Part 20 - Srikantha and His Bhashya (Commentary)

[Full title: Other Commentators and their Works (6) Srikantha]

It has been mentioned above that Srikantha, the author of the Bhashya known after him, lived about the third quarter of the 13 th century A.D. His Bhashya admittedly outlines the Saiva Visishtadvaita Siddhanta. (See his comments on II. 1. 22, Adhikantu bhedanirdesat.)78 78 $ He In the course of his comments on this Sutra, Srikantha writes: Nanu tadananyatvam' ityabheda pratipadanat adhikantu' iti bhedapratipadanat prapancha brahmanoh bhedabhedah sadhito bhavatiti chet-na, bhedabhedakalpam visishtadvaitam sadhayamah | na vayam brahmaprapanchayorat yantameva bhedavadinah ghatapatayoriva tadanyatva parasrutivirodhat | na va atyantabhedavadinah suktirajatayorivaikataramityatvena, tatsvabhavika gunabheda parasruti virodhat | na cha bhedabhedavadinah, vastu virodhat | kintu sarirasaririnoriva

identifies Siva with Parabrahman, thus subordinating all other deities to Siva. (See I. 1. 17-20; I. 2. 5; I. 2. 8; I. 3. 2; III. 2. 35-36; III. 3. 15-17; IV. 4. 9; etc.) The superiority to Siva is sought to be established by him in his commentary on III. 2. 35, Tatha'nyapratishedhat and in III. 2. 36, Anena sarvagnatatva mayamasabdadibhyah. At the same time, he endeavours to avoid the extreme, irreconcilable points of view. Thus, in commenting on II. 3. 42 Apicha smaryate, though he protests against the view of some that the Vedas establish the supremacy of Vishnu, he remarks that matters of this kind are best left undiscussed (avicharita ramaniyam). While the very position occupied by Sripati differentiates him from Srikantha, it is clear that Sripati was well acquainted with the Bhashya of Srikantha. Often the verbal similarity is so great as to make one infer that he had Srikantha's work before him as he wrote his own. But there is, however, enough evidence in Sripati's own work that he was no mere literary imitator or a common verbal copyist. He adopts the arguments of Srikantha for his particular purposes but he goes his own way whenever Srikantha's theory is opposed to his own. In some places, Sripati expands the arguments of Srikantha though he does thus only to suit his own object, i.e., for elaborating his special interpretation of the Sutras. The following sutras may be quoted in illustration of this observation :-III. 3. 29 and 30; III. 3. 32; III. 3. 33; III. 3. 34; IV. 1. 3.; IV. 2. 13; IV. 3. 14 and IV. 3. 15. In III. 3. 32, the Chchandogya text merely referred to Srikantha is actually quoted by Sripati, while the very words of Srikantha are adopted in places. The adaptation is, however, subject to the qualification that it is limited to his own needs; for Sripati refers to Lingadharana as a necessary qualification. Though it is only mentioned in one place, Lingadharana should be taken, he says, to be gunaguninoriva cha visishtadvaita vadinah prapancha brahmanorananyatvam nama mrudghatayoriva gunaguninoriva karyakaranatvena viseshana viseshyatvena vinabhavarahitatvam ||

prescribed throughout as a preliminary qualification for upasana. All this is of course foreign to Srikantha. On the other hand, the deviation is sometimes very wide. Thus in Sutra II. 1. 4, Srikantha says:-atah satyajnananandarupat Brahmano asya (prapanchasya) vailakshanyam siddham. Commenting on the same Sutra, Sripati taking the opposite view, says atho Brahma pradhana yoh navailakshanyam ityah. In some cases the illustrations used by Srikantha in one Sutra re-appear in Sripati's commentary under another. Thus the illustration of the govu and the mahisha in II. 1. 4 in Srikantha appear in II. 4. 18 in Sripati. Commenting on II. 1. 4, Navilakshanatvadasya tathevancha sabdat, Srikantha states that Paramatman being satyajnananandarupa and being the karanasrishti, is also kuryarupa. This is mutually contradictory. Looking at karya-karana-bhava, there seems all the difference between karya and karana as between govu and mahisha. (That is, the cow cannot be buffalo any more than karya can be karana.) Sripati in II. 4. 18 Vaishyettu tadvadastadvadah, states that the utma in accordance with the nyaya karanagunah karye parisamkramanti iti, etc., enters the jiva and giving himself the sarira made up of the pancha bhutas, meditates through the inanendriyas, and the bhava of bimbapratibimba and becomes himself the kartru. The Advaita argument that holds that the jiva is Isvara and that the jiva and the Isvara are abheda from the aupacharika point of view only, is accordingly held to be like the invented argument which holds that the elephant is the horse and is as such unacceptable to us (asamanjasa). Therefore bheda between 1 iva and Isvara in Sripati's view has to be accepted, as the opposite view is an obvious contradiction of several Sruti and Smriti texts (pratyaksha sruti smriti virodhat). Similarly, the example of the tataka appearing in Srikantha under Sutra III. 3. 29, Gaterarthavatvamubhayadhanyadhativirodhah, re-appears in Sripati under III. 3. 30, Upapannasthallakshanarthopalabdherlokavachcha. But Sripati, however, does not reverse the order of these sutras as Srikantha does nor does he use the example of the king and the subject in commenting on III. 3. 29.