Critical Essays on Purvamimamsa

Krishnacharya Tammannacharya Pandurangi (K.T. Pandurangi) was born in 1918. He belongs to a family of traditional Samskrita scholars who have made distinct contribution to Dvaita Vedanta of Sasananandatirtha (Madhvacharya) of Udupi. He obtained Vedanta Vidwan and Mimamsa Siromani at these Institutions. Later he obtained BA Hons and MA degrees from Benaras Hindu University. He taught at Karnatak College, Dharwar for twelve years and Govt. College, Bangalore for six years. Later he joined as Head of the Post Graduate Department of Sanskrit at Bangalore University. He visited Germany, Austria and USA and delivered lectures on Vedanta and Mimamsa at the Universities in these countries. Students come to him from the Universities in these countries to study advanced texts on Indian Philosophy. He was a member of Rashtriya Samskrita Samsthan and Central Samskrita Board. He was a Senior Fellow of Indian Council of Philosophical Research. He was President of Mythic Society, Bangalore for twelve years. He is presently the Upakulapati of Poornaprajna Vidyapeetha and honourary director of Dvaita Vedanta Foundation at Bangalore.

He received Rashtrapati Award in 1989 and Mahamahopadhyaya title in 1997 from Tirupati Sanskrit University and Sir William Jones Medal from Asiatic Society, Kolkatta in 2005. He has edited about forty Dvaita Vedanta works and ten purvamimamsa works. He has translated Principal Upanishads into English according to Sri Anandatirtha. His publications include English Exposition on Prakarana Pancika of Salikanatha and Critical Essays on Vedanta and Veda and some literary works, such as Kavyanjali, Ravindra Rupakani and Kavikavyadarsana.

This volume contains 82 critical essays on Purvamimamsa. These essays represent the lectures delivered in Andhra University and Karnatak University and other centres of studies. Some of these essays are large (6-8 pages) while others are small (2-4 pages). This depends upon the topic concerned.

There are very few works on Purvamimamsa in English. Mimamsa Darsana published in the series of Indian Philosophy of Benaras University gives some topic of Purvamimamsa. Mahamahopadhyaya Ganganath Jha’s English translation of Sabarabhasya and Slokavaritika are useful only to study the texts. These do not make a critical assessment with an interdisciplinary approach.

In this volume a critical and disciplinary study of all major issues of Purvamimamsa is made. It is hoped that this volume will be useful to research students and research scholars.