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“Islam” in Sanskrit doxography: a reconsideration via the writings of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2021

SHANKAR NAIR
SHANKAR NAIR*
Affiliation:
University of [email protected]
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Abstract

In the ongoing debate regarding the construction of the modern concept of “Hinduism”, recent research has considered the ways in which the pre-colonial encounter with Islam may have served as a catalyst in the crystallisation of an increasingly self-aware “Hindu” identity. Andrew Nicholson (Unifying Hinduism, 2010), in particular, has examined the genre of Sanskrit doxography to affirm that such a process of crystallisation was indeed taking place, as the transformations in this genre over time indicate a nascent Hindu identity emerging in the face of the “Muslim threat”. This article reevaluates Nicholson's account with reference to the writings of one Sanskrit intellectual operating at the height of Muslim power in South Asia: the figure of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (fl. sixteenth-early seventeenth centuries). Madhusūdana's short doxography, the Prasthānabheda, often features in arguments for the pre-colonial roots of the concept of “Hinduism”; Madhusūdana's other doxographical writings, however, are typically neglected. Based upon an analysis of Madhusūdana's Siddhāntabindu and Vedāntakalpalatikā, this article suggests that a more nuanced consideration of the different audiences and authorial intentions that different doxographers had in mind can offer a modified picture of how early modern Sanskrit intellectuals were responding to the Muslim presence in the subcontinent.

Keywords

Prasthan̄abhedaHinduismSiddhan̄tabinduVedan̄takalpalatika
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 32 , Special Issue 1: Situating Sanskrit after the Sultanates , January 2022 , pp. 33 - 58
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society

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References

1 See Bloch, Esther, Keppens, Marianne and Hegde, Rajaram (eds), Rethinking Religion in India: The Colonial Construction of Hinduism (London, 2011)Google Scholar; Lipner, Julius, ‘The Rise of “Hinduism”: or, How to Invent a World Religion with Only Moderate Success’, International Journal of Hindu Studies 10, 1 (2006), pp. 91–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pennington, Brian K., Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (Oxford, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Llewellyn, J. E. (ed.), Defining Hinduism: A Reader (Abingdon, 2005)Google Scholar; Viswanathan, Gauri, ‘Colonialism and the Construction of Hinduism’, in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, (ed.) Flood, Gavin (Oxford, 2003), pp. 23–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sweetman, Will, Mapping Hinduism: “Hinduism” and the Study of Indian Religions, 1600–1776 (Halle, 2003)Google Scholar; Frykenberg, Robert Eric, ‘The Construction of Hinduism as a ‘Public’ Religion: Looking Again at the Religious Roots of Company Raj in South India’, in Religion and Public Cultures: Encounters and Identities in Modern South India, (eds.) Yandell, Keith E. and Paul, John J. (London, 2000), pp. 3–26Google Scholar; King, Richard, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and “The Mystic East” (London, 1999)Google Scholar; Dalmia, Vasudha and von Stietencron, Heinrich (eds), Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity (New Delhi, 1995)Google Scholar; Sontheimer, Günther D. and Kulke, Hermann (eds), Hinduism Reconsidered (New Delhi, 1989)Google Scholar; et al.

2 See, e.g., Lorenzen, David N., ‘Who Invented Hinduism?’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, 4 (1999), pp. 630–659CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ernst, Carl W., ‘Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Arabic and Persian Translations from Indian Languages’, Iranian Studies 36, 2 (2003), pp. 173–195CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Nicholson, Andrew J., Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History (New York, 2010), p. 196CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha is traditionally credited to Mādhava (fourteenth century), though modern scholarship has doubted the attribution, suggesting Mādhava's younger contemporary Cannibhaṭṭa as a more likely candidate, alongside a few other possibilities. See, e.g., Thakur, Anantlal, ‘Cannibhaṭṭa and the Authorship of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha’, Adyar Library Bulletin 25 (1961), pp. 524–538Google Scholar, and Jon M. Yamashita, ‘A Translation and Study of the Pāṇinidarśana Chapter of the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1998), pp. 22–32.

5 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, p. 23; see also pp. 196–205. For more on the classical doxographies and their reception among both modern Hindu thinkers as well as European Indologists in the formulation of their own respective notions of the “Hindu tradition”, see Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany, 1990), pp. 1–22, 51–85, and Jürgen Hanneder, ‘A Conservative Approach to Sanskrit Śāstras: Sarasvatī's, Madhusūdana ‘Prasthānabheda’’, Journal of Indian Philosophy 27 (1999), p. 575Google Scholar.

