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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
( 17 ) Sāyaṇa was not the first commentator on the Rgveda after Yāska, as used to be supposed.” Dr. Otto Stein, Professor of Sanskrit at the German University of Prague also remarked, "It was Dr. Sarup himself who besides Pandit Bhagavaddatta of the AngloVedic Research Institute first threw light on the personage of the commentator Verkața Mādhava." These statements were based on my Introduction to Indices And Appendices to the Nirukta.1 Therein, I discussed the date of Mādhava,2 son of Verikața, pages 30-34, and gave detailed description of his commentary on the Rgveda, pages 39-71. It may, however, be pointed out that Dr. C. Kunhan Raja, independently read a paper entitled 'The Commentaries on Rgveda and Nirukta’, at the Fifth Indian Oriental Conference, held at Lahore in November 1928. This paper was published in 1930. It contains a discussion on Venkatamādhava, pp. 236247, and 263-272.3 P. Bhagavaddatta also wrote about Venkatamadhava in his History of Vedic Literature in Hindi.
Previous Editions. In 1929, Pandita K. Sāmbaśivaśāstrī published, in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, his edition of the bhāsya of Skandasvāmin and the commentary of Venkatamādhava, on the first Adhyāya of the first Astaka of the Rgveda. The second part, containing the commentaries mentioned above on the second Adhyāya of the first Astaka was published in the year 1935. P. Sāstrī describes, on the title page, the commentary of Venkatamādhava as simply a vyākhyāna- Harita Tenda HEGT i It is repeated on p. 133
इति श्रीवेङ्कटमाधवार्यविरचिते ऋग्संहिताव्याख्याने प्रथमे प्रथमोऽध्यायः ।
He does not give any particular name to the commentary, although the author Verkața Mādhava himself gives a definite name to his commentary, and calls it reallacant as shown by the following colophons :
1 Published by the University of the Punjab, 1929.
2 V.M. may be assigned to a period earlier than Sáyana and later than Skandasvamin e.g., about the roth. century A.D.
3 Proceedings And Transactions of The Fifth Indian Oriental Conference, Vol. I., 1930.
4 Published at Lahore in the year 1931.
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