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The Earliest Commentators on Brahma-Sutras: Those referred to by Sankara. Among the earliest commentators on the BrahmaSutras was Bodhayana. Though Dr. Thibaut has identified him with the author of the Kalpa Sutra, the better opinion 10 The name Prabhakara occurs in certain other inscriptions, but the references in those cases appear to be to persons who were evidently named after the original Prabhakara, the Mimamsa teacher. Thus, a Prabhakara Bhatta is mentioned in three inscrip tions of the time of the Chola king Rajadhiraja I as a Brahman resident in Aryadesa. His wife was a devotee of the Siva temple at Tiruvorriyur, near Madras. These inscriptions are dated in the 3 rd, 30 th and 31 st years of the reign of Rajadhiraja I (1018-1051 A.D.). Accordingly they range in date from 1021 to 1049 A.D. (Madras Epigraphy Report , Nos. 112,132 and 155 of 1912). Again, in an inscription at Vijayapadmanabhapur, Berhampore taluk, Ganjam district, dated in the reign of Padmanabha Ananga Bhima of the Kesari dynasty (13 th century A.D.), Samasta 5, Mina 29, Vaisakha Bahula 1, Wednesday, is recorded the gift of Laddigam and other villages, under the name of Vijayavadmanabhapura, to Prabhakara Bhatta, Misra and another. (Rangacharya, Inscriptions in Madras Presidency, I, Ganjam District 80, quoting Mackenzie MSS., XIV). These instances appear to

" 115 to-day seems to be that the two are different and that they lived in widely separated ages. Sankara in his Bhashya frequently mentions "another commentator whose name is nowhere disclosed (I. 1. 25; I. 1. 27; I. 1. 31; I. 2. 13; I. 3. 2; I. 3. 13; I. 3. 17; I. 3. 19; III. 3. III. 3. 39; III. 3. 57; III. 4. 42; IV. 3. 7-14). Govindananda, one of his commentators, suggests that the reference is to the Vrittikara mentioned by Ramanuja, and Dr. Thibaut has accordingly proposed to identify him with Bodhayana (Sacred Books of the East Vedanta-Sutras with Sankara's Commentary, Introduction XX and XXI). There is really no authority for this proposed identification. In some parts of his Bhashya, Sankara refers to more than one teacher, as in I. 3. 19, where it is said that "some teachers are of (a different) opinion". Again, in I. 3. 19 it is stated that "others again, and among them some of our own are of opinion" etc. Then, again, it is said in III. 3. 19 that some commentators (in the plural) "are of opinion" etc. Next in III. 3. 57, he says that "some commentators here establish the conclusion" etc. Sankara evidently does not agree with their conclusion. Finally, in III. 4. 42, he remarks that some teachers, however, are of opinion" etc. Thus Sankara had evidently more than one commentator before him when he noted the above differences between himself and them. As Sankara refers to Sabarasvamin and Upavarsha by their names [see his commentary on III. 3. 53, where Sabara is referred to twice, once by name and another time as "the author of the (Purva-Mimamsa) Bhashya", and Upavarsha, as a commentator of both the Purva-Mimamsa and the Uttara-Mimamsa Sutras (Ibid., III. 3. 53 and I. 3. 28)], the references to the "other commentators" may, perhaps, be taken not to include them, the more so as they relate entirely to topics connected with Sariraka-Mimamsa. Who these may be it is not possible even to speculate. Govindananda, one of the commentators of Sankara, " indicate that the name of the great Mimamsa commentator still continued to be remembered in India between 11 th and 13 th centuries A,D,

suggests in his gloss on Sankara's Bhashya on the Chchandogya Upanishad (III. 10. 4) that Sankara had followed Dramidacharya (or Dravidacharya) in certain respects. Whether this Dramidacharya is one of those referred to by Sankara and is identical with the person of the same name quoted by Ramanuja in his Bhashya, is difficult to determine in the present state of our knowledge.11 Dramida, however, is one of those who is mentioned with others by Ramanuja in his Vedarthasangraha as an authority for his own work. This acknowledgment shows that in the interval between Sankara and Ramanuja there had come into existence a number of writers on the Brahma-Sutras, who are, however, at present nothing more than mere names. to us. Whether any of these can be related back to a date anterior to Sankara and as such taken to be included in his 11 Dr. Thibaut in his translation of the Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary of Sankaracharya (loc.cit., Introd. XXI. f.n. 1), says that the name is sometimes given as Dramida, and sometimes as Dravida, and suggests, basing his opinion on that of Pandit Rama Misra Sastrin of the Benares College, that the former is the correct one. There appears to be authority for both the forms. In a SanskritKannada record on the four faces of a pillar set up in the courtyard of the Ramalingesvara temple at Ramesvaram, Proddatur taluk, Cuddapah district, the Rashtrakuta king, Krishna III (Duradankakara) registers a gift of land and taxes to that temple and incidentally states that the king's general took Kanchi from the "knavish Dramidas" (Madras Epigraphy Report , No. 383 of 1904). The country is called Dravida-desa in a record dated in Saka 1439 or 1517 A.D. (Madras Epigraphy Report , No. 87 of 1912) and also in a copper-plate grant (M.E.X., 1912-13, No. 8). In a Prakrit record found at Amaravati, Sattenapalle taluk, Guntur district, the gift of an upright slab at the foot of a mahachaitya by one Damila-kanha (i.e., Dramida-Krishna) and Chula-kanha (Kshuda-Krishna) and his sister are registered. Sanskrit-Grantha record dated in Saka 1445 (=A.D. 1523) in the reign of the Vijayanagar king Krishnaraya, found at Nagalapuram, Ponneri taluk, Chingleput district, records a gift for the recitation of the Sanskrit Vedas and the Dravida-Veda (ie., the Prabandha) and the exposition of the Vedanta. The Tamil part of Southern India is commonly known as Dravida-Vishaya. (See Hu!tzsch, Report on Skt. MSS., III. 59, under Saubhagya-Ratnakara, end verses.) A

general description of "other commentators" is also difficult to say. A fair inference from the known facts is that long anterior to Sankara there had been well-known commentators on the Brahma-Sutras and that there had come into existence, after him, other commentators who were themselves succeeded by Ramanuja. be