Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T14:09:49.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mādhavêndra Purī: A Link between Bengal Vaiṣṇavism and South Indian Bhakti

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Friedhelm Hardy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A. K. Majumdar says: “It is not possible to establish on historical evidence any link between the Āḻvārs and Caitanya. … It is, however, quite possible that his parama-guru (preceptor's preceptor) Mādhavêndra Purī was influenced by the Āḻvārs.” Other authors have put forward similar suggestions, but are equally unable to substantiate their assumptions. A. Gail states categorically: “Bhakti in the form of emotional-suggestively created identification with figures from the Kṛṣṇa legend was systematically developed in the rasa theory of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism, after preparation by the Āḻvārs.” But he has to concede that no proof for this statement is available: “Nothing seems to be known of any connexion between Bengal Vaiṣṇavas and Āḻvārs.” S. Das Gupta had earlier drawn certain parallels between Caitanya's school and the Āḻvārs.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 106 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 23 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Caitanya: his life and doctrine, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1969, 50.Google Scholar

2 Bhakti im Bhāgavata-Purāṇa, Münchener Studien Nr. 6, Wiesbaden, 1969, 13.Google Scholar

3 ibid., 46, n. 15.

4 A history of Indian philosophy, III, Cambridge, 1940, 81.Google Scholar

5 The only sources in English (or any European language) so far available on the Āḻvārs have been Hooper, J. M. S., Hymns of the Āḻvārs, Calcutta, 1929Google Scholar, and S. Das Gupta, op. cit., 69–73 (where Das Gupta summarizes a late and very short epitome in Sanskrit of Nammāḻvār's Tiruvāymoḻi, entitled Dramiḍo-paniṣattātparya). Varadachari's, K. C.Āḻvārs of South India, Bombay, 1966 (on which A. Gail bases some of his assumptions) is a popular-devotional booklet without any critical value.Google Scholar

6 The present writer has been engaged in studying the Tamil poems of the Āḻvārs and hopes to publish in the future the results of these studies along with extensive translations. Various statements that follow involving the Āḻvārs and their influence on later bhakti texts in Sanskrit are based on this research; it would have extended the scope of the present study too much to have supplied the references in full.

7 The date is according to W. G. Archer, pp. 11 and 25 of his Introduction to Bhattacharya, D., Love songs of Vidyapati, London, 1963.Google Scholar

8 See Sen, D. C., History of Bengali language and literature, Calcutta, 1954, 134 f.Google Scholar

9 For instance Caitanyacaritâmṛta, Madhya-Līlā, II, 77; X, 115; Antya-Līlā, XVII, 6 f. We shall refer to this important work, written in Bengali by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāj around A.D. 1615, by the abbreviation CCA. There are many editions; the one used here is by Jagadīśvar Gupta, Calcutta, 1309/1903; the verses are numbered, including the Sanskrit poems, from the beginning of each chapter. There is a Sanskrit translation by Viśvanātha Cakravartī (around A.D. 1685), and an English paraphrase in six volumes edited by N. K. Ray, Calcutta,2 1959, which rather distorts than translates the original.

10 Edited by S. C. Banerji, Calcutta, 1965. This reasonably critical edition is an improvement after the first two editions by P. R. Śarmā, 1.) Bibliotheca Indica, 1912 and 1921 (incomplete), and 2.) Panjab University Series XV, Lahore, 1933. Verse 533 is said to have been recited by Caitanya (CCA Madhya I, 57 f.), though Caitanya may well have known the verse from some other source.

11 On further material concerning traces of Vaiṣṇavism in pre-Caitanya Bengal see e.g. Majumdar, op. cit., 75–9; S. K. De, Early history of the Vaisnava faith and movement in Bengal (in the following references VFM), Calcutta,2 1961, 8–12. Both authors also maintain that the earlier texts are not directly religious.