6 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, p. 190.

7 See Lorenzen, ‘Who Invented Hinduism?’, pp. 646–655.

8 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, p. 190.

9 Ibid., p. 190.

10 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, pp. 164–165, 191, 196. Nicholson, however, is mistaken in attributing this innovation to Madhusūdana: in the tenth century, Vācaspati Miśra had already associated the Buddhists and Jains (and Kāpālikas) with the mlecchas in his commentary on Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.1.3, building upon Śaṅkara's earlier (eighth-ninth century) critique of these numerous groups and doctrines on the basis of their being, in his view, “external to the Veda” (vedabāhya). If this “unifying” process thus began so early—that is, antecedent to any imperial Muslim dominion further east than Sindh and Multan, and certainly prior to Maḥmūd of Ghaznah's (in)famous eleventh century incursions into Lahore, Somnath, and Mathura—then it would call into question Nicholson's contention of Muslim hegemony as the primary motivating factor, or, at the very least, demand further nuancing of the thesis. For these and further complications to Nicholson's argument, see Michael S. Allen's review of Unifying Hinduism, in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 82, 3 (2014), pp. 879–883 and also his ‘Dueling Dramas, Dueling Doxographies: The Prabodhacandrodaya and Saṃkalpasūryodaya’, Journal of Hindu Studies 9 (2016), p. 293 (n. 5).

11 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, pp. 190, 195–196.

12 The term mleccha (“barbarian”, “foreigner”) has a long history in the Sanskrit language, referring most immediately to any and all foreign, non-Subcontinental communities, thus considered to be entirely outside of and unconnected with the caste hierarchy so closely associated with the Sanskrit language and Brahminical Hinduism. The term hence attributes to its target an impure and uncivilised character more pejorative than even “untouchability” (aspŗśyatva). See, e.g., Prasher-Sen, Aloka, ‘Naming and Social Exclusion: The Outcast and the Outsider’, in Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE, (ed.) Olivelle, Patrick (Oxford, 2006), pp. 418, 426–431, 435Google Scholar.

13 For his most compelling, though still rather modest, evidence to this end, see Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, pp. 192–196.

14 Trayī sāṃkhyaṃ yogaḥ paśupatimataṃ vaiṣṇavam iti prabhinne prasthāne param idam adaḥ pathyam iti ca | rucīnāṃ vaicitryād ṛjukuṭilanānāpathajuṣāṃ nṛṇām eko gamyas tvam asi payasāmarṇava iva (Puṣpadanta, Śivamahimnaḥ-stotra, verse 7). I have made use of the Sanskrit text as published in Brown, William Norman (ed.), The Mahimnastava, or Praise of Shiva's Greatness (Poona, 1965), p. 10Google Scholar.

15 Madhusūdana arrives at eighteen for the number of prasthānas on the basis of Yājñavalkya-Smṛti 1.1.3, which identifies fourteen “foundations” or “seats” (sthānas) of vidyā and dharma, to which Madhusūdana then adds the four “upavedas” (“Auxiliary Vedas”). Accordingly, Madhusūdana's overall outline of the eighteen “approaches” is as follows:

• 4 Vedas: 1) Ṛg; 2) Yajur; 3) Sāma; 4) Atharva.

• 6 Vedic Supplements or “Limbs” (vedāṅgas): 5) śikṣā (pronunciation); 6) kalpa (ritual); 7) vyākaraṇa (grammar); 8) nirukta (etymology); 9) chandas (prosody); 10) jyautiṣa (astronomy/astrology).

• 4 Auxiliary Supplements to the Veda (upāṅgas): 11) Purāṇa (including the Upapurāṇas); 12) Nyāya (including Vaiśeṣika); 13) Mīmāṃsā (including Vedānta); 14) Dharmaśāstra (including the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Sāṃkhya, Pātañjala Yoga, and the Pāśupata [Śaiva] and Vaiṣṇava traditions).

• 4 Auxiliary Vedas (upavedas): 15) Āyurveda (medicine); 16) Dhanurveda (military science); 17) Gāndharvaveda (theatre, song, and dance); 18) Arthaśāstra (statecraft, politics, economics, and moral conduct).

