Thursday, May 25, 2006

Appaya Dikshita and Nilakantha Dikshita

Appaya Dikshita (b. ca.1520,
d. 1592) transfers his copy of the Devimahatmya to his grand nephew Nilakantha Dikshita (1580--ca. 1644), just before he passes away. This happened at Cidambaram.

The account of Appaya's deathbed transfer of his
cultural and spiritual heritage to the twelve-year-old Nilakantha is
given in the biographies of Nilakantha, the
Srinilakanthadhvaricaritam of Appaya, the
Sriappayadiksitendravijaya, both composed by Appaya's
nineteenth-century descendant Sivananda Yogindra. The former text
is translated and reprinted by Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat,
Oeuvres Po'etiques de Nilakantha Diksita I (1967), pp.7, 349. P-S Filliozat also
gives information from the latter text and other sources,
(ibid., 4).

My thanks to Yigal Bronner for drawing my attention to this image.
We're working to find out its source. Posted by Picasa