12 According to VFM, 22, it may have been the meeting of various Vaiṣṇava communities in Vṛndāvana; Majumdar, op. cit., 266 f., thinks that the movement needed a justification, once it was outside Bengal. Both arguments are not entirely convincing, because they do not take into account the time gap between the first Gosvāmīs, who were sent to Vṛndāvana by Caitanya himself, and Baladeva, who lived not earlier than the eighteenth century. Majumdar, p. 269, n. 8, and Eidlitz, W., Kṛṣṇa-Caitanya, sein Leben und seine Lehre, Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion, 7, Stockholm, 1968, 15Google Scholar, n. 2, refer to a specific incident in Jaipur, which seems to provide the motive for Baladeva's writing a separate commentary from the point of view of Bengal Vaiṣṇavism.

13 So Jīva Gosvāmī, Tattva-Sandarbha: “nija-sūtrāṇām akṛtrima-bhāṣya-bhūtam” (quoted VFM, 262, n. 2), “(Bhāgavata-Purāṇa) is the genuine commentary on (Vyāsa's) own (Brahma-)sūtras.”

14 The opening line, BhP I, 1, 1, corresponds poignantly to BrS I, 1, 2. cf. also BhP I, 4 and 5.

15 See VFM, 255 f.

16 One could suspect that the similarity of the names Madhva and Mādhava (= oindra Purī) played some role here.

17 VFM, 13 f; 21 f.

18 op. cit., 260–269. Some of the main arguments may be summarized: (1) Earlier texts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries know nothing about a Mādhva affiliation. (2) The genuine Mādhva guruparamparās do not mention Mādhavêndra or Īśvara Purī. (3) There is convincing positive evidence concerning an affiliation of these two with Śaṅkara's sampradāya (see below). (4) A Mādhva could not possibly have given such high esteem to Śrīdhara Svāmi's advaitic commentary on BhP.

19 No text edition of this Bengali work (written around A.D. 1570) was available to us; we had to rely on the extensive German translations of Eidlitz, op. cit., hereafter CBh.

20 This is supposed to have been one of the mahāvākyas, see Majumdar, 262.

21 According to CBh II, 27 (Eidlitz, 362).

22 Written in Sanskrit about A.D. 1576. We have used the edition by Ācārya Rāmacandra Miśra, Haridās Sanskrit Granthamāla No. 267, Varanasi, 1966 (hereafter CCUN). The first passage is in Act IV, verses 35–43, with intervening prose (op. cit., 150–55). Advaitâcārya asks an eye-witness to the ceremony: “kiṃ tāvat tad-āśrama-samucitaṃ nāmâṅgīkṛtaṃ Bhagavatā (= Caitanya)?”—“ ‘Kṛṣṇa-Caitanya’ iti.”—“(sa-camatkāram) aho! samucitam evâitat.

Kṛṣṇa-svarūpaṃ caitanyaṃ Kṛṣṇa-Caitanya-saṃjñitaḥ/

ata eva mahāvākyasyârtho hi phalavān iha//41//

Keśava-Bhāratī hi śrutir eva tasyāḥ Keśavasya Bhāratītvād, yathā ‘mayâdau Brahmaṇe proktā dharmo yasyāṃ madātmakaḥ’ iti, ataḥ Keśava-Bhāratī-pratipāditaṃ śruti-pratipādyam evêti.” (p. 154) “Which name then, that is appropriate to his new stage in life, did the lord accept?”—“K.C.”—(with surprise) “This is indeed very appropriate. The Spirit which is essentially Kṛṣṇa has been named K. C.; therefore the meaning of the mahāvākyas has fulfilled itself here. (41) For K.Bh. is the Vedas, because they are the śakti of Viṣṇu, as (is proved from the statement) ‘(the Vedas) are taught by me to Brahma at the beginning of the/a yuga, in which (Vedas) the dharma that is essentially myself (is explained …)’; therefore what has been taught by K.Bh. has to be considered (?) as the Vedas.”

23 Mahāvākyas are the famous sentences from the Upaniṣads like “tat tvam asi”, which embody the essence of monistic philosophy.

