Mahāmahopadhyaya Citradhara belonged to the galaxy of Maithila Pandits who distinguished themselves in several branches of Sanskrit literature and especially in Nyaya. He belonged to the 18th century A. D. and his pupil Mm. Sacala refers to him as Sarvajña. Two of his works which have been brought to light recently are the Viratarangini and the Sringārasāriņi.
The Srinagarasarini belongs to the class of works in Alañkāra Sastra which deal at length with the Śrīgāra Rasa. Citradhara is the first to turn his attention to a Rasa other than Srngāra and to give us in his Vīratarangiņi a text dealing exclusively with the Vira Rasa. Two other poetic pieces of his, the Rajastutipadya and the Vinayakastava, are cited by him in his last mentioned work.
What is offered in the following pages is a fifth work of Citradhara, in the field of Nyaya. The Pramānapramoda, as this work is called, had been previously mentioned but this is the first time it is brought into print.
The Pramanapramoda is a short treatise on Nyaya Theism. After a preliminary section on the sources of the knowledge about God, Śruti and Smrti, Citradhara cites the well-known Kärikā from Udayanācārya's Nyāyakusumānjali (V. 1) on the nine proofs for the existence of God, Kāryāyo-janadhrtyādeh etc. In the course of the elucidation of the arguments set forth by Udayana in the above mentioned Kärikā, the objections of the anti-theists are also posed and answered.
The mangala-Sloka of the text describing the Upanisad as the bashful Mugdhā Nāyikā, with Lord as the Nayaka, and the working in of the elements of Sabdabodha through Ślesa, shows the skill of the author who unites in himself the poet and the Naiyāyika. The edition carries the gloss of Duḥkhamocana Jha on the text.
1,2 Editions Dr. Trilokanatha Jha, Darbhanga, 1965.
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