16 See Hanneder, ‘A Conservative Approach’, pp. 575–577. As Hanneder suggests, the redaction was most likely executed at the hands of some later writer, though we cannot definitively rule out the possibility that Madhusūdana might have himself prepared the revised, independent version of his commentarial excursus (p. 577).

17 Madhusūdana does not employ the term darśana, in the sense of a philosophical “school”, within the Prasthānabheda, as is commonly seen in other Sanskrit doxographies.

18 The opening line of the Prasthānabheda reads: “Now, the object (tātparya) of all the śāstras is the Lord (bhagavat) alone, whether directly or indirectly. Thus, the divisions in the approaches (prasthānas) of those śāstras are explained here in summary” (Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, Prasthānabheda [Sri Vani Vilas Press, 1912], p. 1). What it might mean for a Vaiṣṇava Advaitin to be composing a commentary upon a hymn in praise of Śiva is certainly worthy of examination, though, unfortunately, lies beyond the scope of this article. For a perhaps comparable example of another early modern Advaitin, the Śaiva Appayya Dīkṣita (d. 1592), writing across Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva, and Śākta materials and allegiances, see Rao, Ajay K., ‘The Vaiṣṇava Writings of a Śaiva Intellectual’, Journal of Indian Philosophy 44 (2014), pp. 41–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Bronner, Yigal, ‘Singing to God, Educating the People: Appayya Dīkṣita and the Function of Stotras’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 127, 2 (2007), pp. 1–18Google Scholar.

19 Most practitioners within these traditions, of course, would vehemently object to the notion that Madhusūdana's conception of the Lord is their goal, but this is beside the point, as far as Madhusūdana is concerned—their true object is the Lord, whether they know it or not!

20 Vedabāhyatvāt teṣāṃ mlecchādiprasthānavat paramparayāpi puruṣārthānupayogitvād upekṣaṇīyatvam eva | iha ca sākṣāḍ vā paramparayā vā pumarthopayogināṃ vedopakaraṇānām eva prasthānānāṃ bhedo darśitaḥ (Madhusūdana, Prasthānabheda, p. 2).

21 See note 10 above for significant problems with this assertion.

22 The Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha of Mādhava/Cannibhaṭṭa (fourteenth century) is perhaps the best-known Advaita doxography to employ this framework, while another Advaitin contemporary to Madhusūdana, Appayya Dīkṣita, utilises a similar organisational scheme for his Siddhāntaleśasaṃgraha. For a more comprehensive account of this feature of Sanskrit doxographical writing, see Halbfass, Wilhelm, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (Albany, 1988), pp. 349–368Google Scholar. Though not technically a doxography, it is nevertheless significant that Nicholson neglects to account for the influential Advaitin allegorical play, the Prabodhacandrodaya of Kṛṣṇamiśra (eleventh century), which adopts the same framework but was composed prior to the established Muslim ruling presence in the subcontinent. Such evidence again undermines the suggestion that Islam served as the primary historical catalyst for “Hindu” unification; see Allen, ‘Dueling Dramas, Dueling Doxographies’.

23 Sarveṣāṃ prasthānakartṝṇāṃ munīnāṃ…advitīye parameśvare pratipādye tātparyam | na hi te munayo bhrāntāḥ sarvajñatvāt teṣām | kiṃtu bahirviṣayapravaṇānām āpātataḥ puruṣārthe praveṣo na saṃbhavatīti nāstikyavāraṇāya taiḥ prakārabhedāḥ pradarśitāḥ (Madhusūdana, Prasthānabheda, p. 19).

24 Hewing more closely to the language of the text itself, in this concluding section, Madhusūdana enumerates three broad views on the causation of the world that are taught among different āstika groups: ārambhavāda (doctrine of novel origination), pariṇāmavāda (doctrine of real transformation), and vivartavāda (doctrine of illusory transformation). According to Madhusūdana, Nyāya(-Vaiśeṣika) and Mīmāṃsā teach the first view, while Sāṃkhya, Pātañjala Yoga, Pāśupata Śaivism, and Vaiṣṇavism teach the second. The third, however, is taught by Advaita Vedānta alone, it being the “culminating” (paryavasāna) view at which the other two teachings indirectly aim. Most individuals fail to grasp this ultimate purport (tātparya), however, stopping short at their best-possible comprehension of one of the other two views (Madhusūdana, Prasthānabheda, p. 18–19).

