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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. XII.
unexplained. Chapters 23 to 26 of the Prapannāmrita, a work on the hierarchy of the Srivaishnavas, give a succinct account of the family of the Tātācāryas, the descendants of Srisailanätba, better known by his familiar name Periya Tirumalai-nambi. The family to which the Tātāchāryas belong, is called the Srisaila-vaisa after this original ancestor of theirs. He was the maternal uncle of the great Srivaishnava acharya Rāmānuja, and also one of the five disciples of Yamunārya, who was the immediate guru of Rāmānoja. In the Srisaila-vainsa were born two brothers, Narasimhachārya and Rangāchārya. These were great specialists in expounding the epic Rāmāyana, like all the members of the family beginning from Periya Tirumalai-nambi. They both went to Ettur with a desire to earn money by expounding the Rāmāyana. Not finding Ettūr sufficiently paying, they drifted on to Vijayanagara, the capital of the kings of that dynasty. There, the king. Virāpāksha was then ruling in great splendour. His relatives, envious of his prosperity, attempted to assassinate him, but he escaped to the adjacent country, gathered enough soldiers, and returned to Vijayanagara one night and killed the whole lot of his relatives in their beds. Thus suddenly murdered and left without any obsequies, they all became piśāchas, and began to haunt the house in which they had been killed. So, Virāpāksha built for himself a new palace and lived in it. However, the trouble due to the ghosts did not cease, and no amount of peace-offering would effect any change in their attitude towards him. At this juncture the two brothers happened to go to Vijayanagara; they went straight into the haunted house, mistaking it for the residence of the king. The place was well lit and the ghost prinee was holding a darbār into wbicb the two brothers were ushered by a ghost servant. On being questioned by the ghost king who they were and what they wanted, the younger brother introduced his elder brother as a great expounder of the Rāmāyaṇa, and stated that they both went there to seek the royal patronage. The ghost prince commanded them daily to read and explain the Rāmāyana to him in his palace and promised in return for it a dinära a day and a large sum of money on the day on which the portion relating to the pattabhisheka of Rama was to be read. They agreed to the proposal, and the recital of the Rāmāyana went on day after day, when finally they were rewarded amply for their trouble on the pattābhisheka day. The ghosts, as an effect of the virtue of listening to the Rāmāyana, went direct to the Sāntānika-lika. being freed from their ghost existence. This service of the brothers of the Srisaila-rama did indirectly a great good to the reigning prince by removing from him all the troubles he was suffering in the hands of the ghosts. He discovered his benefactors and requested them to recite the Rāmāyana in his palace also and loaded them at the ond with riches and himself became the disciple of the elder brother, Narasimhāchārya (who is better known to the Srivaishnavas as Ettär Singarāchārya) and changed the royal signature from Virāpāksha to Venkațēša.
The ninth in descent from this Narasimhāchārya was Tātārya. He was the contemporary of & Rāmadova,' with whom he retired to Chandragiri. This Tātārya lived contemporaneously with Vadhala Doddayāchārya of Cho?asingapuram (Sholingur), the author of the Chandamārutam, a work written in refutation of the Advaitadipika of Appayya Dikshita. We know from the Vilāppākkam grant that Appayya Dikshita was a contemporary of Venkatapatidérarāya I. Hence, the Tātārya mentioned above (also known as the Pafcha-mata-bhañjanam Tātāchārya, a name which he derived from his work, Pancha-mata-bhañjana), Doddayāchārya and Appayya Dikshita were of the same time. Lakshmikamāra Tātāchārya, who was more familiarly known as Koti-kanyakā-dānam Tātāchārya, was the son of Pafcha-mata-bhañjanam Tātāchārya. This Lakshmikumāra was the guru of Venkatapatidēvarāya, who granted his whole kingdom to his acharya. This same person should, therefore, be the guru who is
Could this be Ramaraja, the elder brother of Venkatapatidevaraya I.P > Rajnásit sartadefasya Rämardyadaanantaran fri.Venkatapatirama mahatma bhagavat parah
Lakaamikuwära-Tataryan mahal mananalifrayat sa malas Venkatapatirayah friman mahayafahl tadrajyash delikadhinam vidhaya guru-bhaktiman guru.kainkarya-nirataḥ Kulasekharavat ahitah 1
