About the Book
This work, Tantra Rahasya by Ramanujacharya is a primer of the Prabhakara System of Purva Mimamsa Philosophy and its object is to illustrate mainly the five important topics of the Prabhakara system of Purva Mimamsa Sastra namely Pramana, Prameya, Sastra, Sastrartha and Mimamsa with a special stress on its necessity. The object of this work is to state clearly the view points of the Prabhakara on the five important topics viz. Epistemology, Metaphysics, Verbal testimony, of Vedic and non-Vedic sentences, import expressed by the Sastra or Vedic injuctions and necessity of Mimamsa Sastra or the discussion on Dharma, learnt from the Vedic passages.
The present work by Ramanujacarya, a learned scholar from the Godavari district seems to be an extenstive work inclusive ofa commentary on the whole of Jaimini's Mimamsa Sutras. Only the fist five chapters have been obtained. He has clearly pointed out that it will be valuable addition to the kowledge of the Mimamsa, religion of the Hndus. In the five chapters he explains, the theory of the knowledge as propunded by his guru in the second, catgory of the knowable objects, the third deals with the authority of the Vedas and Ethics, the fourth, treats the stature of Sastra, and the fifth the necessity of ex-pounding a Sastra. Judging by the style of his work, it may be pre-sumed that the author was not older than 18th century. This edition of the text is based on manu-scripts belonging to the Oriental Library in Mysore.
Ramanujacarya being a profound scholar of both the Bhatta and Prabhakara systems of Mimamsa had argued out the superiority of the Bhatta system in his early work called Nayakaratna and has argued out the superiority of the Prabhakra's veiw points in this work.
Foreword
The second revised edition of the Tantrarahasya of Ramanujacarya by Pandit K. S. Ramaswami Sastri Siromani is an important addition to the scanty literature on the Prabhakara School of Thought. The text which has been compared with a palm-leaf Ms. has now appeared in a correct and intelligible form. The Prabhakara System has been unfortunately ignored and much misrepresented. Since the publication of the Doctorate Thesis' The Prabhakara School of Purva Mimamsa' (Allahabad 1911), of the late Mm. Ganganath Jha, the System began to receive better treatment at the hands of competent scholars with the result that we are now in possession of sufficient materials for a critical study.
The learned introduction by Pandit K. S. Ramaswami Sastri whose profound scholarship has been already known to the world of scholars through his several important publications in the Gaekwad's Oriental Series is full of original suggestions and is a very important contribution to the Mimamsa studies. The connection of Prabhakara with the old Philosopher Badari, as far as their views are concerned, has been ably proved by the learned editor for the first time in the History of Indian Philosophy. The two old Schools of Badari and Jaimini have found advocates at different times and their points of difference have been clearly shown in the Introduction. Fresh mate-rials have been, again, utilised by the editor for fixing the date of the author. The introduction is no doubt the result of the editor's life-long devotion to the Purvamimamsa System and deserves a critical study. The book may be prescribed as a text-book in our Universities.
Preface
The second revised edition of the Tantrarahasya, a primer of the Prabhakara School of Pürvamimärmsā Philosophy by Śri Rāmānujācārya is now presented to scholars as No. XXIV of the Gaekwad's Oriental Series. The need for the second revised edition of this work was keenly felt by the students of the Prābhākara System of Mimämsä, as several tenets established by Prabbākara against a host of other Philosophical Thinkers, are very mea-grely known and very little of the vast literature produced by the followers of the Prabhakara School is available in print.
Moreover, several theories well known as belonging to the School of Prabhakara and his followers are often quoted and refuted by the writers of treatises on different Philosophical Systems. Such references to the principles of the Prabhakara System in later works are neither clearly understood nor well appreciated due to the absence of primers explaining the view-points of Prabhakara. The only work so far known as a primer of the Prābhākara System was the Prakaraṇapañcikā of Salikanātha. This work edited in 1904 A.D. with inadequate MS. materials and published in the Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series of Banaras was out of print for the last several years. Some fragments of the MSS. of the Brhati of Prabhakara, the Rjuvimala and the Nayaviveka are recently discovered, and only small portions of these standard works are now available in print.
