century, and made him compose a valuable commentary on it। The Pādukāsahaśrā is a poem of one thousand verses on the Lord's lotus-feet, or rather his wooden sandals. Deśika also composed, in addition to his original Prabandhas (Deśikapranbhanda) in Tamil, an elaborate commentary called the Seventy four Thousand, which is lost Amongst the miscellaneous works of the great saint, mention may be made of the Subhāshita nīvī and other ethical treatises written for a chief of the Āndra country, the Śilpāthasāra on art, and architecture, the Rasa-bhaumāmrta and Vrksabhaumāmrta on medicine, and the Vairāgyapañcaka which he addressed to Vidyāranya in praise of resignation when he was pressed to come to Vijayanagar under the sunshine of royal patronage. It is not surprising that Vedānta Deśika was called in his own age Kavitārkikasimha, the lion of poets and philosophers, and Sarvatantrasvatantra the master of all science and knowledge. Many incidents can be cited to show the innate beauty of character of this saint scholar, and man. Not the least of his services was saving Śrutaprākaśikā from the chaos which followed the sack of Śrīrangam in 1327. This is the reason why his name as Vedāntācārya is invoked by all Śrī Vaisnavas without sectarian bias in beginning the study of the Śri Bhāsya
In preparing the text of the present edition, six palm leaf manuscripts and five printed editions were secured for the purpose of collation and critical examination. All were found to contain many scribal and other errors. Of the printed editions, three were in Grantha characters, one in Telugu and one in Devanagari. All the Grantha editions, though printed at different times, give almost the same readings. The Telugu edition gives some variant readings and the Text contains fewer errors than the Texts of the Grantha
