Sanskrit Manuscripts : Dvādaśamahāvākya

Vaikuṇṭhapurī

Sanskrit Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> An 18th-century copy of a little-known Vedāntic treatise by Vaikuṇṭhapurī (or Viṣṇupurī), still unpublished. The work, of unknown date, deals with various topics related to non-dualist philosophy, and is organised around a discussion of the four upaniṣadic “Great Sayings” (<i>mahāvākya</i>). It begins with a list of Vedāntic teachers from Brahmā to Śaṅkara, considered to be the eleventh master in that tradition. The text transmitted here differs widely from the one found in a similar manuscript kept in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, extracts of which have been published by Th. Aufrecht (1864: 227; Catalogue no. 557). For instance, the Bodleian manuscript contains an initial verse, a list of Śaṅkara’s four (or five) disciples, as well as an account of Vedāntic tradition between them and Vaikuṇṭhapuri (including a list of the ten Śaṅkaran monastic lineages), all of which are missing in the present version of the text. The work might be identical to the one mentioned under the title Dvādaśamahāvākyasiddhānta by Thangaswami (1980: 126; no. 279), who ascribes it, however, to one Ānanda. </p>