25 Madhusūdana, Prasthānabheda, p. 19.

26 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, p. 190.

27 I here reference the Sanskrit editions of Tryambakram Śastri Vedāntachārya (Siddhāntabindu of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, being a Commentary on the Daśaślokī of Śaṅkarāchārya, with Two Commentaries, Nyāya Ratnāvalī of Gauḍabrahmānanda and Laghuvyākhyā of Nārāyaṇa Tīrtha, Kashi Sanskrit Series 65 [Jai Krishnadas-Haridas Gupta, Vidya Vilas Press, 1928]) and Prahlād Chandrashekhar Divānji (Siddhāntabindu of Madhusūdana with the Commentary of Purushottama, Gaekwad Oriental Series 64 [Baroda Oriental Institute, 1933]).

28 For a brief overview of the contents of the Daśaślokī and Siddhāntabindu, see Niranjan Saha, ‘An Introduction to the Daśaślokī of Śaṃkara and Its Commentary Siddhāntabindu by Madhusūdana Sarasvatī’, Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions 56, 2 (2017), pp. 355–365.

29 From Madhusūdana's description ([tvampadārthaḥ] kṣaṇikaṃ vijñānam iti sugatāḥ), it seems by “Sugata” he has in mind the same group he calls “Yogācāra” in the Prasthānabheda.

30 Vedāntachārya, Siddhāntabindu, pp. 105–113.

31 Ibid., pp. 114–116.

32 Evaṃ tāvat tribhiḥ ślokaiḥ vādivipratipattinirākaraṇapūrvakaṃ tvampadārtho nirdhāritaḥ | samprati tatpadārthas tathaiva nirdhāraṇīyaḥ | tatra nirākāryā vādivipratipattayaḥ pradarśyante (ibid., pp. 306–307).

33 Ibid., pp. 307–317.

34 Verse four of the Daśaślokī reads: “That (tat) is not Sāṃkhya nor Śaiva nor Pāñcarātra; neither Jaina nor that which is thought by the Mīmāṃsakas, etc.; because of being of a pure (viśuddha) nature, [known] by way of a distinctive apprehension (viśiṣṭānubhūti), that (tat) unique one (eka), auspicious [Śiva], the remainder (avaśiṣṭa) alone am I” (ibid., p. 317). Madhusūdana takes advantage of the “etcetera” (ādi) to insert the additional groups that he wishes to address, namely, (7) Nyāya, (8) Buddhism, and (9) Pātañjala Yoga. Madhusūdana furthermore appends the Tridaṇḍins to the Jains, grouping them together despite the former not being mentioned in the root verse.

35 Although Madhusūdana does not employ the vocabulary of “āstika” and “nāstika” within the Siddhāntabindu, we find in the Vedāntakalpalatikā, to be discussed below, that he categorises the Tridaṇḍins among the āstikas. For background on the Tridaṇḍins, see Slaje, Walter, ‘Yājñavalkya-brāhmaṇas and the Early Mīmāṃsā’, in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta: Interaction and Continuity, (ed.) Johannes Bronkhorst (Delhi, 2007), pp. 122–124, 151Google Scholar.

36 Vedāntachārya, Siddhāntabindu, pp. 311–312, 320.

37 Evaṃ pāśupatamataṃ pāñcarātrikaṃ jainaṃ [traidaṇḍaṃ] ca mataṃ śrutiyuktibādhitatvād ayuktam (ibid., p. 320).

38 Ibid., pp. 317–320, 331–333.

39 I here utilise the Sanskrit editions of Raghunath Damodar Karmarkar (Vedāntakalpalatikā [Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1962]) and Rāmājñā Pāṇḍeya, Gangānātha Jha, and Gopinātha Kavirāja (Vedāntakalpalatikā Madhusūdanaviracitā [Benares Government Sanskrit Library, 1920]). See also V. Sisupala Panicker, Vedāntakalpalatikā: A Study, Sri Garib Das Oriental Series 188 (Sri Satguru Publications, 1995), particularly pp. 27–34.

40 I.e., a tradition that practises ritual sacrifice and/or meditation upon the so-called “five fires” (pañcāgni), and which is dedicated to the creator-deity known as the “Golden Womb” (Hiraṇyagarbha, sometimes identified with Brahmā or Prajāpati—or else, as a form of Viṣṇu, as per the Bhāgavata Purāṇa).

