- !i CANDRACCHAYAGASITAM
f?T5l ? cT5l7T^T% JT^THT^ etc. 1 Personal details The above-quoted passage informs that Nllakantha belonged to the Gargya gotra } 2 was a follower of the Ahalsyana-sutra of the Rgveda and was a Bhatta. He was the son of Jatavedas and had a younger brother named Saiikara. He had an uncle Jatavedas by name and a close friend Subrahmanya. He was a performer of the Soma sacrifice. He had composed several works on astronomy, in which subject he had made deep and extensive investigations, a fact which is well borne out by his available works. Some more personal details about Nllakantha seem to be forthcoming from a Malayalam work Laghuramayana? This work des- cribes itself as a work of Rama, son of Nllakantha of the Gargya-gotra and resident of Kundagrama. Cf. the colophon at its end : fffT f^n^ im*g*firafci tft-ifenTORiT** arnrfflri-ini^JT TOff^mfa-tr^- nfwv-irraT-m-qRhmT tfwi^l^taSft ^ fcfcr Mhnromr » This Nllakantha is identified by the editor of the work with our author. 4 If this identification is correct, Nllakantha's wife was named Arya, and he had two sons Rama and Daksinamurti, the latter of whom was well versed in the Dharmasastras and learned in the three languages Sanskrit, Tamil and Malayalam. The great Malayalam poet Tuncattu' 1Qln , L 1D Ed " T, ' iya ^rum Sanskrit Series (TSS), No. 101, (Trivandrum, 1930), p. 180. ' 2. Generally the term Gargya is affixed to his name in references It may also be noted that in the commentary edited here, he refers to himself merely as 'Gargya', (cf Candracchayaganitam vyakhyayate'sya Gargyena p. 2), obviously, on account of his full name not being amenable for insertion in the verse. v , 3 ' E< L P ' R< Men ° n ' Tunchattu Grant/avail, No. 3, Tunchattu Karyalayam, Chittoor, 2nd edn., 1931. 4. Vide P.R. Menon in his article 'Tunchattu Ezhuttacchan' in the Malayalam monthly Tunchattu Ezhuttacchan, 3 (1952-53) 127-35,
