Quotation in Early Modern Vedānta: An Example from Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism
Issue: Vol 6 No. 2 (2012) Special Issue: “Tradition and the Reuse of Indic Texts”
Journal: Religions of South Asia
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies
Abstract:
A recent research project, ‘Sanskrit Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism’, led by Sheldon Pollock, Christopher Minkowski and other leading Sanskrit scholars, reveals that early modern India from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries witnessed one of the most productive periods in its intellectual history. While this project explores eight disciplines (vyākaraṇa, mīmāṃsā, nyāya, dharmaśāstra, alaṅkāraśāstra, āyurveda, jyotiṣ, prayoga), it unfortunately excludes Vedānta as a scope of study. However, the cultural productivity in the area of Vedānta continued and was alive in the early modern period. A good example of this can be observed in the works of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa (c. 1700–1793), a Vedāntin belonging to the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition. In this article, I analyse Baladeva’s commentary on Brahmasūtras 2.1.21-25, paying attention to the ways in which Baladeva quotes the writings of Śaṅkara and Madhva. The complex engagements with the earlier Vedāntins in Baladeva’s writing shows, I believe, that the Vedāntic discourse was a part of the flourishing Sanskrit culture in the early modern period.
Author: Kiyokazu Okita
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