41 Regarding the broad variety of distinctive traditions, spanning numerous centuries and initiatic lineages, that Sanskrit doxographers have tended to group under the broad label of “bhedābheda”, see Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, pp. 25–37.

42 Madhusūdana, Prasthānabheda, p. 2.

43 See Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, pp. 14–22.

44 Evam apare api svakapolakalpitaśrutiyuktiviruddham eva bahu jalpanti (Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 10).

45 Ibid., p. 14–22.

46 See Nair, Krishnan Maheswaran, Advaitasiddhi: A Critical Study (Delhi, 1990), particularly pp. 18–26Google Scholar.

47 Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 10.

48 Nanu nāstikamateṣu māstu mokṣakāmanā phalaphalinor vināśitvāt | āstikamate tu nāsti sa doṣa iti (Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 18).

49 For a useful overview of each of these schools’ basic views regarding the nature of ātman, see Watson, Alex, The Self's Awareness of Itself: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha's Arguments Against the Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self (Wien, 2006), pp. 49–70Google Scholar.

50 The nine attributes in question are: (1) buddhi (cognition), (2) sukha (pleasure), (3) duḥkha (pain), (4) icchā (desire), (5) dveṣa (aversion), (6) prayatna (effort/volition), (7) dharma (merit), (8) adharma (demerit), and (9) bhāvanā (predispositions/past impressions). For a useful overview of this account of the self and the arguments in favor of it, see Chakrabarti, Kisor Kumar and Chakrabarti, Chandana, ‘Toward Dualism: The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika Way’, Philosophy East and West 41, 4 (1991), pp. 477–491CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, pp. 18–22.

52 Ibid., pp. 23–34.

53 Sarvasmiṃśca mate (in one manuscript: pakṣe) mokṣasyāgantukatvābhyupagame…janyatvena avaśyaṃ vināśitvam, janyatvamātrasyaiva lāghavena vināśitvaprayojakatvāt (Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, pp. 31–32). One could plausibly read “sarvasmin mate” here as calling back directly to the pūrvapakṣin's earlier “unifying” phrase, “āstikamate”. Additionally, though I have not translated the term as it would take our inquiry too far afield, Madhusūdana here justifies his logic on the basis of “lāghava”, that is, the principle of “parsimony” or “economy”. In other words, if one should observe, e.g., that an object is “occasioned” (janya)—it is produced, and hence has a beginning—one is then faced with two alternatives: either that object will eventually perish, or else it will endure eternally. The principle of lāghava asks us to favour a simpler and more readily intelligible explanation, so long as it is logically sufficient, over a more complex and inscrutable account: on the one hand, we routinely observe in the world around us that every entity that is causally produced ultimately perishes; on the other hand, one would have to posit any of a number of otherwise unseen and unexperienced conditions for a single, one-of-a-kind exception to occur, namely, that mokṣa alone, of all entities in the cosmos, is uniquely produced but never perishes. Laghāva, in this manner, underpins Madhusūdana's summary refutation in this passage of all non-Advaitin accounts of mokṣa. For more on the principle of lāghava, see Bagchi, Sitansusekhar, Inductive Reasoning: A Study of Tarka and Its Role in Indian Logic (Calcutta, 1953), pp. 175–178Google Scholar, and Chakrabarti, Kisor Kumar, Classical Indian Philosophy of Induction: The Nyāya Viewpoint (Lanham, MD, 2010), pp. 46–50, 67–69Google Scholar.

54 Mita, literally “measured” and synonymous with pramita, is here in the sense of “measured/proven/established by pramāṇa.”

55 Within the Advaita tradition, Vyāsa is often identified with Bādarāyaṇa, the author of the Brahma Sūtras. Sureśvara, in turn, was one of the most influential direct disciples of Śaṅkara.

56 Mīmāṃsayā kapaṭato bhujagāmbayeva svādhīnatām upaniṣad vinateva nītā | yenoddhṛtāmṛtaphalena garutmateva tasmai namo bhagavate ’dbhutaśaṅkarāya (1)…Nirdhūya jaiminipatañjaligautamoktīḥ kāṇādakāpilaśivādimatāni cāham | śrīvyāsaśaṅkarasureśvarasūcitārthaśuddhiṃ vyanajmi viśadaṃ mitabhāṣitena (4) | mumukṣūṇām anuṣṭheyavikṣepavinivṛttaye | mokṣaṃ sasādhanaṃ vacmi parapakṣanirāsataḥ (5) (Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 1–2).

