UPANIṢADBRAHMENDRA

UPANIṢADBRAHMENDRA by V. Raghavan M.A., PH.D.

An account of Upaniṣadbrahmendra in this Volume is appropriate in more ways than one. Apart from the fact that the Maṭha bearing his name has its own importance in Kāñchī, there have been close contacts between the Upaniṣadbrahmendra Maṭha and the Kāmakoṭi Pīṭha in the comparatively short period during which the former had come into existence.

Elsewhere,[1] more than once, the present writer has dwelt on the life and works of Upaniṣadbrahmendra. In his paper, on Upaniṣadbrahmendra in the Journal of the Music Academy, Madras,[2] in which, for the first time, a detailed account of this Sannyāsin-author has been given, the present writer has shown that our author was originally called Rāmachandrendra — a name found in the colophons of several of his works, as also in his commentary on the Bhagavadgitā — and that later he came to be called Upaniṣadbrahmendra by reason of his systematic and successful effort to write commentaries on the one hundred and eight Upaniṣads. It has also been shown in that paper that Upaniṣadbrahmendra flourished in the 18th century A.D. The cyclic year and its details mentioned by him at the end of his commentary on Muktopaniṣad work out to 1751 A.D. Another dated work of his is the Paramādvaitasiddhāntaparibhāṣā (1709 A.D.).

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