श्रीकर भाष्यम: The Srikara Bhashya-Being The Virasaiva Commentary on The Vedanta-Sutras (Set of 2 Volumes)

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Preface THOUGH the existence of Sepatipanditacharya's Bhashya on, the Vedanta-faras of Badaraya.na has been long known, it has not so far been available in print. An incomplete Telugu edition was published many years ago but this is the first time the whole text is offered in the Devanagari script. The circumstances under which this edition has been undertaken have been set out at some length in the Introduction that follows and it is needless, therefore, .to say anything further on that head here, except to state that it is entirely due to the public spirit and liberality evinced by the Mysore Lingayet Education Fund Association that it has at all been possible.

The publication of a work of this kind, a well-known commentary on the Manta-Sutras, raises the question whether there is any utility in making ancient works of this kind available to the general public. The criticism has been offered suggesting that there are systems of philosophy which though they have not yet passed away, still " drag on their barren life, a fixed monotony of centuries " and the specific instances offered are " the schools of Brahmans and Buddhists and Confucians, who have drained off the life-giving words' of their ancient masters into labyrinthine canals and stagnant pools. There in the over teemed East is the limbo of unchangeable systems preserved from the fertilizing breath of change by a universal inertia. "1 That the East has been prolific in producing systems of thought may be admitted, but the suggestion that the systems have proved "stagnant" or have been overtaken by inertia" cannot, perhaps, be easily demonstrated. Faint echoes of the criticism above refer-red to have been heard now and again, repeated or reflected, in the remark that commentators in India have been content to build up their own systems of thought, profound though 2 Presidential Addresses at the Indian Philosophical Congress, 1930. See in this connection Das Gupta, History of Indian Philosophy, and I. 63. A similar charge of sterility can be preferred against contemporary Western philosophy. "The scoffer may pretend," remarks Professor Wolf, after offering an account of recent and contemporary philosophy," that all these philosophies are little more than the reminiscences, of the thought of past ages. He may, take to pieces all these philosophical tapestries (from Haeckel to Smuts, ranging from 1834 to 1934) and show that they are mainly a patch-work of scraps derived from Heraclitus or Parmenides, Plato or Aristotle, Descartes or Spinoza, Locke or Leibniz, Kant or Hegel, Schelling or Schopenhauer. And he may reiterate the oft-repeated charge that there is no progress in philosophy. Such disparagement, however, would be unwarranted, even if we admit some of the points on which it professes to be based. After all, the whole history of civilization is so short that it has been described as a provincial episode when measured in terms of terrestrial time, to say nothing of cosmic Untie. And of this provincial episode ', the whole history of philosophy is but a single aspect, which only emerged about twenty-five centuries ago and has been• more or less smothered more than half the time. Moreover, the problems of philosophy are peculiarly difficult to answer in a manner that may command general consent.

For they do not lend themselves to the kind of empirical verification which secures something like general agreement in the sciences. In fact, as soon as any group of problems becomes amenable to empire. cal verification, it forsakes its parental philosophic home, and sets up as a separate science. In this way, philosophy always remains the limbo of 'highly speculative questions, which it is very difficult to answer satisfactorily, but which most intelligent persons find it equally difficult to suppress. And since times do, change and, we change with them, each age needs at least a re-statement of old problems and old solutions in terms best adapted to its own habits of thought or speech. An excessive straining after originality, or the appearance of originality, may do more harm than good. A knowledge of the history of one's subject is probably a universal requisite, but especially so in the case of philosophy. For of philosophy it is particularly true that all history is contemporary history." (A. Wolf in An Outline on Modern Knowledge, Chapter XIII, on Recent and Contemporary Philosophy, 589.) What Professor Wolf says in regard to modern Western philosophy may, if it's is seems verbal, be said of Indian philosophy.

they are, "only as appendages to the Vedas and Upanishads". Remarks like these miss the main point that the Vedas and Upanishads enshrine philosophical thoughts far too fecund to be allowed to rust away. They simply refuse to die. Philosophy is yet philosophy whether it is found in the Vedas or in the Upanishads or even in the mathematical formulae in which Spinoza, of all modern philosophers, set it. Philosophy, whether in the East or in the West, has emerged from religion as often as it has entangled itself in its meshes, and the intermingling is not to be regretted if it has helped in the elucidation of truth.

Introduction In a paper submitted to the Indian Oriental Congress, held at Allahabad in November 1926, I gave a short but comprehensive account of this little known but from several points of view important commentary on the Brahmasfanzs of Badarayana by Sripati Panditacharya, a Virasaiva teacher of note. What was stated in it was the result of a cursory examination of the work and is, it is needless to add, entirely superseded by what is mentioned in this Introduction after a closer study of it.

