[Advaita-l] Saundaryalahari Bhashya

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Tue, 1 Sep 2020, Indira Sastry via Advaita-l wrote:

> Namaste Sarvebhya:
> I would like to know from the scholars of this group as to which is the
> best Sanskrit bhashya written on Saundaryalahari. I heard there are about
> 36 Sanskrit bhashyas. Also which is the best English commentary on the
> same. Thanks in advance for your help.
> Thanks

The tika by Lakshmidhara Kavi is probably the most popular but it is 
somewhat controversial in that the author is a proponent of samayachara in 
which there is a purely symbolic interpretation of certain tantric 
concepts which is considered to be too "reformed" by more traditional 
scholars.  Thus I think if you want to go beyond more than just the patha 
of this stotra, it is better to get diksha from a sampradayika guru and 
ask them which is best or get the explanation directly from them.

As for English translations, Prof. W. Norman Brown of the University of 
Pennsylvania wrote one called "Saundarya Lahari or The Flood of Beauty." 
It is long out of print but you should be able to find the PDF online 
somewhere.

I also have a book by Shri Sadanand Brahmachari of Dwarka Matha which 
along with the Sanskrit, has Gujarati, Hindi, and English translations.


-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>