umā, the wife of Vaidyanātha Payagunda and the mother of Bāla- ##116. Bālakṛṣṇa or Bālambhaṭṭa kṛṣṇa.3 At the end of the vyavahāra section in the printed editions we have the words ‘mother of Lālakṛṣṇa’ but this is obviously a misreading of the msṣ or a mistake of the copyistṣ The pretence that the work was composed by a lady is made extremely plausible by the frantic efforts made in it for the rights of women in matters of inheritance. But this pretence is not kept up in the body of the work at all. In several places the author of the Bālambhaṭṭī refers to the Mañjūṣā and other works of his guru and to works of his father.4 We know that Vaidyanātha Pāyaguṇḍa was a pupil of Nāgojibhaṭṭa,5 who composed several Mañjūṣās (on grammar) and a work on prāyaścitta. Therefore it follows either that the Bālambhaṭṭī was composed by Vaidyanātha himself and ascribed to his wife or that the work was composed by Bālakṛṣṇa alias Bālambhaṭṭa, son of Vaidyanātha, and was ascribed to his mother. Nāgojibhaṭṭa who certainly attained a very advanced age was the guru of Vaidyanātha as well as of the latter's son Bālakṛṣṇa. That Bālambhaṭṭa Pāyaguṇḍa was a learned man like his father Vaidyanātha follows from several circumstanceṣ He wrote a work called Upakṛtitattva.6 Gopala alias Manudeva, in his commentary called Laghubhūṣaṇakānti on the Vaiyakara- nabhūṣaṇasāra, styles Bālabhaṭṭa Pāyaguṇḍa his guru.7 Looking to the colophons where Lakṣmī is referred to as the mother of Bālakṛṣṇa and to the fact that the work is known as Bālambhaṭṭī, we must conclude that it was composed by Bālambhaṭṭa and not by his father Vaidyanātha. What motive impelled Bālambhaṭṭa to publish the work in the name of his mother it is difficult to say. Tradition says that he did so to console Lakṣmīdevī in her bereavement on the death of a chilḍ Vaidyanātha composed several commentaries on grammatical works such as on the Mahābhāṣyapradīpodyota of Nāgojibhaṭṭa, on the Paribhāṣenduśekhara (coṃ called Kāśikā and Gadā), on the Vaiyākaraṇa-siddhāntamañjūṣā (coṃ called kāla), on the Laghuśabdenduśekhara (coṃ Cidasthimālā), on the Laghuśabdaratna (coṃ Bhāvaprakāśā). Mr. Govinda Das (p. 27 in Mr. Gharpures's edition of ācāra portion) says that these works were really composed by Bālambhaṭṭa and ascribed to his father. In these grammatical works the names of Vaidyanātha's parents are given as Mahādeva and Veṇī.
The I. O. cat. (pp. 458-59, No. 1507) notices an incomplete work called Dharmaśāstrasaṅgraha compiled by Bālaśarman Pāyaguṇḍa, son of Vaidyanātha and Lakṣmī and patronised8 by Colebrooke. The work dealt with topics of civil law, viz. definition of vyavahāra, sabhā, the judge, the sabhyas, the relative strength of smṛtis etc., return of debts etc. It breaks off at folio 79. On the mṣ there is a note in Colebrooke's own hand (which is not complimentary to the honesty of Bālaśarman- man) dated 1st May 1800; “fresh sheets were received from Bālasarma Pāyagunda on this date. This is little else but the Viramitrodaya reviseḍ As it is a scarce book and very little known Bālasarma and his pupil Manudeva did not suspect, I could detect the plagiarisṃ”
The foregoing shows that Bālakṛṣṇa Pāyagunda was a Deccani brāhmaṇa, that his father and mother were Vaidya- nātha and Lakṣmī, that his maternal grandfather was Mahādeva, also a Deccani brāhmaṇa surnamed Kheradā, that he was the pupil of Nāgojibhaṭṭa and that he was a pandit of Colebrooke. Mr. Govinda Das is not right when he identifies (p. 27) Vaidya- nātha the commentator of several grammatical works of Nāgo- jibhaṭṭa with Vaidyanātha the author of several commentaries on Alaṅkāra works (such as the Udāharanacandrikā on Kāvyaprakāśa and the Prabhā on the Kāvyapradīpa). The reasons are two. Vaidyanātha, author of the Udāharanacandrikā, was the son of Rāmabhaṭṭa, son of Vitthala Tatsat, while Vaidya- nātha the grammarian was a son of Mahādeva and Veṇī. Besides the Udāharanacandrikā was composed9 in samvat 1740 Kārtika śuddha 8, Wednesday (i. e. 17th October 1683). We saw above that Vaidyanātha Pāyagunda was a pupil of Nāgoji, who flouri- shed towards the end of 17th and the first half of the 18th century. If Vaidyanātha, the writer on poetics, were the same as the commentator of Nāgoji, he could not have composed a work on poetics so early as 1683 A. D. Dr. Belvalkar (Systems of Sanskrit Grammar p. 60) says ‘Lakṣmīdevī, the wife of king Candrasimha of Mithilā, was probably his patro- ness in whose honour he is reported to have composed a commentary on the Vyavahārakāṇḍa of the Mitākṣarā.’ This throws to the winds all chronology. We saw above (pp. 399 and 404) that the Mithilā princess Lakṣmī or Lachimādevī flourished in the first half of the 15th century, while the Bālambhaṭṭī quoting, as it does, writers and works like Gāgā- bhaṭṭa and the Kaustubha could not have been composed before 1700 A. D.
Mr. Govinda Das says that a mṣ of the ācārakāṇḍa of the Bālabhaṭṭī in the Benares palace library is dated samvat 1831 (i. e. 1774–75 A. D.). The I. O. cat. (pp. 458–459) notices that Bālabhaṭṭa was about 80 years old when Colebrooke entrusted the Dharmaśāstrasaṁgraha to him about 1800 A. D. Besides both Bālabhaṭṭa and his father Vaidyanātha were the pupils of Nāgojībhaṭṭa. The mṣ of the Upākṛtitattva ( Stein's Jammu cat. p. 302 ) is dated samvat 1848 i. e. 1791–92 A. D. and the mṣ of the Laghubhūṣaṇakānti of Bālabhaṭṭa’s pupil is dated samvat 1856 ( i. e. 1799–1800 A. D. ). Hence is follows that Bālabhaṭṭa must have flourished between 1730 and 1820 A. D. Mr. Govinda Das says that Bālabhaṭṭa died at the age of 90 and gives his dates as 1740 to 1830 A. D. (p. 29 of Mr. Gharpure’s ācāra section of Bālabhaṭṭī at the end ).