89. Kullūkabhatta
Volume I: Part II pp. 756–759
A famous commentator of Manusmṛti - he drew largely upon Medhātithi's bhāṣya and Govindarāja - Sir William Jones on Kullūka - authors and works quoted by him - personal history - he wrote Smṛtiviveka, of which Aśaucasāgara, Śrāddhasāgara and Vi- vādasāgara were parts - contents of Śrāddhasāgara - this is full of Pūrvamīmāṁsā discussions - date of Kullūka uncertain - flourished between 1150-1300 A. D.
— Synopsis by P.V. Kane, from History of Dharmaśāstra
89. Kullūkabhatta
89. Kullūkabhaṭṭa
Kullūka's commentary on the Manusmṛti styled the Man- varthamuktāvalī is the most famous of all commentaries on Manu. It has been printed several timeṣ In the following the Nirṇayasāgara edition of 1909 has been relied upoṇ Kullūka's commentary is concise and lucid and his remarks are always to the point. He avoids all unnecessary discussions and is never prolix. He was not however original. He drew upon the com- mentaries of Medhātithi and Govindarāja and incorporated a great deal from them into his own work without acknowledgment. For example, on Manu XI. 95 he simply summarises the remarks1126 of Govindarāja and cites only one out of the several quotations that are found in Govindarāja's Manu-ṭīkā. He severely criticizes both Medhātithi and Govindarāja, particularly the latter. He frequently pours ridicule on the latter (vide note 903* above). At the end of his commentary he says1127 that Medhātithi's skill lay in expounding what texts were authorita- tive and of substance and what were not so. Govindarāja in concise words explained the hidden meaning of the brief text ( of Manu ), while Dharaṇīdhara had his own method of expla- nation which was independent of previous tradition; and there- fore he undertook to write a commentary that would clearly set forth the real meaning of Manu. He was very proud of his achievement and says that neither Medhātithi nor Govindarāja nor other commentators explained in the way he did and that explanatory material like his would be difficult to find else- 89. Kullūkabhaṭṭa where.1 He not only criticizes Govindarāja severely but also points out the mistakes of Medhātithi (as on Manu I. 71 and 103, II. 101 ).2 He notices the explanations of Govindarāja hundreds of times, discusses various readings and his commentary deserves to a considerable extent the eulogy pronounced by Sir William Jones3 “At length appeared Cullūca Bhatta, who, after a painful course of study and the collation of numerous manuscripts, produced a work of which it may perhaps be said very truly that it is the shortest yet the most luminous, the least ostentatious yet the most learned, the deepest yet the most agreeable, commentary ever composed on any author, ancient or moderṇ”
Among the authors and works quoted by him (besides the usual smṛtis ) are the following :— Garga (on II. 6), Govindarāja, Dharaṇīdhara, Bhāskara (bhāṣyakāra of the Vedāntasūtras, on I. 8 and 15), Bhojadeva (on VIII. 184), Medhātithi, Vāmana (author of the Kāśikā), Bhaṭṭavārtika-kṛt (on XII. 106), Viśvarūpa (the commentator of Yājñavalkya, on II. 189 and V. 68). The Viśvarūpa that he quotes on Manu V. 215 is the lexicographer and not the jurist as Aufrecht (in his great catalogue ) appears to holḍ