24 CCUN, Act V, verses 21 f., with prose (pp. 173 f.). Advaitâcārya criticizes Caitanya for having joined the advaitic order, “Kêyaṃ līlā vyaraci bhavatā yo 'yam advaita-bhājām atyantêṣṭas tam adhṛta bhavān āśramaṃ yat turīyam/” and Caitanya answers laughing “bho Advaita! smara kimu vayaṃ hanta nâdvaitabhājo ‥”—“What a strange thing have you done by entering into that particular saṃnyāsa-hood which is so much liked by people belonging to the advaita.”—“Oh A.! Remember that we do not belong to the advaita ‥”

26 CCUN, Act VI, prose after verse 19 (pp. 201 f.). The technical term here is mahāvākyôpadeṣṭā. Majumdar, 268, n. 7, claiming that this contradicts the statements of CBh (see above with n. 20), seems to exaggerate. Kavikarṇa-Pūra does not say directly that Caitanya was initiated with the mahāvākya. It is only Sarvabhauma who asks the question. The “Alas!” (hanta) refers to the relatively low status of the Bhāratī order as compared with, e.g., the Purī order (see Majumdar, 262).

26 CCA Madhya VI, 70–73: “… Bhāratī sampradāya ei hayen madhyama … ” (His Bh. sampradāya is only mediocre…)

27 CCA Ādi VII, 72 f.: “Śuna Śri-Pāda! ihāra kāraṇa:

Guru more mūrkha dekhi karila śāsana:

‘mūrkha tumi! nāhi taba Vedāntâdhīkāra,

Kṛṣṇa-nāma japa sadā …. ’ ”

28 Majumdar, 262.

29 The possible motives for Caitanya's decision to become a saṃnyāsī can be gathered from CBh II, 26 (Eidlitz, 354) (in order to avoid opposition from people) or CCA Ādi XVII, 264 ff. (in order to save people by making them respect him), or CCA Madhya III, 7 ff. (in order to lead a life entirely devoted to Kṛṣṇa).

30 CCA Madhya VII, 64: śūdra-viṣayī—“a vile śūdra”.

31 CCUN, Act VII, prose after verse 2 (p. 231): sahaja-Vaiṣṇnava. As it stands here, the word can simply mean “natural, spontaneous … ” and need not be taken in its technical sense of “belonging to the tāntric sahajīya movement”. Dimock, E. C., The place of the hidden moon, Chicago, 1966, 52–55Google Scholar, interprets it in the latter meaning, while Eidlitz, 389, translates “seiner inneren Natur nach ein Vaiṣṇava”. But from passages like CCA Antya V, 13–24 (partly translated by Dimock, loc. cit.) some association of Rāmânanda Rāya with (left-hand) tāntric practices seems plausible.

32 VFM, 92 f.; 577–80 (short description of the work).

33 CCA Madhya II, 77: Rāyer nāṭaka gīti among the works that Caitanya loved listening to.

34 The crucial texts are: CCA Madhya VIII, 57 to end; CCUN (in much shorter form), Act VII, verses 7–18 with prose (pp. 236–44).

35 VFM, 92 ff.; Majumdar, 178–95 (with short translations); Eidlitz, 388–96 (with abbreviated translations from CCA and CCUN).

36 CCA Antya V, 7.

37 The fact that CCA quotes freely from Rūpa Gosvāmī, etc., and puts these quotations into Rāmânanda's mouth as his own words, has created some confusion among scholars, who tend to consider the whole discourse to be an invention of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāj. But it is only natural (as Biblical criticism showed long ago) that the author of this biography described the incident in terms of the bhakti-rasa system as it had fully developed by his time. A scholarly, chronological way of thinking would have been entirely unknown to him. What he wants to express through this stylistic device which strikes present scholars as anachronistic, was that Rāmânanda taught Caitanya exactly those factors which later gave rise to the bhakti-rasa system.

39 CCUN, Act VII, verse 17 (p. 243): Tadā cikura-kalāpaṃ dvidhā kṛtvā ten va tac caraṇa-yugaṃ veṣṭayitvā nipatya gaditam:

‘Mahā-rasika-śekharaḥ sarasa-nāṭya-līlā-guruḥ

sa eva hṛdayêśvaras tvam asi me kimu tvāṃ stumaḥ/

tavaitad api sāhajaṃ vividha-bhūmikā-svīkṛtir

na tena yati-bhūmikā bhavati no 'tivismāpanī//17//’

39 CCA Madhya VIII, 271–90.

40 The expression prādurbhāva could theoretically refer to Caitanya's birth; but it seems better to take it in the sense: before he became a Kṛṣṇa-bhakta, that is, before he went to Gayā (see below). But since at the time of the latter event Caitanya was not older than about 23 years, even the first interpretation seems possible.

