Bhavadeva

The date given here (12th c.) comes from the introduction to the third volume of the text edited by Chinnaswami Sastri and Pattabhirama Shastri. Potter, however, gives a date of 1050 to 1070 in his Bibliography of Indian Philosophies. In his introduction, Pattabhirama Shastri identifies the author of the Tautātitamatatilaka with the subject of a famous praśasti located in the Ananta Vāsudeva temple in Bhubaneswar. The use of a common pen-name, Bālavalabhībhujaṅga, confirms the identity.

The inscription mentions the village of Siddhala in the Rāḍha country (western Bengal) as Bhavadeva's ancestral home. It also mentions that he was a minister of the king Harivarma Deva.

Bhavadeva and Pārthasārathimiśra were, in the opinion of Chinnaswami Sastri and Pattabhirama Shastri, close contemporaries, and that is why neither is mentioned in the works of the other.