appears from the Vayu purana that he was born in Prabhasa near Dvaraka, and was the disciple of Somas’arma.  The time of Pras’astapada who wrote a bha@sya (commentary) of the Vais’e@sika sutras cannot also unfortunately be ascertained.  The peculiarity of Pras’astapada’s bha@sya is this that unlike other bha@syas (which first give brief explanations of the text of the sutras and then continue to elaborate independent explanations by explaining the first brief comments), it does not follow the sutras but is an independent dissertation based on their main contents [Footnote ref 1].  There were two other bha@syas on the Vais’e@sika sutras, namely Rava@na-bha@sya and Bharadvaja-v@rtti, but these are now probably lost.  References to the former are found in Kira@navalibhaskara of Padmanabha Mis’ra and also in Ratnaprabha 2. 2.  II.  Four commentaries were written on this bha@sya, namely Vyomavati by Vyomas’ekharacarya, Nyayakandali by S’ridhara, Kira@navali by Udayana (984 A.D.) and Lilavati S’rivatsacarya.  In addition to these Jagadis’a Bha@t@tacarya of Navadvipa and S’a@nkara Mis’ra wrote two other commentaries on the Pras’astapada-bhasya, namely Bhasyasukti and Ka@nada-rahasya.  S’a@nkara Mis’ra (1425 A.D.) also wrote a commentary on the Vais’e@sika sutras called the Upaskara.  Of these Nyaya-kandali of S’ridhara on account of its simplicity of style and elaborate nature of exposition is probably the best for a modern student of Vais’e@sika.  Its author was a native of the village of Bhuris@r@s@ti in Bengal (Ra@dha).  His father’s name was Baladeva and mother’s name was Acchoka and he wrote his work in 913 S’aka era (990 A.D.) as he himself writes at the end of his work.

The Nyaya sutra was written by Ak@sapada or Gautama, and the earliest commentary on it written by Vatsyayana is known as the Vatsyayana-bha@sya.  The date of Vatsyayana has not

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[Footnote 1:  The bha@sya of Pras’astapada can hardly he called a bha@sya (elaborate commentary).  He himself makes no such claim and calls his work a compendium of the properties of the categories (Padarthadharmasa@mgraha).  He takes the categories of dravya, gu@na, karma, samanya, vis’e@sa and samavaya in order and without raising any discussions plainly narrates what he has got to say on them.  Some of the doctrines which are important in later Nyaya-Vais’e@sika discussions, such as the doctrine of creation and dissolution, doctrine of number, the theory that the number of atoms contributes to the atomic measure of the molecules, the doctrine of pilupaka in connection with the transformation of colours by heat occur in his narration for the first time as the Vais’e@sika sutras are silent on these points.  It is difficult to ascertain his date definitely; he is the earliest writer on Vais’e@sika available to us after Ka@nada and it is not improbable that he lived in the 5th or 6th century A.D.]