41 It clearly says nindi kahe; but from other passages in CCA (e.g., Ādi XII, 40; XVII, 67) and from CBh (II, 19 = Eidlitz, 319) one gets the impression that this may not have been entirely true and that Advaitâcārya showed an inclination more in line with his own name. See also VFM, 32.

42 CCA Ādi XIII, 64–67; cf. VFM, 30 f.

43 e.g. CCA Madhya IV, 109 f.:

Śāntipura āilā Advaitâcāryer ghare/

Purīr prema dekhi ācārya ānanda antare//

t r ṭh i mantra laila yatna kariyā/

calilā dakṣiṇe Puri t re dīkṣā diyā//

44 VFM, 30.

45 VFM, 75.

46 CCA Madhya VIII, 295: āmi eka bātula; CCUN, Act II, prose after verse 24 (p. 68): unmāda-daśāyām.

47 CBh I, 9 (Eidlitz, 257 f.); VFM, 25; Majumdar, 125 f.

48 Apart from the references that follow, further sources seem to be: Murāri Gupta's Caitanya-caritâmṛta, I, 15 f. (see (VFM, 560); Kavikarṇa-Pūra's kāvya of the same name, IV (see VFM, 564 f.). See further VFM, 76; Majumdar, 133.

49 daśa-varṇa-vidyām … Mādhava-Purîndra-vaśām. It is obviously a mantra of ten syllables, though I am unable to specify it. Majumdar speaks of “Gopāla-mantra” (p. 133).

50 gāyan naṭann abhinayan virudann amandam

ānanda-sindhuṣu nimajjayati trilokīm//

The passage is CCUN, Act I, verses 31 and 32 (pp. 18 f.).

51 These technical terms denote the same symptoms as mentioned in CCUN, Act I, verse 32, of highly emotional agitation or disturbance which is interpreted as boundless love for Kṛṣṇa. The passage is CCA Ādi XVII, 8 f.

52 CBh I, 15; translated from Eidlitz, 272–4.

53 We possess only very small fragments of Īśvara Purī's own bhakti. These are mostly some Sanskrit verses ascribed to him in the anthology Padyāvalī (see below), Nos. 18, 62, 75. They express contempt for brahma-vidyā, ecstatic devotion, etc.; No. 75 belongs to the same genre as some of Mādhavêndra's poems (see below).

54 CCA Antya VIII, 28–31a.

55 CBh III, 3. Eidlitz, 381.

56 VFM, 24, with n. 1.

57 S. K. De, VFM, 25, n. 2, denies the possibility.

58 Mentioned as a possibility by Majumdar, 50.

59 Eidlitz, 193, 258; VFM, 23.

60 CCUN, Act I, verse 6 (p. 5).

61 CCA Ādi IX, verses 8–9.

62 CCA Ādi IX, verses 11–12.

63 CCA Antya VIII, 20.

64 According to De, VFM, 92.

65 Edited and translated in Sacred books of the Hindus, No. VII, Allahabad, 1912. The work consists almost entirely of systematically arranged verses from the Bhāgavata-purāṇa.

66 On pp. viii f. of the Preface to his edition of Padyāvalī by Rūpa Gosvāmī, Dacca University Oriental Publication Series, No. 3, 1934 (hereafter Pv). Slightly altered in VFM, 17 ff.

67 See Gode, P. K., “The date of Śrīdhara Svāmī”, in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, XXX, 1949, 277–283Google Scholar; VFM, 17 .

68 CCA Antya VII, 96–120: Caitanya defends it against a Vallabha Bhaṭṭā.

69 op. cit. (n. 65), 152: atra Śrīdhara-sattamôkti-…

70 Kṛṣṇa-nāma-saṅkīrttana kare.

71 A general belief, mentioned, e.g., in the Gītā, that a person's next birth will depend on what he sees at the moment of his death.

72 chāra means “ashes, vile or worthless object”.

