THIS celebrated poem together with the "Wave of Beauty" (Saundarya-lahari) which follows after verse 41, is commonly attributed in India to the great Vedantin Scholastic Samkara carya, as is also the other Hymn of the same name translated in "Hymns to the Goddess" by my wife and myself. The text used is that given in the second part of Samkaracarya's Granthavali edited by Prasanna Kumara Sastri (Calcutta 1316 B.S. 1908). This contains the commentary of Achyuta-nanda. I have also made use of Pandit Ananta-Krspa Sastrt's commentary on the poem which largely follows the commentary of Laksmidhara. The "Wave of Bliss" deals with the bodily centres Kundali-Yoga and other Täntrik subjects. With the former I have dealt in my work now in preparation on the "Serpent Power". To this the reader is referred. I have also said something there as to the present work and its numerous commentaries.
On the question of Samkara's alleged authorship of "Tantrik" works the reader is referred to an article in the Calcutta Review (July, 1915) by Mahāmabopādhyāya Satış-Chandra Vidyabhuşana. The latter also at my request was good enough to send me the following note compiled under his guidance and instruction by his student and research scholar Dinesh Chandra Bhattacharya on the poem the first 41 verses of which are called Anandalahari and the remaining Saundaryalahari. (See notes to v. 41 post.).
(Vide preface in the Mysore Ed. with Lakşmıdhara's commentary.)
It is not easy to trace verses from the Saundarya-lahari in any standard work of high antiquity as the Stotras handed down orally for recitation are not generally quoted in support of any statement so long as there are original works to draw upon. Nevertheless a verse from the Saundarya-lahari is found quoted in the famous anthology Subhasitavalt of Valla-bhadeva as from Sri Samkarācārya (No. 3525- जपो जल्पः शिल्पम्, etc.) The antiquity if not also the authenticity of Samkara's Saundarya-lahari is, however, sufficiently ensured by the fact that it has got by far the largest number of com-mentaries (in Stotra literature). Some 35 are known to exist in different parts of India-a fact which at least affords greater proof of genuineness than can be produced for the rest of the very large number of Stotras and miscellaneous poems ascribed to Samkara. That the great Saivite leader was the author of a number of poems besides his monumental works on Vedanta is in our opinion very clearly corroborated by a stanza of Rajasekhara (circa A.D. 900) quoted in the Sukti-muktavali of Jalhana (thirteenth century)
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