Originally scanned at sacred-texts.com by John B. Hare. This eBook was produced by Chetan K. Jain THE TATTVA-MUKTAVÂLÎ by Pûr.nânanda Chakravartin JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. [New Series, Volume XV] [London, Trübner and Company] [1883] {Scanned and edited by Christopher M. Weimer, April 2002} ART. IV.--__The Tattva-muktavâlî of Gau.da-pûr.nânanda-chakra- vartin__. Edited and Translated by Prof. E. B. COWELL. The following poem was written by a native of Bengal, named Pûr.nânanda Chakravartin. Nothing is known as to his date; if the work were identical with the poem of the same name mentioned in the account of the Râmânuja system in Mâdhava's Sarvadaršanasa.mgraha, it would be, of course, older than the fourteenth century, but this is very uncertain; I should be inclined to assign it to a later date. The chief interest of the poem consists in its being a vigorous attack on the Vedânta system by a follower of the Pûr.naprajña school, which was founded by Madhva (or Ânandatîrtha) in the thirteenth century in the South of India. Some account of his system (which in many respects agrees with that of Râmânuja) is given in Wilson's "Hindu Sects;" [Footnote: Works, vol. i. pp. 139-150. See also Prof. Monier Williams, J.R.A.S. Vol. XIV. N.S. p. 304.] but the fullest account is to be found in the fifth chapter of the Sarvadaršanasa.mgraha. Both the Râmânujas and the Pûr.naprajñas hold in opposition to the Vedânta [Footnote: As the different systems are arranged in the Sarva D. S. according to the irrespective relation to the Vedânta, we can easily understand why Mâdhava there places these two systems so low down in the scale, and only just above the atheistic schools of the Chârvâkas, Buddhists, and Jainas.] that individual souls are distinct from Brahman; but they differ as to the sense in which they are thus distinct. The former maintain that "unity" and "plurality" are equally true from different points of view; the latter hold that the relation between the individual soul and Brahman is that of a master and a servant, and consequently that they are absolutely separate. It need not surprise us, therefore, to see that, although Râmânuja is praised in the fifty-third sloka of this poem as "the foremost of the learned," some of his tenets are attacked in the eightieth.