Commentary as Translation

Tyler Williams examines how the monk-poet Bhagvandas, although ostensibly writing a vernacular commentary (ṭīkā) on the Sanskrit Vairāgya Śataka (Hundred Verses on Non-Attachment) of Bhartrihari, in fact adapts the genre of the commentary so as to transform Bhartrihari’s poetic anthology into a religious treatise. In doing so, Bhagvandas gives his audience—the monastic and householder members of the Niranjani Sampraday, as well as members of other devotional sects and even courtly elites—not only access to the Sanskrit original, but also radically transforms that source text in the process.