A brief statement of the circumstances under which a critical edition of this work is being issued now, may not, in the first instance, prove uninteresting to the reader. The existence of a commentary on the Beia'ezrayana Sutras under the name Srikanz Bizeishya, by one Sripati Panditacharya has been well known for many years, but no attempt has so far been made to critically examine its contents or to evaluate its position as a standard commentary.

MSS. of the Work. An incomplete edition of the text of the commentary in the Telugu script was published in the cyclic year Vijay, corresponding to 1893, at the Sri Lakshmi Vilasa Press, situated in Tirumalgiri Street, Secunderabad, and owned by one Nyalapalli Ramaiya. The MS. of the work was, it would appear, first critically examined for publication by one Coiling Sastri of the family of Vemanaradliya. After further re-examination by one Mallikarjuna Sastri, son of Nandisvara Sastri and grandson of Basavesvara Sastri, who is spoken of as the moon born in the ocean of the family of Sripati Panditaradhya, its publication were undertaken. Mallikarjuna, we are told, purged the MS. of all the errors committed by copyists. This edition of Mallikarjuna was printed by Bhairavaradhya, who, it is added, belonged to the family of Udbhataradhya.

Bhairavaradhya states that he issued the edition for the benefit of Virasaivas and for their advancement everywhere in this world throughout the whole time the sun and the moon last. It is further mentioned that the printing was rendered possible by the assistance given by one Talagadadivi Hanumantha Rao. Bhairavaradhya, who evidently took the leading part in the publication of this edition, has prefixed to the text and account of his own family, which he, appropriately enough, calls Bhairavavamscivali. Though there is nothing in it to connect him with Sripati, the author of the Bheishya, it is of interest mainly because it indicates that he himself belonged to a highly respected and learned Virasaiva family, originally of Benares, and that at the time of the printing of the Bizeishya he was a highly respected Guru. This Vamsavali is in Sanskrit. Descent is traced from Visvesvara of Benares; from him was descended Udbhataradhya, known also as Visvanatha, who was, it is said, initiated by Rishi Bharadvaja. (Evidently he belonged to the Bharadvaja Garter.) Some generations after Visvanatha, came Mallikarjuna, whose son was Chandra-Sahara, of Shanmukhamsa. The latter married Annapurna and had by her two sons. Of these, the elder was Bhadra alias Virabhadra, author of Saiveinhika, and the younger, Kumara alias Mallikarjuna, who was the author of two works, called Kunda and Adriana, besides a /Coosa, evidently a dictionary of some kind. Mallikarjuna had three sons Buchchalinga, maradhya and Viranaradhya. Of these, the last had two sons, Regaling and Bhairavaradhya. Bhairava left two sons, Lingaradhya and Nagalin-garadhya. Of these, the latter had as his sons Lingaradhya and Bhairavaradhya. It is the latter who was responsible for the publication of the Bhashya and after whom the Varnscivali is named. Of him we have a long panegyric, of which only the gist need be given here. He and his elder brother were, we are told, initiated and instructed by one Channa-mallesvararadhya. 'They were subsequently taught by Kedaralinga-guru in Sivataiva, read’s, Purina, etc. From the high praise bestowed on both these teachers, we have to infer that they were learned Virasaiva teachers. Kedara-linga-guru was possibly a Sanyiisin. Under his tuition, Bhairavaradhya became, we are told, a great Virasaiva-vain and overpowered in argument the followers of the Buddhist, Advaita, and Visishtadvaita and Dvaita systems of philosophy. He was on earth, it is added, the very Mrigendra (Sc kshein Mrigendra bhuvi).1 He bore the title of Saivendra Chikkintani. He was, we are told, born as the son of Nagalinga, to establish the Vedic Saiva faith by the publication of Sripati Panditaradhya's Chaska, which is described as a great work containing the essence of the true meaning of every system of Vedanta (SIRVA Vedanta Solaria Sarah tam), as the conqueror of the pride of evil opponents, as the destroyer of evil desires, as the bestowed of the sanctified wealth of Savanna, and as the means of salvation from worldly bondage.

This Telugu script edition is incomplete inasmuch as it omits the following parts from the original MS. work :-

Adhyaya I, Pada I, Sutras':-3, 4 and 5.

Adhyaya II, Pada III, Sutra :-46.

Adhyaya H, Pada IV, Sutras :-1 to 14.

The Government Oriental MSS. Library at Mysore has a small portion of this printed edition of the Bhashya, Kadoka Balasfaya Prasad row of Divide House, Vizagapatam, possesses two Palmyra-leaf copies of this work and one copy on ordinary paper with the Sutra-viridian. These are all in the Telugu script and preserved in the Saiva Grantham Karyalaya at Divide, in the Ganjam District. Raja Balasilrya Prasad row has also a copy of the Secunderabad Edition in the Telugu script, of which copies are now difficult to secure.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages