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Article: Nilakantha Caturdhara's Mantrakasikhanda.(text on interpretation of Vedic verses)
- Article from:
- The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Article date:
- April 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 American Oriental Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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NILAKANTHA AND HIS WORKS
WE (1) ALL USE NILAKANTHA CATURDHARA'S commentary on the Mahabharata, but what do we know about him? Who was he and when did he live, and where? What was going on in the intellectual world he inhabited, and in the larger world?
We know that he was a Marathi-speaking Brahmin who flourished in the second half of the seventeenth century; (2) that his family had been established in a town on the banks of the Godavari; that Nilakantha moved to Banaras, where he undertook the study of Veda and Vedanga, Mimamsa, Srauta, Yoga, Saiva texts, Tarka, and especially Advaita Vedanta, with a variety of teachers. (3) In Banaras Nilakantha found ...