Introduction to Narahari’s commentary

A small number of extracts from the commentary of Narahari has been included in the Notes. There are several manuscripts of this commentary in the Bhandarkar Institute. The one borrowed by me (No. 140 of 1875-76) is well-written and correct, but covers only the first nine Cantos. A complete manuscript was lent to me later, but it was too late to make any use of it.

Details about Narahari and his date have already been given by R. G. Bhandarkar in his report for 1882-83:

“The commentary....... contains at the end of each canto a stanza in which the author gives his name as Narahari, and states that he was the son of one Svayaṃbhū, ‘whose feet were incessantly adored by the king of Triliṅga’, by his wife Nālamā, and that he was treated with kindness by Vidyāraṇya, the Yogin, who probably was his guru or preceptor. The king of Triliṅga or Telangana, alluded to here, must very likely be a prince of the Vijayanagara dynasty, and if the Vidyāraṇya mentioned by the writer was the same as Mādhava, who, when he renounced the world, assumed that name, our author flourished in the latter part of the fourteenth century during the reign of Harihara.”^[1]

The verse on which Bhandarkar’s statement is based is—

yaṃ praāsūta triliṅgakṣitipatisatatārādhitāḍ?ghriḥ[?] svayaṃbhūḥ
pātivratyaikasīmā sukavinarahariṃ nālamā yaṃ ca mātā |
yaṃ vidyāraṇyayogī kalayati kṛpayā tatkṛtau dīpikāyāṃ
..................... ||

It should here be noted that the Triliṅga king referred to in the verse must have belonged to the dynasty which was reigning in Triliṅga or Telangana during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Inscriptions of these kings bearing dates such as 1374, 1411 and 1448 a.d. have been recorded,^[2] and one of the kings of this dynasty, Vīranārāyaṇa Vema, is well-known to students of Sanskrit poetry as the author of a commentary on Amaruśataka.^[3]

The reference to Vidyāraṇya is more important. It is usual to identify him with the famous Mādhavācārya of Vijayanagara, the brother of Sāyaṇa. Mādhava is said to have renounced the world in 1391 a d., after which he assumed the name Vidyāraṇya.^[4] Attempts have, however, been made to prove that Mādhava and Vidyāraṇya were two different persons.^[5] We are told that “Vidyāraṇya was already an ascetic and the head of the Sringeri Mutt in 1377-78 (Epigraphia Carnatica VI koppa 19 and 31)” and that “Vidyāraṇya was dead in 138S a.d. according to the second Sringeri Mutt copper-plate (Mys. Arch. Rep., 1916, page 59)”.^[6] We are not here concerned with the question of identity, but there is no difference of opinion about the fact that Vidyāraṇya was alive in the eighties of the fourteenth century. Vidyāraṇya was thus a contemporary of the Triliṅga kings, and as we have seen, one of these kings was a great admirer of Narahari’s father Svayaṃbhū. The coincidence is not without interest, and lends support to Bhandarkar’s suggestion that the Vidyāraṇya referred to by Narahari is no other than the sage of Vijayanagara. Narahari states that he is looked upon with favour by Vidyāraṇya Yogin (ya vidyāraṇyayogī kalayatikṛpayā), and if we regard him as a disciple of the great Vidyāraṇya, we shall have to assign him to 1380 A.D. or thereabouts.

Narahari’s connection with the Triliṅga kings through his father is apparent from the verse quoted above. It may be added in this connection that the author of Śabdacandrikā also refers to Vidyāraṇya and calls him his guru.^[7] The work is attributed to Vāmanabhaṭṭa Bāṇa. the author of Pārvatīpariṇaya, Nalābhyudaya and Śabdaratnākara; and it is interesting to note that Vāmanabhaṭṭa was a protege of the Triliṅga king Vīranārāyaṇa Vema, the hero of Vemabhūpālacarita by the same author. Vāmanabhaṭta and his patron Vema have been assigned to the early years of the fifteenth century,^[8] and even if we suppose that Vidyāraṇya died as early as 1386 A.D., that does not conflict with his being the guru of Vāmanabhaṭṭa. Vidyāraṇya’s literary associations seem to have extended to the neighbouring kingdom of Triliṅga; and though his interest was in philosophy, poets and scholars like Narahari and Vāmanabhaṭṭa came to sit at his feet.

