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VEDÂNTA-SÛTRAS.
bhâshya. The author most frequently quoted is Dramida", who composed the Dramida-bhashya; he is sometimes referred to as the bhashyakâra. Another writer repeatedly quoted as the vakyakâra is, I am told ?, to be identified with the Tanka mentioned above. I refrain from inserting in this place the information concerning the relative age of these writers which may be derived from the oral tradition of the Râmânuga sect. From another source, however, we receive an intimation that Dramidâkârya or Dravidâ karya preceded Sankara in point of time. In his tika on Sankara's bhâshya to the Khandogya Upanishad III, 1o, 4, Ånandagiri remarks that the attempt made by his author to reconcile the cosmological views of the Upanishad with the teaching of Smriti on the same point is a reproduction of the analogous attempt made by the Dravidâ kârya.
It thus appears that that special interpretation of the Vedânta-sútras with which the Sri-bhâshya makes us acquainted is not due to innovating views on the part of Râmânuga, but had authoritative representatives already at a period anterior to that of Sankara. This latter point, moreover, receives additional confirmation from the relation in which the so-called Råmânuga sect stands to earlier sects. What the exact position of Râmânuga was, and of what nature were the reforms that rendered him so prominent as to give his name to a new sect, is not exactly known at present; at the same time it is generally acknowledged that the Râmânugas are closely connected with the so-called Bhagavatas or Pâñkaratras, who are known to lave existed already at a very early time. This latter point is proved by evidence of various kinds; for our present purpose it suffices to point to the fact that, according to the interpretation of the most authoritative commentators, the last
1 The name of this writer is sometimes given as Dramida, sometimes as Dravida. In the opinion of Pandit Rama Misra Sastrin of the Benares College -himself a Râmânuga and thoroughly conversant with the books and traditions of his sect-the form Drainida' is the correct one.
* Viz. by Pandit Râma Misra Sastrin. As the Pandit intends himself to publish all the traditional information he possesses concerning the history of the Bhagavatas and Râmânagas, I limit myself in the text to stating the most relevant results of my study of the Sri-bhashya and the Vedârthasangraha.
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