Is Rāvaṇa the Universal Emperor? Prabhācandra’s Semantic Perspective

Abstract In this paper, I investigate how the Jain doctrine of perspectives ( naya-vāda ) is introduced in the Prameya-kamala-mārtaṇḍa (PKM), The sun [that opens] the lotus of the knowable , an eleventh century treatise of epistemology written by the Digambara Jain author Prabhācandra. I focus on the semantic perspective ( śabda-naya ) to show how Prabhācandra links the systematic epistemological tradition emerging with Akalaṅka and continued by Vidyānandin to the long-existing Jain tradition of exegesis notably summarised in the Tattvârtha-sūtra (TS), That Which Is , and further developed in its commentaries.