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INTRODUCTION |
SECTION
THE SIDDHI-LITERATURE.
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This is the last of the epilogic verses which Śrī Madhusudanasarasvati has appended to his famous Advaita work called the Advaitasiddhi. Four great Advaitic works are referred to in this verse as bearing names, of which the word siddhi forms the latter member and the words Ista, Naişkarmya, Brahma and Advaita form respectively the former members. These four works are the Brahmasiddhi, the Naişkarmyasiddhi, the Istasiddhi and the Advaitasiddhi. Madhusudana-sarasvati flourished in the last three quarters of the seventeenth century; and his work-the Advaitasiddhi-is the latest of these four works and came to be written long after the other three siddhis-(cirāt samajāyata). Two other advaitic works bear similar names-viz., Advaita-brahmasiddhi and the Svarajyasiddhi. These six works, chiefly, may be taken to represent whatmay be called the Siddhi-literature of the advaita school. There are also some other works belonging to the Siddhi-literature such as the Vijnanamatrasiddhi or the Vijnaptimātratasiddhi by Vasubandhu, the Sphotasiddhi by Acarya Maṇḍana, the Sphotasiddhi by Bharatamiśra, the Apõhu-siddhi and Kşanabhanga-siddhi by Ratnakirti, the Prabodha-siddhi by Udayanacarya, the
