Sarvamoola – Script of Sri HrishikeshaTeertharu

BUNDLES OF HISTORY: The 700-year-old Sarvamoola manuscripts are usually housed in the sanctum sanctorum of the Palimar Math in Udupi.

Sarvamoola-Of-HrishikeshaTheertha

A well-preserved 700-year-old palm leaf manuscript set which belongs to the Palimar Math, a paryaya peetha of Udupi Sri Krishna Math, was the cynosure of all eyes at the Jnana Ganga exhibition organised as part of the World Sanskrit Book Fair which concluded here on Monday.
The 250 manuscripts, said to be some of the oldest discovered yet, has inscriptions written on both sides and contain the entire 39 works of Acharya Madhwa, the 13 {+t} {+h} Century Dwaita philosopher.

Written in Tulu

Hitherto housed in the sanctum sanctorum of the Palimar Math and worshipped by successive pontiffs, the manuscripts, popularly Sarvamoola, were dictated by Madhwacharya to Hrisheekesha Tirtha, his disciple. Interestingly, while the Acharya Madhwa dictated them in Sanskrit while his disciple wrote it in Tulu, their mother tongue.

These precious manuscripts first saw the light of day when Bannanje Govindacharya, noted Sanskrit and Kannada scholar, persuaded the then Palimar Math pontiff Vidyamanya Tirrtha to publish them instead of allowing them to turn brittle.

39, not 37

Mr. Govindacharya, who edited and printed the works, also clarified that the Acharya wrote 39 pieces and not 37 as believed by the orthodoxy. He had dealt with subjects such as Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas apart from the Ramayana and Mahabharata Tatparya Nirnaya in the Sarvamoola.

Mr. Govindacharya said that he got it digitised by Mukunda, a professor in Rochester Institute of Technology, USA. He said the manuscript had historical significance, because it contained the authentic dictation given by the philosopher to his disciple.