Question about bhaTTa bhAskara/bhAskarAcArya

Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian ramakris at EROLS.COM
Mon Nov 16 03:17:59 UTC 1998


[Sorry for the previous mail, I accidentally pressed the send key]

I have a question about the identity of bhaTTa bhAskara/bhAskarAcArya.

There is a bhAskarAcArya who wrote commentaries on the prasthAnatrayI,
from the point of view of bhedAbheda. His date (from Buddhist sources)
is fixed 900-1000CE. He came after sha.nkara since he quotes and
criticizes the bhagavatgItA bhAshhya of the latter [1]. He must have
lived before/around the 11th century since a Buddhist author, whose
dates can be fixed reliably refers to him [2].

There is a commentary on the entire taittirIya recension of the yajur
veda by one bhaTTa bhAskara mishra. He predates shAyaNa since the latter
quotes him. Sayana flourished ~1350 CE. A.D.Burnell has fixed bhaTTa
bhAskara's date as the latter half of the 10th century, but
Suryanarayana Sastri does not find the reason very convincing, though he
accepts the approximate time frame [3].

The only study on this bhaTTa bhAskara mishra I found was "Contribution
of BhaTTa bhAskara to Vedic Exegesis", by S.J.Carri. He doesn't mention
anything about bhAskarAcArya and has not pinpointed any dates for bhaTTa
bhAskara, except that he must have lived a few centuries before shAyaNa.
Are these two bhAskara's the same? (there are also some other reasons to
believe that both existed around the same time)

If anyone could point me to some other literature on this topic: other
studies on either of the bhAskara's works or about their identity, I'd
be grateful. Thanks.

[1] Bhaskaras gitAbhAshhya, Dr V. Raghavan Commemoration Volume.
[2] History of early Vedanta, Hajime Nakamura
[3] shivAdvaita of shrIkaNTha, by S.S. Suryanarayana Sastri

Rama





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