Māruta-maṇḍana, of Vanamalin and its date

Summary

This article examines an obscure Vedāntic treatise known as the Mārutamaṇḍana or Māruta-maṇḍana, attributed to the scholar Vanamālīn. The author begins by describing the sole extant manuscript, a sixty‑three‑folio palm‑leaf codex now in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Because the first folio is missing, the treatise had escaped the notice of earlier cataloguers. After summarizing the contents of each folio, the paper reproduces selected passages in transliterated Sanskrit to illustrate the topics covered. The work is shown to be a compendium of Vedānta doctrine drawing on earlier commentaries on the Brahma‑sūtras and the Bhagavad‑gītā. Vanamālīn discusses standard Vedāntic themes such as the nature of Brahman, the role of the guru, and the relation between the individual self and the supreme. At the same time the author cites contemporary works on metrics, grammar, medicine and astronomy, suggesting a broad intellectual milieu. The second half of the article uses internal evidence to determine when Vanamālīn lived. By comparing the Mārutamaṇḍana’s quotations to parallel verses in the works of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and subsequent commentators, the author shows that Vanamālīn was aware of post‑Śaṅkarite developments but wrote before the rise of later sub‑schools. A number of cited verses also appear in commentaries known to have been composed in the seventeenth century. References to historical persons and events suggest that the author flourished in western India under Maratha patronage. On the basis of this evidence the paper tentatively dates the Mārutamaṇḍana to the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. It concludes by noting that the treatise enriches our knowledge of regional Vedānta traditions and invites further study of neglected manuscripts.