He gives us a little information about himself in the introductory verse.4 He came of a Vārendra Brāhmaṇa family of Bengal (Gauda) residing in Nandana and was the son of Bhaṭṭa Divākara. He wrote his commentary in Kāśī in the company of Panditṣ On Manu VI. 14 he mentions the names of certain vegetables that were current in Malwa and among the Vahīkaṣ5 It appears that Kullūka also composed a digest called Smṛtisāgara. A Mṣ of a portion of it called Śrāddhasāgara exists in the Calcutta Sanskrit College ( Cat. vol. II. p. 405, No. 446 ). In this his Āśaucasāgara and Vivādāsāgara are referred to. I secured a transcript of the mṣ of the Śrāddhasāgara in the Calcutta Sanskrit College through the kindness of the Principal. The Śrāddhasāgara deals with the following subjects :— definition of śrāddha; whether it is of the nature of yāga, dāna and homa; various kinds of śrāddhas such as nitya, naimittika &c. ; the proper and improper places for śrāddha; the proper times for śrāddha; Aṣṭakā-śrāddha; śūdras can perform aṣṭakā and other śrāddhas; intercalary month; who are paṅkti-pāvana brāhmaṇas; meaning of nimantraṇa and āmantraṇa; the number of brāhmaṇas to be invited; the darbhas; śrāddhadevatās; the sacred thread etc. The Śrāddhasāgara is full of Pūrvamīmāṁsā discussionṣ The author says that he wrote it and the other two works ( Vivādāsāgara and Āśaucasāgara ) at the order of his father. He quotes profusely from the Mahābhārata, the Mahāpurāṇas and Upapurāṇas and from the dharmasūtras and metrical smṛtis He names the Kalpataru oftener than any other nibandhakāra. The other authors and works named are : Bhojadeva, Halāyudha ( probably the author of Prakāśa on the Śrāddhakalpasūtra of Kātyāyana ), Jikana, Kāmadhenu, Medhātithi, Śaṅkhadhara. In one place we have a reference to Prabhākara and Kamalākara-bhaṭṭa ( on Kāla and Kāma being devatās ) and in another place to Gauḍa-Maithila-Mayūkha-bhaṭṭaḥ ( which are probably marginal notes creeping into the mṣ or refer to authors other than the well-known ones ). He refers to the opinion of his own guru in opposition to that of the Kalpataru. The date of Kullūka cannot be settled with certainty. Bühler held that he lived probably in the 15th century ( S. B. E. vol. XXV. p. cxxxi ). Ghose ( Hindu Law, 3rd edition p. xvi ) and M. M. Chakravarti ( JASB 1915, p. 345 ) are of the same opinioṇ In I. L. R. 48 Cal. 643 Sir Asutosh Mukerji places Kullūka in the 15th century ( at p. 688 ). As Kullūka mentions Bhojadeva, Govindarāja, Kalpataru and Halāyudha he is certainly later than about 1200 A. D. Raghunandana6 several times mentions Kullūkabhaṭṭa (and sometimes criticizes him also) ; vide (vol. I) Śrāddha 225 ( Cri. on Manu III. 257), 226, Āhnika 353, 454; Prāyaścitta 472, 530; Saṁskāra 893, 894, 903 ; ( vol. II ) Udavāha p. 144. The Danda-viveka of Vardhamāna quotes Kullūka about fifty times and oftener than any other work or author except Ratnakara. Śrīnātha's coṃ on the dāyabhāga refutes the view of Kullūka. The śrāddha-kriyā-kaumudī of Govindānanda refers to Kullūka's explanation of the word ‘ākāṅkṣan’ as ‘Vikṣamānaḥ’ in Manu III. 258. The Rājanīti-ratnākara of Cāṇḍeśvara quotes Kullūka's explanation of Kullūka.7 Therefore Kullūka must have flourished before 1300 A. D. Kullūka in his by no means small work nowhere refers to the Dāyabhāga, though he himself came of a Bengal family. This silence is explicable in two wayṣ As we have seen, Kullūka wrote in Kāśī and not in Bengal. There- fore if he flourished not long after Jīmūtavāhana, it is quite natural that writing in Benaras he had not heard of the Dāya- bhāga or read it. It has been shown above that Jīmūtavāhana probably wrote about 1100-1150 A. D. Therefore Kullūka flourished between 1150 and 1300 A. D. and probably wrote about 1250 A. D. M. M. Chakravarti is not sure as to how early Kullūka flourished but opines that he could not have flourished later than the first quarter of the 15th century (JASB 1915, p. 345 ṇ 1).