Abhayapradānasāra of Vedāntadeśika

Abstract Among the many works by Vedāntadeśika, the Abhayapradānasāra (“The Essence of [Rāma’s] Bestowal of Protection”) provides a lucid outline of prapatti (“self-surrender”) by drawing on the story of the Rāmāyaṇa , above all the episode at the start of the Yuddhakāṇḍa when Vibhīṣaṇa deserts Rāvaṇa and joins forces with Rāma. As one of the Cillarai Rahasyam s (“Minor Esoteric Works”), the Abhayapradānasāra is composed in a variety of Tamil mixed heavily with Sanskrit lexemes known as Maṇipravāḷam. The choice of both language as well as source text, the epic ādikāvya (“first poem”), signal that Vedāntadeśika intends his work to reach a wider audience than his scholastic works written in Sanskrit, which are generally inaccessible to the laity or non-Brahmins not only on account of their language but because they contain Vedic quotations. In the present article I will provide a translation of the first two sections of the Abhayapradānasāra along with an introduction and annotations. I will focus on the way in which Vedāntadeśika proves that the Rāmāyaṇa is by design a text for salvation and on the way epic texts, including the Mahābhārata , are elevated to be explanatory augments ( upabṛṃhaṇa ) of the Vedas, whose true essence emerges from the former.