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TlIE DATĘ OF ŚAŃKARACARYA 5

his book.

One great scholar from Nagpur, the lale Shri Bała Shastri Haradas told me personally that the Iate Kafla Paramac3rya had placed before him a huge palm-leaf MS. which was said to be Pr.Ś.V. bul thinking that was in Telugu language, which he could not read, he did not take it.

One Court Pandit (Aslhana Vidvan) of the Kartel Mutt, the late Shri Venkata Dixitar, Bombay also had told me personally that as far as he knew, the three works, Br. Ś. V., Pr.Ś. V. and Śań. Vil. did exist in MS. form Ln the Kancl. Mutt Library. He had promiscd me to try to get them for me bul he died even before going to Kartel and the matter ended there only.

Lastly Shri R.G. Sharma has said specifieally and clearly that the second part of Br.Ś. V. viz.    1TO, did exist in MS. fonn in the Dvaraka Mutt

Library* and lhough he says that if this work is what it is claimed to be, a biography of Sań. by his conlemporary and disciplc, it will have to be considcred to be aulhoritative¹⁰, he has madę no elTort to bring it to light. And, yet, he ehooses to describe it as ‘unknown and untraccd’ (3FRR 3ffc

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Even about Sań. Vil. by Vakpati Bhatta, Shri R.G. Sharma had told me personally that a MS. of the same did cxisl then (1961) in the Lahore Oriental Library (Now Punjab University Library) and that he had procured from them two paper-MSS. of the said work. In spite of my repealed reąuests to him, he has not obliged me with evcn one of the two copies he had. I tried my besl to contact the said Library personally, through the J.N. Library, Bombay, I.C.H.R., New Delhi and even at the highest Central Govt. level, but have not succceded in getting even a forma! acknowledgement from the said Library.

One Swami Sakhyananda from Trichur, Kerala State, has also written

to mc that he had seen and gone through the Sań. Vil. about 40 years

ago and he has given a detailed account of the life of Abhi. Sań. on the

basis of the same, in his book in Malayalam, Arsabharata PSramparyam.

His account confirms that Shri T.S.N. Sastry has said about the mixing up

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of ihe life-accounls, of Adi Sań. and Abhi. Sań.

My point in dilating upon these three works in particular is only to show that these works, which are said to give sonie very different chronological information about Sań., are not incre names nor is it necessary to say that all the slanzas quoted in SusamS or by Shri Sastry are their own concoclion only. Even then it will havc to be admitted that till these works become available to scholars for their inspeetion and critical study, no definite theory can be based on nor any definite conclusion be drawn from the quoted stanzas. At the most, the quotations can have only a tentative value as suggesling