The following poem was written by a native of Bengal, named
Pur.nananda Chakravartin. Nothing is known as to his date; if
the work were identical with the poem of the same name mentioned
in the account of the Ramanuja system in Madhava's
Sarvadarsanasa.mgraha, it would be, of course, older than the
fourteenth century, but this is very uncertain; I should be
inclined to assign it to a later date. The chief interest of the
poem consists in its being a vigorous attack on the Vedanta
system by a follower of the Pur.naprajna school, which was
founded by Madhva (or Anandatirtha) in the thirteenth century in
the South of India. Some account of his system (which in many
respects agrees with that of Ramanuja) is given in Wilson's
"Hindu Sects;" [Footnote: Works, vol. i. pp. 139-150. See also
Prof. Monier Williams, J.R.A.S. Vol. XIV. N.S. p. 304.] but the
fullest account is to be found in the fifth chapter of the
Sarvadarsanasa.mgraha. Both the Ramanujas and the Pur.naprajnas
hold in opposition to the Vedanta [Footnote: As the different
systems are arranged in the Sarva D. S. according to the
irrespective relation to the Vedanta, we can easily understand why
Madhava there places these two systems so low down in the scale,
and only just above the atheistic schools of the Charvakas,
Buddhists, and Jainas.] that individual souls are distinct from
Brahman; but they differ as to the sense in which they are thus
distinct. The former maintain that "unity" and "plurality" are
equally true from different points of view; the latter hold that
the relation between the individual soul and Brahman is that of a
master and a servant, and consequently that they are absolutely
separate. It need not surprise us, therefore, to see that,