Narahari’s Dīpikā is probably the earliest commentary on the Naiṣadha to be written in South India, for he speaks of the absence of other commentaries in the beginning of his work.

asaṃnidhāvanyanivandhanānāṃ kadāpi ku[r?]yādupak[ā?]rametat |
taraṅgiṇīnāṃ taraṇerabhāve tum[v?]īphalenāpi taranti pūram ||

Narahari’s commentary, while it has nothing remarkable about it, is generally concise and seems to have been once popular. There have been recorded at least eight manuscripts of the work, and one of those in the Bhandarkar Institute is in Śāradā character.^[9] The commentary seems to have found its way as far north as Kashmir, and Haraprasād Sastri notices an incomplete manuscript of Naiṣadhacarita with Narahari’s commentary, which contains a verse to the effect that the Naiṣadha (evidently with the commentary of Narahari) was introduced into Kashmir during the reign of Sikandar.^[10]

There is only a small number of quotations in the portion of Narahari’s commentary examined by me. Under 1.13 he quotes Vāgbhaṭa’s definition of the Virodha Alaṃkāra.^[11] Under 3.99 Narahari quotes the following line from Halāyudha—“vihāyāḥ pataṅgaḥ pakṣī garutmān pakṣikhecarā iti halāyudhaḥ”, but it is not found in Halāyudha’s Abhidhānaratnamālā edited by Aufrecht. It is possible that Narahari refers to some other lexicographer of the same name. The following quotation from Yādavaprakāśa occurs in the gloss on 7.109—“bhāvo līlākriyāceṣṭābhūtpabhiprāyajantuṣu iti yādavaprakāśaḥ”, and is found in Oppert’s edition of Vaijayantī. Other quotations from Yādavaprakāśa occur under 1.17 and 30. Kṣīrasvāmin is quoted under 9.158, and there is a quotation from a Bālabhūṣaṇakāra, who seems to be a grammatical writer, in the gloss on 1.46.^[12] Among other works Narahari quotes Viśvaprakāśa under 9.4 and Bṛhatsaṃhitā under 1.105.^[13]

A considerable similarity is likely to be found between the commentary of Narahari and the Tilaka commentary of Cāritravardhana, A few extracts from the latter commentary have been given by Paṇḍit Śivadatta in the footnotes to the N. S. edition of Naiṣadha, and I have noticed a remarkable similarity between them and the corresponding portions of Narahari’s commentary.^[14] Cāritravardhana’s gloss on Naiṣadha 7.93 is also found quoted in a marginal note in the manuscript of Vidyādhara used by me, and I find that it is almost the same as the corresponding gloss of Narahari. I have not seen Cāritravardhana’s work, but it will be worth while to compare the two commentaries.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Collected Works of R. G. Bhandarkar, Vol. II. p. 8.

[2]:

See Krishnamachariar’s Sanskrit Introduction to his edition of Pārvatīparinaya (Vanivilas Press, 1906).

[3]:

See the Nirnayasagar ed. (1929).

[4]:

Winternitz-Geschichte, Vol. III, p. 420, where full references are given.

[5]:

See Mr. Rama Rao’s articles in the Indian Historical Quarterly, December, 1930 and March, 1931.

[6]:

IHQ, March 1931, p. 83.

[7]:

vidyāraṇtagurūn sārvabhaumādyakhilasatkavīn |
namaskṛtyātha vāṇena kriyate śabdacandrikā ||

Quoted by Krishnamachariar in bis Introduction (op. cit.). p 13.

[8]:

See Krishnamachariar ‘s Introduction (op. cit.), p. 13. See also Ganapati Sastri’s Introduction to Nalābhyudaya (Trivandrum Sanskrit Series).

[9]:

No. 141 of 1875-76. The date of this manuscript is, according to the Curator, Samvat 1207 or 1151 A.D. This date is impossible and evidently a mistake, as suggested by Mr. K. N. Dikṣit, offg. Govt. Epigraphist, in a letter to Mr. P. K. Gode. Curator of the Bhandarkar Institute, dated the 14th May. 19[8?]2. Narahari’s commentary was introduced into Kashmir more than two centuries after 1151 a.d. See below.

[10]:

Mr. Gode has favoured me with a note on this point. The verso in question appears at the end of the manuscript—

kāśmīrā?chāsati sati seke daradharādhipe |
vaikuṇṭhakaṇṭhenānītaḥ prava?dh? naiṣadhābhidhaḥ ||

H. P. Sastri identifies this Sikandar with Sikandar Lodi, king of Delhi (1489-1517 a.d.). Notices of Sanskrit Mss., Vol. XI, 1S05. Preface, p. 8, Mr. Gode rightly points out that the Sikandar referred to in the verse must br Sikandar the Idol-breaker who was king of Kashmir from 1386 to 1410 a.d. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. II, 1909, p. 373.

[11]:

See Notes.—This identification corroborates the conclusion we have reached about Narahari’s date.

[12]:

See Notes.

[13]:

See Notes.

[14]:

See Pt. Śivadatta’s extracts under 1.8; 2.24 and 3.63, 131.