Sayana

Sayana

Sayana (also called Sāyaṇācārya; died 1387) was a 14th-century Sanskrit Mimamsa scholar from the Vijayanagara Empire of peninsular India, near modern day Bellary, Karnataka. An influential commentator on the Vedas, he flourished under King Bukka Raya I and his successor Harihara II. More than a hundred works are attributed to him, among which are commentaries on nearly all parts of the Vedas. He also wrote on a number of subjects like medicine, morality, music and grammar.

Early life

Sāyaṇācārya was born to Mayana (IAST: Māyaṇa) and Shrimati in a Brahmin family who lived in Hampi. He had an elder brother named Madhava (sometimes identified as Vidyaranya) and a younger brother named Bhoganatha (or Somanatha). The family belonged to the Bharadvaja gotra, and followed the Taittiriya Shakha (school) of the Krishna Yajurveda.

He was the pupil of Vishnu Sarvajna and of Shankarananda. Both Mādhavāchārya and Sāyaṇāchārya were said to have studied under Vidyatirtha of Sringeri, and held offices in the Vijayanagara Empire. Sāyaṇāchārya was a minister, and subsequently prime minister in Bukka Raya's court, and wrote much of his commentary with his brother and other Brahmins during his ministership.

Works

Sāyaṇa was a Sanskrit-language writer and commentator, and more than a hundred works are attributed to him, among which are commentaries on nearly all parts of the Vedas. Some of these works were actually written by his pupils, and some were written in conjunction with his brother, Vidyāraṇya or Mādhavacārya.

His major work is his commentary on the Vedas, Vedartha Prakasha, literally "the meaning of the Vedas made manifest", written at the request of King Bukka of the Vijayanagara empire "to invest the young kingdom with the prestige it needed." He was probably aided by other scholars, using the interpretations of several authors. The core portion of the commentary was likely written by Sāyaṇāchārya himself, but it also includes contributions by his brother Mādhavāchārya, and additions by his students and later authors who wrote under Sāyaṇāchārya's name. "Sāyaṇa" (or also Sāyaṇamādhava) by convention refers to the collective authorship of the commentary as a whole without separating such layers.

Galewicz states that Sayana, a Mimamsa scholar, "thinks of the Veda as something to be trained and mastered to be put into practical ritual use", noticing that "it is not the meaning of the mantras that is most essential [...] but rather the perfect mastering of their sound form." According to Galewicz, Sayana saw the purpose (artha) of the Veda as the "artha of carrying out sacrifice", giving precedence to the Yajurveda. For Sayana, whether the mantras had meaning depended on the context of their practical usage. This conception of the Veda, as a repertoire to be mastered and performed, takes precedence over the internal meaning or "autonomous message of the hymns."

His commentary on the Rigveda was translated from Sanskrit to English by Max Müller (1823–1900). A new edition, prepared by the Vaidik Samshodhan Mandala (Vedic Research Institute) Pune, under the general editor V. K. Rajwade, was published in 1933 in four volumes.

He has also written many lesser manuals called Sudhanidhis dealing with Prayaschitta (expiation), Yajnatantra (ritual), Purushartha (aims of human endeavour), Subhashita (Collection of moral sayings), Ayurveda (Indian traditional medicine), Sangita Sara (The essence of music), Prayaschitra, Alankara, and Dhatuvrddhi (grammar).