73 CCA Antya VIII, 19, 23–25Google Scholar .

74 ārdra means literally “wet”, but according to South Indian phraseology this has developed to “merciful, benevolent, full of sympathy” (see below and cf. Nayagam, X. S. Thani, Landscape and poetry, London, 1966, 21 .Google Scholar

75 Tvad-a-loka- is obscure, since loka in the meaning “sight” is not attested in the Sanskrit Dictionary. “a-lo-kana-” does not suit the metre, so one may suggest “a-loca”. The Sanskrit commentary ad CCA Madhya IV, 196 paraphrases as tvad-darśanāya pīḍitam, and the Bengali translation (ibidem) has tomāke dekhibār janya, both of which would mean “towards, for the sake of, in order to see(ing) you”.

76 Quoted in Pv as No. 330.

77 CCA Antya VIII, 33b–35.

78 āsvādana, “to realize its inherent emotions and religious meaning”.

79 We have corrected the printed sahite to kahite.

80 CCA Madhya IV, 193–195.

81 He re-established Kṛṣṇa worship at Vṛndāvana, not at Mathurā, and he would not use the latter to denote the former name.

82 See n. 66. On the date see VFM, 160, and De, S. K., Indian Historical Quarterly, X, 1934, 311 ff.Google Scholar

83 De's text has devā.

84 Village in the Balasore District, Orissa. The temple, apparently with erotic sculptures, is dedicated to Kṣīracora-Gopīnātha (G. the “milk-thief”). See Imperial gazetteer of India, XXI, 1908, 278 .Google Scholar

85 CCA Madhya IV, 18b.

86 Malaya-ja candana could be a pleonasm, or should one suspect a hidden allusion to South India (malaya-Kerala)?

87 CCA Madhya IV, 21 … 159a.

88 CBh I, 8: megha-darśana-mātra hay acetana. VFM, 24, with n. 2.

89 Edited by S. K. De, Dacca, 1938. There has been considerable discussion concerning this work, although its South Indian (Kerala?) origin appears to be generally accepted. On this see especially S. K. De, Introduction to his edition; Raja, K. Kunjunni, The contribution of Kerala to Sanskrit literature, Madras, 1958, 31–51Google Scholar . The present writer cannot agree with Raja's conclusion concerning the date of this work; on p. 47, op. cit., Raja identifies the author of KK with a grammarian Vilvamaṅgala and assumes a date around A.D. 1300. It has been overlooked that already Saduktikarṇāmṛta (A.D. 1205) quotes (as verse 290) from KK (verse 106 from Book I). The work, therefore, must be earlier than A.D. 1205. This quotation (anonymous) in a Bengal anthology does not necessarily contradict the fact that Caitanya is known to have discovered the Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta in the South (CCA Madhya IX, 304–306). A few stray verses, especially anonymous ones, could easily have reached the north, even when 300 years later the whole text was not yet known there.

90 Vegāsetu-stotra, usually included in Stotras by Vedānta-deśika; there are many editions, e .g., in Devanāgarī characters: (1) V. N. Śrīrāmadeśikâcārya, Kumbhakonam, Tanjore, 1966. (2) Śrī-Vedāntadeśika-sampradāya-sabhā, Bombay, 1952. These editions were not available to us and the following edition was used:… oDeśika-viracitā Garuḍadaṇḍakâdayo granthāḥ, Kontalūr Kōyil Īyuṇṇi … Raghavâcāryena śodhitāḥ, Cenna-purī (= Madras), bhava-vatsare (about 1870) (in Grantha characters) . The quotation is from verse 4.

91 Bhagavad-dhyāna-sopānam, another Stotra (see n . 90). Verse 1, etc.

92 Another Stotra; see n . 90.

93 The present writer is preparing a paper on Vedāntadeśika's treatment of Āḻvār material .

94 The verse is a taṉiyaṉ, an isolated verse of praise, which is universally printed as an introduction to the poem of the Ālvar whom it extols . There are a few other such taṉiyaṉ verses ascribed to Nāthamuni preserved in the Prabandham. There is no reason to question the ascription.

96 Many editions; we have used Haridasa Sanskrit Series No . 109, Benares, 1954.

96 The songs of the Ālvārs are collected in the Nālāyira-divya-prabandham in Tamil . There are many editions in South India which are commonly available.

97 This Kulaśekhara should not be confused with the author of Mukundamālā .

98 It is impossible to provide all necessary evidence here .