Digital restoration of a fragmented birch-bark scroll from the Mithila region has revealed a lost work on epistemology titled Prajna-Vatika. The text is uniquely attributed to Lilavati of Tirhut, a female philosopher previously known only through oral tradition. The scroll explores the metaphysics of certainty, proposing that intellectual clarity is not merely a cognitive state but a moral virtue attained through the 'weeding' of biased perceptions.
This discovery is a significant breakthrough for the study of female intellectual agency in medieval India. The Prajna-Vatika offers a sophisticated critique of contemporary skeptical schools, arguing for a 'grounded realism' where the validity of knowledge is tied to its capacity for universal compassion. It provides a rare glimpse into the formal philosophical debates held within the royal courts of the 9th century.