A History of Sanskrit Literature c12.63

c12.63

In concluding this account of Vedic literature, I cannot omit to say a few words about SĀYAṆA, the great mediæval Vedic scholar, to whom or to whose initiation we owe a number of valuable commentaries on the *Rigveda*, the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* and *Āraṇyaka*, as well as the *Taittirīya Saṃhitā*, *Brāhmaṇa*, and *Āraṇyaka*, besides a number of other works. His comments on the two Saṃhitās would appear to have been only partially composed by himself and to have been completed by his pupils. He died in 1387, having written his works under Bukka I. (1350–79), whose teacher and minister he calls himself, and his successor, Harihara (1379–99). These princes belonged to a family which, throwing off the Muhammadan yoke in the earlier half of the fourteenth century, founded the dynasty of Vijayanagara ("city of victory"), now Hampi, on the Tungabhadrā, in the Bellary district. Sāyaṇa's elder brother, Mādhava, was minister of King Bukka, and died as abbot of the monastery of Çṛiṅgeri, under the name of Vidyāraṇyasvāmin. Not only did he too produce works of his own, but Sāyaṇa's commentaries, as composed under his patronage, were dedicated to him as *mādhavīya*, or ("influenced by Mādhava"). By an interesting coincidence Professor Max Müller's second edition of the *Rigveda*, with the commentary of Sāyaṇa, was brought out under the auspices of a Mahārāja of Vijayanagara. The latter city has, however, nothing to do with that from which King Bukka derived his title.