Sanskrit Manuscripts : Bhāṭṭadīpikā

Śrīdharendra, Khaṇḍadeva Miśra

Sanskrit Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This is a manuscript of the <i>Bhāṭṭadīpikā</i>, a work by the famous 17th-century Mīmāṃsaka Khaṇḍadeva Miśra (also named Śrīdharendra), the founder of "New Exegesis" (<i>Navya-Mīmāṃsā</i>). Khaṇḍadeva was the son of one Rudradeva and a younger contemporary of Appayya Dīkṣita. He was born in North India around 1600 and most probably died in Benares in 1665 (Ramaswami Sastri 1936: 116-17; Kane 1977: 1199; Edgerton 1986: 18). The work is a commentary or “garland of chapters” (<i>adhikaraṇamālā</i>) on the <i>Mīmāṃsāsūtra</i>s, still very popular in South India. It is most probably Khaṇḍadeva’s second work, written after the <i>Mīmāṃsākaustubha</i> and before the <i>Bhāṭṭa(tantra)rahasya</i> (Gode 1940). The manuscript covers the sixth book (<i>adhyāya</i>) of the collection, dealing in particular with the notion of “entitlement” (<i>adhikāra</i>) to perform a Vedic sacrifice, and is a continuation of <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-00904-00002/1'>Add.904.1</a>, which covers the fifth <i>adhyāya</i>. It was copied in saṃvat 1763 (= 1706/07 CE), about fifty years after Khaṇḍadeva’s death and about nine years before the completion of the <i>Prabhāvalī</i>, the oldest commentary on the <i>Bhāṭṭadīpikā</i>, by Khaṇḍadeva’s pupil Śambhu Bhaṭṭa. </p>