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18
The Pañcarātra
[CH.
From the tenth to the seventeenth century the Saivas and the Srivaisnavas lived together in the south, where kings professing Saivism harassed the Srivaisnavas and maltreated their templegods, and kings professing Srivaisnavism did the same to the Saivas and their temple-gods. It is therefore easy to imagine how the sectarian authors of the two schools were often anxious to repudiate one another. One of the most important and comprehensive of such works is the Siddhunta-rutnācalī, written by Venkața Sudhi. Venkata Sudhi was the disciple of Venkațanātha. He was the son of Srisaila Tātavārya, and was the brother of Sri Saila Srinivāsa. The Siddhānta-ratnārali is a work of four chapters, containing over 300,000 letters. He lived in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, and wrote at least two other works, Rahasya trava-sūra and Siddhūntu-ruijuvanti.
Many treatises were written in which the Pancarātra doctrines were summarized. Of these Gopālasūri's Pancarūtra-rakṣāsamgrahu seems to be the most important. Gopālasūri was the son of Krsnadesika and pupil of Vedāntarāmānuja, who was himself the pupil of Krşnadesika. Ilis Puncarūtra-raksā deals with the various kinds of rituals described in some of the most important Pancarātra works.
It thus seems that the Pancarātra literature was by many writers not actually regarded as of Vedic origin, though among the Srivaisnavas it was regarded as being as authoritative as the Vedas. It was regarded, along with the Sāmkhya and Yoga, as an accessory literature to the Vedas!. Yamuna also speaks of it as containing a brief summary of the teachings of the Vedas for the easy and immediate use of those devotees who cannot afford to study the vast Vedic literature. The main subjects of the Pancarātra literature are directions regarding the constructions of temples and images, 1 Thus Venkatanatha, quoting Vyasa, says:
idammaho-punişudam catur-z'eda-sam-antitum sumkhya-yoga-krtuntenu parcu-rūtrā-nu-sabditum.
Sestaru-Vimūnsă, p. 19. Sometimes the Pancarātra is regarded as the root of the Vedas, and sometimes the Vedas are regarded as the root of the Pancarătras. Thus Venkatanātha in the above context quotes a passage from Vyasa in which Pancarátra is regarded as the root of the Vedas—"mahato redu-2 rkşusya mulu-bhuti muhan ayam." He quotes also another passage in which the Vedas are regarded as the root of the Pancarătras-" srutimülam idam tantram pramunu-kalpa-sútratat." In another passage he speaks of the Pancarătras as the alternative to the Vedas –"ulübhe t'eda-mantrīnum punca-rütro-ditena t'i."
