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NOVEMBER, 1914) SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE MADHVA ACLARYAS
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as those, our irate friend is guided only by a few extrasts from the papar of Mc. Krishna Sastri, which he has raad in the Sabha Rzport. Ho has certainly not soon or read the whole of Mr. Sastri's papar before passing his strong strictures on epigraphy and its methods.
Of quite & different stamp from Mr. Subba Rao, is Mr. C. M. Padmanabhacharya, B.A., B.L., of the Coimbatore Bar.12 With the fesling of a true Madhva, he records first of all faithfully the events of the life of the greatest of the teachers of the Dvaita school of philosophy as obtained from tradition, and tries his best to reconcile them with the solid information derived from epigraphical sources. If some of his conclusions do not appeal to us it is not because his method is incorrect, but that the materials are not sufficiently numerous for him to work upon. The method of rasearch adopted by him being excellent in every detail, we are sure he must have arrived at the same conclusions at which we would ourselves have arrived, had he only bsan in full po39039ion of all the facts available from the epigraphical sources. A point which obviously strikes the reader throughout Mr. Padmanabhacharya's book is his suntimentality, which exhibits itself rather markedly. But it is excusable in a devotee.
In our own humble way we shall try to contribute our mite to his literature with the same scientifio spirit which actuated soms of our predecessors. No one is more conscious than ourselves of the fact that many small errors might creap into our results and our only plea to appear in print is to induce batter minds than ours to takle the question with greater energy and resources than we are in possession of at present.
In the village of Pajaka near Udipi in the South Canara District, there lived a Brâhmaņa named Madhyagêha (Tuļu, Naudvantillâya, the middle-house man).13 A not very opulent person, moderately oulturad, Madhyagêha was leading a quiet householder's life. Two male children were born to him, but they both died young. He had only a young daughter left. To a Hindu householder nothing is more painful than being sonless, and Madhyagêha was feeling intensely for a son. Happily his prayers were heard and he was blessed with a son, whom the father named Vasudeva. The regular Brahmanical ceremonies, such as chaula, upanayana, oto, ware celebrated in due course of time and the boy entered under the tuition of Achyutaprekshacharya, also known as Parushottama Tirtha. The boy Vasudeva was strongly inclined to assume sany is dramı, but was often prevented by his father from giving way to his desire. At last the father and son came to an agreement that as soon as another son was born to the former, Vasudeva must be allowed to fulfil his wish of becoming a Sanyasin, for the father was loth to lose his only son. After some time another boy was born to Madhyagêha, and young Vâsudeva was permitted by the father to assume the robes of & Sanyasin. The holy orders wore given to him by his guru Achyutaprekshacharya under the name of Pârgaprajña. Some years were spent by Par aprajña under his religious teacher in mastering the systems of philosophy then current, and in having a firm foundation in the Vedanta. He began to refleot thereupon on the various interpretations given by the various commentators on the Bddardyana Sutras. From the beginning Pärnaprajñn's mind revolted against the tenets of the Advaita school; therefore he began to elaborate his own Dvaita explanation of the Badarayana Sátras.
1 The Life of Madhoich trys, printed at the Progressive Press, Madras.
13 For detailed life of Brf Madhylohirya, wa rofor the res lors to Mr. Padmanabhacharya
the oxbollent book of
