A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.34.2

c19.s1.34.2

Varadarāja’s *Vyavahāranirṇaya*, for which various dates are assigned like A.D. 1297 and A.D. 1500, is valuable for its interpretation of juristic rules in the light of Mīmāmsā principles, and deserves particular notice among the legal digests of South India, as also the more extensive *Smṛticandrikā* of Devana Bhaṭṭa often cited by Hemādri. To the latter half of the thirteenth century may be assigned the famous Haradatta whose commentaries on the *Dharmasūtras* of Āpastamba and Gautama are models of their kind; he is cited by Viśveśvara (1375), author of the *Subodhinī* on the *Mitāksharā*. Hemādri, minister of the Yādava king Mahādeva (1260-71) and his successor, was the author of a cyclopaedic digest called *Caturvargacintāmaṇi* comprising five large sections on Vrata, Dāna, Tirtha, Moksha and Pariśesha. Two more sections on Prāyaścitta (expiation) and Vyavahāra (civil law) are supposed to have been compiled by him though they are not now extant. The published portion covers over 6,000 pages and forms perhaps the most extensive digest on the subjects it treats of. Part of the glory that was Vijayanagar was the work of Mādhava, the brother of Sāyaṇa, whose commentary on *Parāśarasmriti*, the *Parāśara Mādhavīya*, is a most erudite work which includes an independent treatise on Vyavahāra which was neglected in the text of Parāśara.