Both Nityōtsava of Umānandanātha and Saubhāgyōdaya (Rāmēśvara’s vr̥tti on Paramśurāma Kalpasūtra) have their own pros and cons. Kalpasūtra, being the `sūtra’, is cryptic and various interpretations of it are possible. The mere scholarship is not possibly sufficient to interpret the real purport of these sūtras. I personally think intuition would be necessary as well.
Both Rāmēśvara and Umānandanātha do not seem to completely convey what the sūtrakāra actually intends to communicate through the sūtras. Again, we need to seek help from śrī Bhāskararāya Makhīndra, who, apart from being a distinguished scholar, is undoubtedly inspired by Bhagavatī Herself. Some claim that Umānandanātha’s Nityōtsava was examined and approved by Bhāskararāya himself. Rāmēśvara, on the other hand, claims that his commentary conveys the correct intent of the sūtrakāra. We need to examine why these works were written at all.
Bhāskararāya himself authored Ratnālōka, a commentary on the Kalpasūtra. Parts of it are available with Sri Ramachandran Iyer of Tirunelveli. A close examination of this manuscript reveals that Rāmēśvara had not studied Ratnālōka as there are striking differences between the two commentaries.
Bhāskararāya also authored Saubhāgyacandrōdaya, a commentary on the śrīvidyāratnākara of Vidyānandanātha, an encyclopedic manual of śrīvidyā.
He also wrote Tripurasundarī varivasyā, a manual on the worship of Lalitā based again on the Kalpasūtra, with relevant aspects not covered in the sūtras but described in other tantras.
The reason for either Umānandanātha or Rāmēśvarai to write independent works is justified if Bhāskararāya’s works were insufficient in completely bringing out the essence of the intended subject. Knowing Bhāskararāya well, one can reject this claim even without actually reading any of the said works. A reading of parts of Ratnālōka indeed strengthens one’s faith in Bhāskararāya’s scholarship and intuition. Also, the works of his disciples exhibit a lack of the insights of sampradāya handed over a lineage of great masters. Bhāskararāya himself observes – sampradāyaikasiddhatvēna svaśāstrē – sampradāya is the key to understanding many secrets of svaśāstra, which in this case is the śrīvidyā śāstra.
Let’s consider an example. The revelation of sarvamantrāsanā vidyā is as below in Nityāṣōḍaśikārṇava:
punarādyaṁ mahāvidyāṁ śivacandrasamanvitām |
kr̥tvā kāmapradā vidyā sarvamantrāsanasthitā || 1-113
This simply means, add śiva (ha) and chandra (sa) before every bīja of Mahāvidyā (Bālā) to obtain the sarvamantrāsanā vidyā. The last letter of Bāla already has a sakāra. So do we add another `sa’ to this bīja? Both Rāmēśvara and Umānandanātha interpret the relevant sūtra blindly here and use two interposed sakāra-s. But Bhāskararāya clearly advocates the use of a single sakāra here – caramabījē sakārāntarayōgō nāstīti sampradāyaḥ (Setubandha). This shows the lack of traditional knowledge on the part of both Umānandanātha and Rāmēśvara. This is just one such example. So, it is best to rely on one’s gurūpadēśa and then refer to tantrāntara in such cases.