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JUNE, 1896.)
THE AGE OP TIRUNANASAMBANDHA.
157
miraculous nursing of the Dravida child by the goddess Parvati. That this very incident was the most distinguishing feature in the life of Sambandha, will be clear from the opening verse of the chapter which may be thus rendered :
"O saint ! I shall now tell you the story of Jñánasambandha, to whom the daughter of the Himalaya mountain vouchsafed the nectar of her breast milk, and acted, therefore, the part of a mother."
The interpretation of Lakshmidhara, 07 otherwise known as Lolla, which identifies the Dravida child' with the author Samkaracharya himself, deserves therefore no refutation. It is, no doubt, on account of such blunders as these, that Bhaskararâyn, who flourished in the last century, treats him with such unqualified contempt. "Such nonsense,” says Bhâskara in another connexion, "can proceed only from madness."
The word ' sifu' or 'child' in the verse which has given room for such gross misapprehension, is peculiarly appropriate when applied to Sambandha. The proper name in Tamil of the famous saint, at the time when the goddess was supposed to have appeared to him, was, as I have already pointed out, Pillai or Aludaiya Pillai---literally meaning 'cbild.'
In his Sivabhujanga and Siviinandalahari,100 the Acharya pays similar homage to four other saints, of whom one was a contemporary of Sambandha, and another a huntsman or Kiráta by birth, but none of them half as well known as our Brahman saint of the Kauņdinya gótra.
96 अथ वक्ष्ये कथा ज्ञानसंबन्धस्य मुतीधर ।
स्तन्यामृतप्रदानेन यस्य धात्री हिमादिजा ॥ 07 My attention was first drawn to this interpretation of Lakshmidhara by Mr. V. Venkayya, the Assistant Epigraphist to the Madrs Government. It would appear, Prof. Aufrecht adopts tho banne mistaken interpretation in his Catalogue of Oxford Manuscripts. But the absurdity of it is nevertheless self-evident. The Acharya was no poet at wll; his fame rests entirely upon his pbilosophical exegetics called Bhashya To identify the Dravidasište with Sankara himself would be, therefore, to charge that revered thinker with unbounded arrogance; but even supposing he had the vanity to speak of himself as 'the distinotly lovable among great poets, where do we find any tradition of his having boon suckled by Parvatt, when he was an infaut? The old metrical Tamil translation of this verse (see p. 118) by Virai Kaviraya Panditar gives the correct rendering hore adopted. The distinguished Tamil poet, of the last century, Saiva Ellappa Navalar, proceeds also upon the same view in his currentary on that translation. Indeed, the absurdity of Lolla's interpretation is to patent, that every Sanskrit Pandit (including that foremost Sanskrit scholar in Southern India, tho Valia Koil Tampuran of Travancore, to whom I showed the stanza) heartily agroos with me iu condomning it.
०३ इति लोलेन यन्मलपितं तत्प्रामादिकम् ॥ 90 न शक्नोमिक परद्रोहलेशं
कथं प्रीयसे त्वं न जाने गिरीश | ATT TEST SHTETIT arसुतद्रोहिणी वा पितृद्रोहिणी या ॥
Il fer fra : 11 From the absence of any reference to Barnkara in the Tiruttomattogai of Sundara, it may be inferred that the former lived after the latter. The verso quotod above support this view. The expression kunta-drihin, one who betrayed his wife, probably refers to Sundara, who, without the knowledge of his wife Para Vai, married a woman named Sangili at Tiruvorriyar near Madras. If the Sivabhu jaringa is a genuine work of Barnkara, this reference would establish that he lived after Sundar. The other two devotees, who are referred to in the samn verse by the terms sutarthin and pifri-urihin, are 3irattonda, who cooked his only son for the sake of Siva io the disguise of a devotee, and Chandelvara, who out off the log of his father when the latter interfored with his worship of Biva. - V. V.)
100 मार्गावर्तितपादुका पशुपतेरहस्य कूर्चायते
Tozer ga geftaffesureret किंचिड़क्षितमासशेषकवलं नव्योपहारायते भक्तिः किं न करोत्यही वनचरो भक्कावतंसायते ।।
Il ya 119 HER I Thin verse refers to Kannappa Nayanir, who is believed to have worshipped Siva at K ahasti in the North Arcot district. A hill south of K Alahasti even now bears a shrine oalled Kappappevara.-E.H.]
