rthasa@ngraha--a work composed by Ramanuja
himself--we meet in one place with the enumeration of the following
authorities: Bodhayana, /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 Vedarthasa@ngraha, as well as the /S/ri-bhashya. The
author most frequently quoted is Drami/d/a, who composed the
Drami/d/a-bhashya; he is sometimes referred to as the bhashyakara.
Another writer repeatedly quoted as the vakyakara 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 Ramanuja
sect. From another source, however, we receive an intimation that
Drami/d/a/k/arya or Dravi/d/a/k/arya preceded /S/a@nkara in point of
time. In his /t/ika on /S/a@nkara's bhashya to the Chandogya Upanishad
III, 10, 4, Anandagiri 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/a/k/arya.

It thus appears that that special interpretation of the Vedanta-sutras
with which the /S/ri-bhashya makes us acquainted is not due to
innovating views on the part of Ramanuja, 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 Ramanuja sect stands to earlier sects.
What the exact position of Ramanuja was, and of what nature were the
reforms that rendered him so prominent as to give his name to a new
sect, is not exactly known at present; at the same time it is generally
acknowledged that the Ramanujas are closely connected with the so-called
Bhagavatas or Pa/nk/aratras, who are known to have existed already at a
very early time. This latter point is proved by evidence of various
kinds; for our present purpose it suffices to point to the fact that,
according to the interpretation of the most authoritative commentators,
the last Sutras of the second pada of the second adhyaya
(Vedanta-sutras) refer to a distinctive tenet of the Bhagavatas--which
tenet forms part of the Ramanuja system also--viz. that the highest
being manifests itself in a fourfold form (vyuha) as Vasudeva,
Sa@nkarsha/n/a, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, those four forms being i