Page:Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets.djvu/56

29 BHATTOGI DIKSHAT. The above was a bramin, and native of the Mqharatta country; he was the officiating minister of a temple, which office descended to him in hereditary succession. He adopted the title of his ancestors, and applied very diligently to the study of the sciences. There was not at that time any profound scholar in his native country, from whom he could obtain instruction, so after reading several poems, by which he acquired a knowledge of the Sanscrit langnage, he proceeded to Benares and studied philosophy. Bhatogi Dikshat was possessed of an ancommon fine genius, and composed an elaborate treatise on grammar, which he called "Sedhanta Kowmudi," consisting of about twelve thousand verses. This work was very much approved of by the learned pundits of Benares, by whose advice it was published and disseminated throughout Hindustan, and became much in vogue; at the latter part of his life, this poet gave up his time to philosophy and contemplation, and died at Kasi, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.