This page has not been fully proofread.

X
 
into the mysteris of the cult to assume a name ending in 'nātha'.
It is generally known that Vidyānātha was a pandit at the court
of Prataparudradeva, who is said to have flourished between
1268-1319 A.D. If I be right in regarding Lakshmidhara as
identical with Vidyânâtha, his date may be fixed as the earlier
part of the 14th century.
 
There exist several commentaries on the hymn by different
writers, but I have chosen Lakshmîdhara's as best of them. I
have only single copies of a few others, and I know the rest only
by name.
 
Lakshmidhara often refers in his commentary to Subhago-
daya. a work on the same subject. and to a commentary thereon
by himself. He also speaks ot Srî Sankarācârya as the author
of a commentary on the same work and in one or two places his
words imply that Sri-Sankaracārya was the author of Subhago-
daya itself. As I have seen neither Subhagodaya nor a commen-
tary thereon, it is very difficult to come to any decision on the
point. But in the course of my recent search for manuscripts
I have found that a copy of Subhagodaya exists in the library
of the Smârta mutt at Kudli and an inspection of the work
many throw some light on the point.
 
The present edition of Saundaryalahari and of the commentary
thereon has been prepared from the following manuscripts :
 
(1) A palmleaf Grantha Manuscript kindly placed at my
disposal by my friend Mr. T. Paramasiva Iyer, Under-
Secretary to Government of Mysore. It is very much
torn, and fairly correct.
 
(2) An old palmleaf Nagarî MS. belonging to Sringeri-
mutt.
 
(3) A Devanagarî transcript of a MS. copy in the Saras-
vatibhandara at Mysore.
 
(4) A Telugu palmleaf Ms. belonging to Pandit Srikantha-
sastri of Nanjangud.
 
(5) A Kanarese palmleaf MS. belonging to Pandit. G.
Ramaswamisastri of the Oriental Library.
 
CC-0. Jangamwadi Math Collection. Digitized by eGangotri