Advaita Vedanta and Vaisnavism

The Philosophy of Madhusudana Sarasvati

Sanjukta Gupta

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415395359
• eBook ISBN: 9781134157747
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In Indian philosophy and theology, the ideology of Vedanta occupies an important position. Hindu religious sects accept the Vedantic soteriology, which believes that there is only one conscious reality, Brahman from which the entire creation, both conscious and non-conscious, emanated.

Madhusudana Sarasvati, who lived in sixteenth century Bengal and wrote in Sanskrit, was the last great thinker among the Indian philosophers of Vedanta. During his time, Hindu sectarians, rejected monistic Vedanta. Although a strict monist, Madhusudana tried to make a synthesis between his monistic philosophy and his theology of emotional love for God.

Sanjukta Gupta provides the only comprehensive study of Madhusudana Sarasvati's thought. She explores the religious context of his extensive and difficult works, offering invaluable insights into Indian philosophy and theology.

1
Introduction

A sixteenth-century Bengali philosopher of Advaita-Vedānta
and theologian of KṛṣṆabhakti

According to the tradition Madhusūdana Sarasvatī of the sixteenth century CE rose to great eminence even during his own life time. Madhusūdana, a monk, was a follower of Śaṃkara’s non-dualist school of Vedānta. He was an outstanding polemic writer and wrote many commentaries and independent treatises on non-dualist Vedānta philosophy. He was also a great theologian and composed an extended commentary on the Bhagavadgītā and a commentary on the first verse of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and a monograph on the bhakti theology, the Bhakti Rasāyana. He was a renowned philosopher who was proficient in all systems of traditional Indian philosophy. According to tradition he first studied the traditional and contemporary system of logic, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and developed a powerful polemical style popular amongst the philosophers of his time. He was a formidable writer on the Advaita-Vedānta dialectics. As a theologian of the Bhāgavata school of bhakti he stands unique even though he was close to the Vaiṣṇava theologians of the Bengal school of Vaiṣṇavism promulgated by the followers of Śrīkṛṣṇa Caitanya of Navadvīpa in Bengal. He seems to have continued the tradition of the bhakti theology of Śrīdhara and Bopadeva, (thirteenth century CE), two very important commentators on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (BP) who attempted to interpret the religious position of the BP in the light of monism. As the tradition would have it he was a great admirer of Caitanya but there is no mention of him in any of his works. Nor does he indicate any adherence to the special theology of the Caitanya-school. Nevertheless, as part of the intellectual milieu of his time, he must have known Caitanya’s life and activities. Madhusūdana’s description of a Vaiṣṇava devotee who has achieved a devotee’s goal that is, the state of constant enjoyment of ecstatic devotion for Kṛṣṇa reminds one strongly of the traditional picture of Caitanya in constant ecstasy. I think it is Madhusūdana’s intellectual loyalty to Śaṃkara’s non-dualistic Vedānta that prompted him to develop his own type of Vaiṣṇava theology. Thus, though he stands alone in his interpretation of non-dualistic philosophy of bhakti based on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, he has forged a bridge between the Śaṃkara-school of philosophy and the Caitanya’s school of theology. I should like here to show the important position of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī in the historical development of metaphysical and religious ideas of his period.

The works of Madhusūdana reveal him to be a versatile genius, a faithful commentator, an independent writer on Śaṃkara’s school of monism as well as an upholder of the concept of bhakti. Not only did he synthesise the different schools of the Advaita-Vedānta, but he also chalked out a new path of his own against the heaviest odds of two different streams of dualism – logicians on the one hand and the Madhva-Vaiṣṇavas on the other. His unique contribution to Indian philosophy is his attempt to visualise a union between absolute monism and devotionalism.

Madhusūdana occupies an important position amongst the Vaiṣṇavas of his time. Śrīdhara and Vopadeva, already introduced a new wave of Vaiṣṇavism based on the BP, which developed a bhakti mysticism based on the concept of Upaniṣadic unqualified, immutable, ineffable, Brahman adapted to a personal godhead, Nārayāja or indeed Kṛṣṇa. The importance of the first verse of BP to its monistic commentators is indeed great and Madhusūdana underscored it by himself commenting on that verse. But the Vaiṣṇava theology clashed against Śaṃkara’s concept of māyā or avidyā which is just a positive category, yet is illusion. It is a category on its own, being neither existent nor, non-existent. It is beginningless but is finite. World is a creation of this illusion, avidyā and not of Brahman, the uniquely existent reality. Being a creation of avidyā (or māyā) the world of living and non-living beings is false.

Madhusūdana appeared at the height of the great controversy amongst the Indian philosophers over the question of the illusoriness of the empirical world. Philosophers of all other systems contested the notions of the illusoriness of the world and of māyā/avidyā/ajñāna, which is the source of this illusion. The philosophers like the ritualist Mīmāṃsakas and the Sāṃkhya and the Nyāya Vaiśeṣika realists, on the one hand, and the theologians of the various sects who believed in the reality of God’s creation, on the other, all attacked Śaṃkara’s theories based on illusion.

Maṇḍana Miśra, Śaṃkara’s contemporary and a follower, refuted many of these attacks on the concepts of avidyā along with Sureśvara and other early non-dualists. The great Nyāya philosopher Udayana launched a severe attack on the concept of non-dualism. His famous work, the Nyāya-kusumāñjali, successfully established the reality of the creation and its material source. One aspect of the importance of Udayana is his great style of disputation based on logical argumentations. Śrī Harṣa (twelfth century CE) took up the challenge and using the same style of disputation attacked the Nyāya Vaiśeṣika realism in his work the Khaṇḍana-khaṇḍa-khādyam. This started the period of Advaita-Vedānta dialectics.

