Terminus ad quem for Dates of Nandapandita’s Sraddhakalpalata and Suddhicandriki—Samvat 1660=1603 A.C.

Summary

Seeking to date two dharmaśāstra treatises of Nandapandita—the Śrāddhakalpalatā and Suddhicandrīkā—this article assembles a wide range of evidence. It reviews quotations of Nandapandita’s works in later commentaries, noting that the Kāśikāvivaraṇa and Kaustubhamanjari cite him extensively. The author then examines an old manuscript of the Suddhicandrīkā acquired by the Scindia Oriental Institute; its handwriting, marginalia and colophon reveal that it was copied in the early seventeenth century and that earlier owners wrote notes referencing a Purusottamaśarman. Cross‑references to a commentary composed in Śaka 1670 show that Nandapandita’s text was already well established by that time. Combining these data with the fact that P.V. Kane places other works of Nandapandita between 1595 and 1620, the article concludes that both the Śrāddhakalpalatā and the Suddhicandrīkā must have been written before A.D. 1603 (Samvat 1660). This ‘terminus ad quem’ anchors the author and his texts securely in the late sixteenth century. The study emphasises the importance of manuscript colophons, intertextual references and palaeographic analysis for dating legal literature.