57 See Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 3.

58 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, p. 165.

59 Aikabhavikapakṣanirākaraṇaṃ nirākartus trapām āpādayati | kevalaṃ niryuktikatvāt ity upekṣate (Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 41).

60 Ibid.

61 Apare tu aikabhavikanyāyena ātmajñānamantareṇāpi niṣiddhakāmyayor ananuṣṭhānāt nityanaimittikānuṣṭhānāt ca na āgāmikarmotpādaḥ | vidyamānasya copabhogena kṣayāt sakalakarmocchedalakṣaṇam apavargam āhuḥ (Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 7).

62 For more on the aikabhavika doctrine and its connection with Mīmāṃsaka thought, see Devandahalli Venkatramiah (translation), Śāstradīpikā (Tarkapāda) of Pārthasārathi Miśra (Baroda, 1940), pp. xxiii-xxvi. Śaṅkara refutes a version of the aikabhavika doctrine in his Brahma Sūtra Bhāṣya IV.iii.14, as does Ānandagiri—with explicit reference to the term “aikabhavika”—in his commentary upon Śaṅkara's Bhagavad Gītā Bhāṣya 18.66. Sureśvara, in his own turn, refutes a version of the doctrine, very close to the iteration presented in the Vedāntakalpalatikā, while disputing a Mīmāṃsaka pūrvapakṣin in his Saṃbandhavārttika 40–43 (see Telliyavaram Mahadevan Ponnambalam Mahadevan [ed.], The Saṃbandha-Vārtika of Sureśvarācārya [Madras, 1958], pp. 25–27, and Dinesh Chandra Bhattacharya, ‘Post-Śaṅkara Advaita’, in The Cultural Heritage of India, Volume III: The Philosophies, [ed.] Haridas Bhattacharyya [Calcutta, 1975], pp. 260–261). Some have suggested that the aikabhavika theory finds its nascency in the Vaiśeṣika Sūtras (5.2.15–18), although there it lacks the specifically Vedic ritual regimen that one finds in the Vedāntakalpalatikā's later iteration of the doctrine (see S. Sankaranarayanan, ‘Date of Śrī Śaṅkara – A New Perspective’, Brahmavidyā: The Adyar Library Bulletin 59 [1995], pp. 142–147). Some in the later (Nyāya-)Vaiśeṣika tradition would indeed embrace this very same Vedic ritual regimen (see, e.g., Praśastapāda's Padārthadharmasaṃgraha), however, to my knowledge, these later (Nyāya-)Vaiśeṣikas do not endorse an aikabhavika view, but rather, tend to view both knowledge and ritual activity together (jñānakarmasamuccaya) as the joint sine qua non for liberation (see, e.g., Kedar Nath Tiwari, Classical Indian Ethical Thought: A Philosophical Study of Hindu, Jaina and Bauddha Morals [Delhi, 2007], pp. 101–112). In light of the evidence, accordingly, it seems likely that Madhusūdana has a particular Mīmāṃsaka identity in mind in his reference to aikabhavika. To be sure, most Mīmāṃsakas advocate some version of jñānakarmasamuccaya, though some secondary scholarship accredits a “ritual only” stance to the Bhāṭṭa school, from whence it is just one additional step (namely, the belief that all saṃcita karma is spent by the conclusion of a single lifetime) to a full-fledged aikabhavika doctrine. This confusion over the Bhāṭṭa school is perhaps the result of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa's own arguably conflicting accounts of liberation between his Ślokavārttika—which can be read as promoting a ritual-only position—versus his Tantravārttika—which favours a jñānakarmasamuccaya model (for some of the conflicting interpretations of these discrepancies in modern scholarship, see John Taber, ‘Kumārila the Vedāntin’, in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta: Interaction and Continuity, [ed.] Johannes Bronkhorst [Delhi, 2007], pp. 159–184). Conceivably, the former (Ślokavārttika) view of Kumārila might have become an historical basis for an aikabhavika doctrine or “school” of the sort addressed here by Madhusūdana. To add a further layer of complexity to this aikabhavika notion, it is also conceivable that the idea owes something to the debates over “ekabhavika” (“possessing one birth” or “single coming to be”) as addressed in Yoga Sūtra 2.13 and its commentaries, which similarly query the relationship between karma-generating activities and one vs. multiple subsequent rebirths. See Wadhwani, Yashodhara, ‘Ekabhavika Karmāśaya in Yogabhāṣya 2.13’, Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute 36, 1/4 (1976–77), pp. 164–170Google Scholar; Larson, Gerald James, ‘Pātañjala Yoga's Theory of ‘Many-Lives’ through Karma and Rebirth and Its Eccentric ‘Theism’’, Religions 9 (1), 4 (2018), n.p.Google Scholar; and Rukmani, T. S., ‘Philosophical Hermeneutics within a Darśana (Philosophical School)’, Journal of Hindu Studies 1, 1–2 (2008), pp. 120–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 See, e.g., Kātre, Sadashiva, ‘Terminus Ad Quem for the Dates of Madhusūdana-Sarasvatī's Three Works’, Journal of the Ganganatha Jha Research Institute 7 (1949), pp. 184–186Google Scholar.

