A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.34.3

c19.s1.34.3

And Sāyaṇa himself wrote a number of lesser manuals called *Sudhānidhis* treating of Prāyaścitta (expiation), Yajñatantra (Vedic ritual), Purushārtha (the aims of human endeavour) and so on. The two brothers wrote in the first half of the fourteenth century. Dalapati's extensive work in twelve sections, *Nrisimhaprasāda*, deals with all phases of religious and civil law; Dalapati (1490-1533) was a highly placed Hindu officer in the Nizam Shahi court of Ahmadnagar. Pratāparudra Gajapati of Orissa composed the *Sarasvati-vilāsa* with the avowed intention of reconciling the apparent discrepancies between the views of Vijñāneśvara, Aparārka, Bhāruci and other authors who preceded him. Only the Vyavahāra section of this work has been found. The royal authorship of the work has, however, been doubted as it is counted among the writings of the polyhistor Lolla Lakshmīdhara. The *Smritiratnākara* of Hārita Venkatācārya (Toḷappar) (1450-1500), a native of the Chingleput district which was so prolific of Vaishnava scholars, is accepted to this day as an authoritative exposition of religious law by the Vaishnavas of the South. Vaidyanātha Dikshita's *Smritimuktāphala*, written probably early in the seventeenth century, holds a similar position among the Smārtas. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries under the Nāyak rulers of South India many other works were written in the field of Dharmaśāstra as in other branches of literature.