of the /S/rî-bhâshya, and, as we have seen above, /S/a@nkara's
commentators state that their author's polemical remarks are directed
against the V/ri/ttikâra. In addition to Bodhâyana, Râmânuja appeals to
quite a series of ancient teachers--pûrvâ/k/âryâs--who carried on the
true tradition as to the teaching of the Vedânta and the meaning of the
Sûtras. In the Vedârthasa@ngraha--a work composed by Râmânuja
himself--we meet in one place with the enumeration of the following
authorities: Bodhâyana, /T/a@nka, Drami/d/a, Guhadeva, Kapardin,
Bharu/k/i, and quotations from the writings of some of these are not
unfrequent in the Vedârthasa@ngraha, as well as the /S/rî-bhâshya. The
author most frequently quoted is Drami/d/a, who composed the
Drami/d/a-bhâshya; he is sometimes referred to as the bhâshyakâra.
Another writer repeatedly quoted as the vâkyakâra is, I am told, to be
identified with the /T/a@nka mentioned above. I refrain from inserting
in this place the information concerning the relative age of these
writers which may be derived from the oral tradition of the Râmânuja
sect. From another source, however, we receive an intimation that
Drami/d/â/k/ârya or Dravi/d/â/k/ârya preceded /S/a@nkara in point of
time. In his /t/îkâ on /S/a@nkara's bhâshya to the Chândogya Upanishad
III, 10, 4, Ânandagiri remarks that the attempt made by his author to
reconcile the cosmological views of the Upanishad with the teaching of
Sm/ri/ti on the same point is a reproduction of the analogous attempt
made by the Dravi/d/â/k/ârya.

It thus appears that that special interpretation of the Vedânta-sûtras
with which the /S/rî-bhâshya makes us acquainted is not due to
innovating views on the part of Râmânuja, but had authoritative
representatives already at a period anterior to that of /S/a@nkara. This
latter point, moreover, receives additional confirmation from the
relation in which the so-called Râmânuja sect stands to earlier sects.