The volume presents an English translation, with detailed explanatory notes, of the commentary of Sri Madhvacharya, founder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta, on the first forty hymns of the Rigveda. It presents the original Rigvedic hymns and the bhashya text in Sanskrit and explains how Madhvacharya (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries) brings out the philosophical import of the hymns through his explanations. Madhvacharya's famous commentary offers a philosophical interpretation without rejecting the ritualistic interpretation of the Vedas. The volume examines the influences of Madhvacharya's commentary on other Vedic commentators and the manner in which his concept of parameshvara and his adhyatmika approach are different from those of Sayana in a later commentary.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR B.N.K. Sharma
Born on 9th June, 1909 in a family of Asthana Vidvans of the former Cochin State of Kerala Dr. B.N.K. Sharma combines in himself a solid background of traditional Sastric learning with the highest attainments in modern University Education. Vicissitudes of fortune have taken him from Tamil Nadu to far off Punjab and Karnataka and finally landed him in Maharashtra in 1953 where he was appointed as Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit in the newly founded Ruparel College of the Modern Education Society of Pune in 1953. After his retirement in 1969, Dr. Sharma was on a U.G.C. tenure of five years on a massive research project on the Brahmasutras and Their Principal Commentaries of the three leading schools of Vedanta. This standard research work was published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, between 1971-78 in three large volumes. Subsequently, a re-print edition of the same has been brought out by Munshiram Manoharlal of Delhi (1986). This work has been hailed as an event in Vedantic Scholarship. Dr. Sharma’s “Madhva’s Teachings in His Own Words†sponsored by the Bhavans has now gone into its 4th edition. Dr. Sharma is the recipient of the President of India’s Award for Eminent Sanskrit Scholars in 1992 and the Government of Maharashtra’s Award for Sanskrit (1993) and the prestigious Sri Vidyamanya Prasasti of the Puranaprajna Pratisthana in 1996. He has also been honoured by the Late Periaval of the Kanchi Mutt and several Madhva Pithadhipatis. Today with over a dozen publications of outstanding merit in lucid English, Dr. Sharma has verily established the highest record of the present century in his chosen field with his latest English rendering of the Samanvayadhyaya of Jayatirtha’s Nyayasudha. (In the Press)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR K.T. Pandurangi
Krishnacharya Tammanacharya Pandurangi belongs to a family of traditional scholars who have made distinct contribution to Dvaita Vedanta of Sri Anandatirtha (Madhvacharya) of Sri Anandatirtha (Madhvacharya) of Udupi. He taught at Karnataka College, Dharwad and Government College, Bangalore for more than two decades and later retired as the Head of the Post Graduate Department of Sanskrit in Bangalore University. He was a former Member of Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan and Central Sanskrit Board. He was a Senior Fellow of Indian Council of Philosophical Research. Presently, he is Upakulapathi of Poornaprajna Vidyapeeth and Hon. Director of Dvaita Vedanta Foundation at Bangalore. He received Rashtrapati Award in 1989, Mahamahopadhyaya title in 1997 from Tirupati Sanskrit University and Sir William Jones Memorial Medal in 2005 from The Asiatic Society, Kolkata. His publications include English Exposition of Prakaranapancika of Salikanatha and some literary works such as Kavyanjali, Ravindra Rupakani and Sanskrit Kavi Kavya Darsana. He has translated principal Upanisads into English according to Sri Anandatirtha Bhasya and also Visnutatvanirnaya of Sri Anandatirtha.
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