64 Regarding the cross-references between and chronological order of Madhusūdana's various writings, see Gupta, Sanjukta, Advaita Vedānta and Vaiṣṇavism: The Philosophy of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (London, 2013), pp. 7–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Divānji, Siddhāntabindu, pp. ii-xiii.

65 Regarding Madhusūdana's career as a prominent Banaras paṇḍit and his leading role in responding to the Dvaita polemic, particularly as articulated in Vyāsatīrtha's Nyāyāmṛta, see Minkowski, Christopher, ‘Advaita Vedānta in Early Modern History’, South Asian History and Culture 2, 2 (2011), pp. 205–231CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Regarding popular memory and oral traditions narrating Madhusūdana's purported contacts with Emperor Akbar and the Mughal court, see John Nicol Farquhar, ‘The Organisation of the Sannyasis of the Vedanta’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (July 1925), p. 483; Pinch, William, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 30–33Google Scholar; Dīnānātha Tripāṭhī, Madhusūdanasarasvatīcaritam (New Delhi, 1994); and Jagadiswarananda, Swami, ‘Sri Madhusudanasarasvati’, Vedanta Kesari 28 (1941), pp. 308–314Google Scholar. Concerning the Mughal court's recognition of Madhusūdana as one of the great Sanskrit scholars of the age, see Bhattacharyya, Dineshchandra, ‘Sanskrit Scholars of Akbar's Time’, Indian Historical Quarterly 13 (1937), pp. 31–36Google Scholar.

67 Nelson, like many if not most scholars of Advaita Vedānta, tends to overstate the purported “incompatibility” between bhakti and Advaita Vedānta prior to Madhusūdana, overlooking important predecessors in articulating an Advaitin path to mokṣa via bhakti, including Vopadeva (fl. 1275), Hemādri (fl. 1275), and Śrīdhara Svāmin (circa 1350–1450). See, e.g., the latter's Subodhinī commentary upon the Bhagavad Gītā and commentary upon the Bhāgavata Purāṇa; see also Anand Venkatkrishnan, ‘Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta, and the Bhakti Movement’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2015).

68 Nelson, Lance, ‘Madhusūdana Sarasvatī on the ‘Hidden Meaning’ of the Bhagavadgītā: Bhakti for the Advaitin Renunciate’, Journal of South Asian Literature 23, 2 (1988), pp. 83–85Google Scholar.

69 Ibid., p. 84.

70 It is beyond the scope of this article to take up Nelson's argument in detail, although Anand Venkatkrishnan has already indicated some of its weaknesses; see the latter's ‘Love in the Time of Scholarship: An Advaita Vedāntin Reads the Bhakti Sūtras’, Journal of Hindu Studies 8 (2015), pp. 139–152 (particularly n. 11, pp. 150–151).

71 Atha saṃkṣepeṇaiṣāṃ prasthānānāṃ…bheda ucyate bālānāṃ vyutpattaye (Madhusūdana, Prasthānabheda, p. 3).

72 Though it would require a more extended examination of the Śivamahimnaḥ-stotra-ṭīkā to substantiate this suggestion, I have in mind here the sorts of public pedagogical functions of cross-sectarian stotras that Bronner outlines in his ‘Singing to God, Educating the People’ (see pp. 15–17).

73 This language of guiding the populace towards Advaita Vedānta, either directly or indirectly, interestingly echoes Madhusūdana's framing of the entire collective of āstika “approaches” in the Prasthānabheda.

