History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s77.17

v1.c6.s77.17

The chronology of the kings of Vijayanagara has been a fruitful source of controversy. It is not necessary to go into that chronology in great detail here. It may be studied in such works as Sewell's 'Forgotten empire' and in E. I. vol. III. p. 36, E. I. vol. XIV p. 68, E. I. vol. XV p. 8. The following pedigree⁹⁰⁵ will be sufficient for the purpose of connecting Mādhava and his brothers with the kings of Vijayanagara. The earliest inscription is that of Harihara I dated *śake* 1261 (1339-40 A. D.) wherein Harihara is said to be a Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara and is spoken of as ‘Śri-Vira-Hariyappa-Voḍeya.’⁹⁰⁶ The colophon of the Mādhavīya Dhātu-vṛtti describes Mādhava as the great minister of Saṅgamarāja, the son of Kamparāja.⁹⁰⁷ The Biṭraguṇṭa grant in *śake* 1278 (1356 A. D.) by Saṅgama II at the request of his teacher Śrīkaṇṭhanātha shows that Bhoganātha⁹⁰⁸ who composed the contents of the grant was a *narmasaciva* (gay or humorous companion) of Saṅgama II. We saw above that Śrīkaṇṭha was a teacher of Mādhavācārya and that Bhoganātha was the youngest brother of Mādhavācārya. Bhoganātha in order to be a poet and a *narmasaciva* of a reigning sovereign must have been a grown-up man in 1356 A. D. and so Mādhavācārya must have been quite an elderly person about that time. The Kālanirṇaya tells us that in the cyclic year Īśvara following immediately after *śake* 1258 *śrāvaṇa* was an intercalary month and that in the cyclic year Bhāva that preceded *śake* 1258 (i. e. in *śake* 1256) Fālguna was an intercalary month and then examines the intercalary months that occurred in the cyclic years up to Vikārī thereafter (i. e. up to *śake* 1281).908a As the Kālanirṇaya examines the intercalary months from *śake* 1256 (i. e. 1334 A. D.) to *śake* 1281 (i. e. 1359 A. D.), it follows that it was either composed during these years or immediately after this period. The Parāśara-mādhavīya was composed before the Kālanirṇaya. Rao Bahadur Narsimhachar states that in a copperplate grant dated 1386 A. D. it is said that Harihara (II) gave in the presence of Vidyāraṇya-śrīpāda certain donations to three scholars who were the promoters (*pravartaka*) of the commentaries on the four Vedas (Ind. Ant. vol. 45 p. 19). Another inscription speaks of Vidyāraṇya in 1378 A. D.⁹⁰⁹ This shows that Mādhavācārya had become a *saṁnyāsin* at least in 1377 A. D. Tradition says that Vidyāraṇya died in 1386 A. D. at the ripe old age of 90. Therefore we shall not be far wrong if we place the literary activity of Mādhava-Vidyāraṇya between 1330-1385 A. D. From the remarks about intercalary months it appears that the Parāśaramādhavīya and Kālanirṇaya were composed between 1335-1360 A. D. There was a tradition among *paṇḍits* that it was Mādhavācārya who composed bhāṣyas on the Vedas and ascribed them to his brother Sāyaṇa. Kāśīnātha, in his Viṭṭhala-ṛṅmantra-sāra-bhāṣya says so.⁹¹⁰