One can follow the detailed study of this subject in my teacher Ashutosh Bhattacharya’s work the Post Śaṃkara Dialectics. I shall just mention the names and works of those who followed Śrī Harṣa by writing treatises to continue the disputations against the realists who are relevant to our author. Madhusūdana was very much influenced by Ānandabodha, the author of, amongst other works, the Nyāya-makaranda. By his time Gakgeśa’s Tattva-cintāmaṇi started a new trend in the method of argumentation of the Nyāya Vaiśeṣika philosophers. This new phase is called the Navya-nyāya (Neo-logic). By far the most important person for Madhusūdana was Citsukha who also attacked the Navya-nyāya philosophers on their own ground, namely logical argumentations.

The interesting point of Anandabodha and Citsukha is their success in adopting the Neo-logicians’ perfect technique of logical argumentation. This technique was based on finding fallacy in the opponent’s arguments by means of the syllogistic method. In the arena of dialectics the Neo-logicians insisted on using the method of syllogism as the only correct way in a disputation. In case of concepts like Pure Brahman and avidyā, where the main source of experience is not direct cognition, one is forced to use the method of inference to prove the validity of an experience. Since the time of Gangeśa¹ all traditional philosophers have used this method profusely. In the area of soteriology, the disputants must use the inferential arguments because the spiritual and mystical experiences are extremely subjective. By the sixteenth century CE the Neo-logicians had fine-tuned the method to such a degree that no important philosopher could capture the attention of the discussants of any Indian Brahmanical tradition of metaphysics without excelling in it.

Madhusūdana rose to his eminent position because of his perfection in the Neo-logical style of disputation. He had to rise above the attacks coming from the Madhva school of Vaiṣṇavas. Especially, the attacks of the erudite scholar Vyāsatīrtha who was a past master in the style of Neo-logic, had to be answered. This led to Madhusūdana’s writing the Advaita-siddhi.²

Even a casual glance at the Advaita-siddhi and Advaita-ratna-rakṣaṇa reveals his complete mastery over the deft and subtle style of argumentation introduced by the Navya-nyāya school. Perhaps his extensive study of the Nyāya system persuaded him in later life to think independently without being biased by traditional beliefs. Thus, in the Advaita-siddhi and Gūḍhartha-dīpikā, he sometimes boldly differed from Śaṃkara,³ and re-explained the Brahma-sūtra. Sometimes he even interprets the Bhagavad-gītā in a new light.⁴ But this in no way means that Madhusūdana drifted from the mainstream thinking of the Advaita-Vedānta school. In his delineation of monism, he followed faithfully the views of Advaita as propounded by Maṇḍaṇa Miśra, Sureśvarācārya, (Vārtika) Prakāśātma Yati, (Vivaraṇa), Vācaspati Miśra, (Bhāmatī) Sarvajñātma Muni, (Saṃkṣepa-śārīraka) and so on. Madhusūdana’s favourite authors in the Advaita-Vedānta system are Sureśvarācārya, Prakāśātma Yati and Sarvajñātma Muni. He often quotes from the Vārtika of Sureśvara, sometimes giving elaborate explanations of these quotes.⁵ He even refers to the Vārtika as ‘vārtikāmṛta’, that is, Vārtika, the nectar which shows his esteem for his work. The Vivaraṇa is also frequently cited by Madhusūdana, and he has borrowed several of its author’s ideas namely the bimba-pratibimba-vāda, the view that ajñāna is one, and so on.⁶

Another of Madhusūdana’s esteemed authors is Sarvajñatma Muni. He not only commented on Sarvajñatma’s Samksepa-fariraka, but also adopted many of the theories propounded by Sarvajñatma. For example, Madhusudana explained the view that Brahman is both the locus (afraya) and the object (visaya) of avidya using a quotation from the SaÅksepa-fariraka of Sarvajñatma Muni namely, ‘afrayatva viiayatva bhagini nirvibhaga-citireva kevala’.⁷ Sarvajñatma in his turn followed this idea from Prakafatma Yati’s Vivaraja. Also, in his exposition on the construction of the mahavakyas (great Vedic statements on Brahman), depicting the akhajdartha (just a single integral object), Madhusudana follows the style of Sarvajñatma.⁸ Even Madhusudana’s explanation of eka-jiva-vada (the theory of a single individual self), is influenced by him. This is why Madhusudana is said to have followed the Vivaraja school of Advaita-Vedanta rather than the Bhamati school introduced by Vacaspati Mifra. On the other hand, he also argued in favour of Vacaspati Mifra’s ideas.⁹

It is difficult to portray a definite and reliable biography of Madhusudana Sarasvati, because there are no convincing materials for drawing a systematic history of his life. The main source of information regarding this is the tradition and genealogy preserved in some old Bengali families, and one genealogy of a learned South Indian family provided by a family member in a Sanskrit poetical work.¹⁰ Madhusudana himself remains silent about his family or any description of his activities or residence. He merely states the names of his preceptors an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Series preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Avidyā
• 3 Knowledge and epistemology
• 4 Brahman
• 5 The sentient world: Īśvara, Jīva and Sākṣī
• 6 Material world and cosmogony
• 7 Advaita-vedānta salvation
• 8 Bhakti
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index