74 Vedāntaśāstraśravaṇālasānāṃ bodhāya kurve kamapi prayatnam (Vedāntachārya, Siddhāntabindu, pp. 4–8).

75 Bahuyācanayā mayā ayam alpo balabhadrasya kṛte kṛto nibandhaḥ (Vedāntachārya, Siddhāntabindu, pp. 462).

76 See Minkowski, ‘Advaita Vedānta’, pp. 207, 214.

77 Sattarkapuṣpanikaraiḥ paramātmabodhaniṣṭhāphalena dadhatī paramāṃ vibhūtim | śārīrakārthasuraśākhigatā sudhībhir vedāntakalpalatikeyam upāsanīyā (Karmarkar, Vedāntakalpalatikā, p. 2).

78 See Minkowski, ‘Advaita Vedānta’, pp. 210–213.

79 Ibid., pp. 221–223.

80 See, e.g., Pollock's, Sheldon ‘New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-Century India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 38, 1 (2001), pp. 3–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his ‘The Death of Sanskrit’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 43, 2 (2001), pp. 393–394.

81 See MacIntyre, Alasdair, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, 1988), pp. 361–362Google Scholar.

82 This remarkable indifference or “Indocentrism” of “‘orthodox’ Hindu thought” has, of course, already been effectively described by Halbfass (India and Europe, pp. 172–196). The foregoing, however, might encourage us to further nuance Halbfass’ account: what may appear, through one lens, as a staggering self-isolation systematically closed off a priori from “any serious involvement with…the ‘other’” (pp. 186–187), may also appear, through another lens, as an intellectual tradition's abundant confidence in itself to consistently realise its own, most central truth-claims, hence utterly without need, desire, or even curiosity to venture anywhere else.

83 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, p. 190. Although it is equally worth querying just how “absent” the Jains really were in this period such that Nicholson would consider them effectively irrelevant to early modern “Hindu” doxographers’ genuine concerns: on the vibrant and varied intellectual activities of early modern Jain communities, including within the Mughal court, see, e.g., Dundas, Paul, History, Scripture and Controversy in a Medieval Jain Sect (London, 2007)Google Scholar; Truschke, Audrey, ‘Dangerous Debates: Jain Responses to Theological Challenges at the Mughal Court’, Modern Asian Studies 49, 5 (2015), pp. 1311–1344CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Cort, ‘Bhakti as Elite Cultural Practice: Digambar Jain Bhakti in Early Modern North India’, in Bhakti and Power: Debating India's Religion of the Heart, (eds.) John Stratton Hawley, Christian Lee Novetzke and Swapna Sharma (Seattle, 2019), pp. 95–104; Jain, Shalin, ‘Piety, Laity and Royalty: Jains under the Mughals in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century’, Indian Historical Review 40, 1 (2013), pp. 67–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lynna Dhanani, ‘The Continuation of Hymn-Making in Old Gujarati during Muslim Rule’ (unpublished paper delivered at the 45th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 21 October 2016); and Tillo Detige, ‘‘Guṇa kahūṃ śrī guru’: Bhaṭṭāraka Gītas and the Early Modern Digambara Jaina Saṅgha’, in Early Modern India: Literatures and Images, Texts and Languages, (eds.) Maya Burger and Nadia Cattoni (Heidelberg, 2019), pp. 271–285.

84 Regarding the mechanics of how the mahāvākyas prompt liberation, see Jacqueline Suthren Hirst, Śaṃkara's Advaita Vedānta: A Way of Teaching (London, 2005), particularly pp. 138–160.

85 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, p. 191.

86 See note 10 above.

87 Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism, pp. 93–96, 165.

88 Ibid., p. 165.

89 As with Vācaspati Miśra, the major distinction between Kṛṣnamiśra's and Madhusūdana's respective lists is the former's inclusion of the Kāpālikas (“skull-bearing” Tantric Śaivas) among the ranks of the nāstikas.

90 See Allen, ‘Dueling Dramas, Dueling Doxographies’, particularly pp. 275–279, 288–290.

91 Minkowski, ‘Advaita Vedānta’, pp. 210–211.

92 See Pollock, Sheldon, ‘Rāmāyaṇa and Political Imagination in India’, Journal of Asian Studies 52, 2 (1993), p. 286CrossRefGoogle Scholar.