Maisor Prachya Koshagarastha Likhit Sanskrit Granth Suchi

Author(s): M S Basavalingayya, T T Srinivasgopalachar
Publisher: Oriental Library

Page 11

mentators whom he reviles as “impostors" (Māyāvins), one of them giving the number of verses contained in each Varga and hymn, and the other the Viniyoga of each Mantra and Sūkta. Sāyana gives in his cominentary, the Viniyoga of each Mantra and Sūkta. Since it is very improbable that there was another commentator on the Rg Veda (besides Sāyana) who also mentioned the Viniyoga of each Mantra and hymn in his work, the conclusion is irresistible that Sayaņa is one of the commentators who are referred to by Mādhavārya as “Māyāvin." But the facts at our disposal do not seem to support the argument of Dr. Venkatasubbiah. Sāyaṇa, in his introduction to his own commentary on Taittiriya Samhitā, writes thus :-" garder la farina HEURI HEICH”1 Besides, at the end of each Anuvāka, he quotes stanzas under the heading 37 TariTare:, which expression clearly indicates that those stanzas are not his own but taken from the first of previous writers. Thus it is beyond all doubt that there were commentators who mentioned the Viniyoga of Mantras and Sūktas in their works even before Sāyaṇa and Mädha vārya might be referring to them.
Moreover, a comparison of Venkațārya's commentary with that of Sāyaṇa shows that the commentary of the former is brief and abstruse, while that of the latter is very lucid. If Venkațainādhava were really posterior to Sāyana, there was no necessity for him to write a Vivarana, on the Rk Samhită in the face of such an exhaustive commentary by Sāyaṇa. Nor can one think that Venkatamadhava could be so discourteous as not to mention in his work the name of such an illustrious commentator on the Vedas as Sāyaṇa.
From the above, it is clear that Venkatamādhava inust belong to a period far earlier than the 14th century in which Sāyana lived.
i gourmander dierere HETI, p. 8 (Anandāšrama Series),