A note on the authorship of Asvaliyana-grhya-mantra-vyakhya

Summary

This technical note addresses the question of who wrote a commentary on the Āśvalāyana‑gr̥hya‑mantra‑vyākhyā, a collection of Vedic domestic ritual mantras. Two principal sources are compared: a printed edition that attributes the commentary to Haradatta and a Mysore manuscript that preserves a different text attributed to Chakrapāṇi. By examining the commentary on individual mantras, the author shows that the Mysore manuscript aligns closely with Haradatta’s Ekāgni‑kanda‑bhāṣya, while the printed edition incorporates long passages paraphrased from the sūtras themselves. The article provides examples where the Mysore manuscript explains terms such as vanaspati (“lord of the forest”) in a concise, grammatical manner, whereas the printed edition reproduces ritual rules in extenso. It also notes differences in vocabulary: the manuscript writes athavā (“or”) where the printed text reads avashabda (“optional particle”), and it omits philosophical digressions found in the printed version. The Mysore manuscript contains two large lacunae—amounting to about 140 pages in the printed edition—within which the colophons of the first and second adhyāyas would fall; therefore it cannot help identify the commentator of those sections. Nevertheless, from the portions preserved, the author argues that the commentary on the first adhyāya published in the printed edition must be by Chakrapāṇi, who explicitly states his intention to comment only on the domestic rites and praises his own achievement in the colophon. The commentary on the third and fourth adhyāyas shows no radical divergence from Haradatta’s style, leaving open the possibility that Haradatta continued or supplemented Chakrapāṇi’s work. The note concludes that the printed edition offers a patchwork compiled from different sources rather than a unified commentary by a single author.