South Asian History and Culture, 2015

Vol. 6, No. 1, 87101, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2014.969012

Freed by the weight of history: polemic and doxography in sixteenth

century Vednta
Lawrence McCrea*

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Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

The early sixteenth century saw a dramatic rise in the worldly fortunes and intellectual
influence of Dvaita Vednta, principally through the career of the great scholar
Vysatrtha (c. 14601539 AD). With exhaustive precision, he mapped the full range
of philosophical opinion ranged against the tenets of the Dvaita system, not only dating
from Madhvas time, but stretching back to earlier Advaita and Viidvaita interpretations of Vednta, as well as the views of Mmsakas, grammarians, and logicians on more general philosophical and hermeneutical topics. He broke with the
practice of his forerunners in the Dvaita tradition, who made few direct references to
specific authors and texts from rival traditions and directed their criticisms toward a
generic and abstracted representation of a single rival tradition, Advaita Vednta. In
crafting his elaborate surveys, Vysatrtha created what was in effect a systematic
doxography of Advaita Vednta, far more detailed, sophisticated, and historically
sensitive than had ever yet been devised by the Advaitins themselves. Yet, while
Vysatrthas historical survey of Advaita opinion was without precedent, it was
certainly not without a sequel. Quite soon after Vysatrthas time, the first (and
perhaps only) major internal historical doxography of Advaita was produced
Appayya Dkitas trasiddhntaleasagraha. Appayya was acutely conscious of
Vysatrthas work, which formed the direct target of much of his vicious anti-Dvaita
polemic. He was also clearly much influenced by him, both in his treatment of specific
topics and in his overall methodology. It is likely that Appayyas own markedly
historical turn in his treatment of Advaita was at least partly inspired by
Vysatrthas pioneering efforts, and a close examination of their works does in fact
reveal significant links in their construction of the history of Advaita. The historical/
doxographic method displayed most dramatically in the strasiddhntaleasagraha
is evident in his other works as well. It played an important role in his remoulding of
standard positions in his Alakra and Mms works as well as his Vednta ones
and became in succeeding generations one of the signal features of the navya
movements in all of these disciplines. Hence, among his many other accomplishments,
Vysatrtha may well be seen as a pioneer in the new brand of historicist scholarship
that was to become one of the hallmarks of the new intellectuals of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
Keywords: Vysatrtha; doxography; Dvaita Vednta; Advaita Vednta; intellectual
history

The sixteenth century witnessed a dramatic rise, not only in the worldly fortunes, but also
in the intellectual reach and prestige of the tradition of Dvaita Vednta, founded by
Madhva in the thirteenth century. As the century began, Dvaita appears to have been
little more than a relatively obscure local religious movement; by its end, it stood
unquestionably as a major force in intellectual and religious life, not only in the immediate
neighbourhood of its founding, but across much of South Asia. Book length attacks on the
*Email: ljm223@cornell.edu
2014 Taylor & Francis

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works, doctrines, and intellectual methods of Madhva and his followers (and of course
book length rejoinders by supporters of Dvaita) had become fairly commonplace (e.g.
Appayya Dkitas Madhvatantramukhamardana and Upakramaparkrama and
Madhusdanasarasvats Advaitasiddhi). Clearly, Dvaita was no longer marginal, either
geographically or culturally. It had become a force that could not be ignored.
And this remarkable transformation seems to have revolved, to an extraordinary
degree, around the career of a single person, the great Dvaita polemicist and philosopher
Vysatrtha (c. 14601539 AD). It is very clear that Vysatrtha, through his relations with
the Vijayanagara court and his cultivation of their patronage (already explored in some
detail by Valerie Stoker), did much to augment the public standing and sociopolitical
prominence of Dvaita, at least within the Vijayanagara sphere of influence. Even if one
discounts the story that Vysatrtha became the personal guru of Kadevarya, it is still
clear that he did much to promote Dvaita and to place it on a far more competitive footing
with its principal sectarian rivals.1
Parallel with this rise in the sociopolitical status of the Dvaita movement under
Vysatrthas leadership was a dramatic rise in its intellectual standing. Authors in rival
traditions, especially in Advaita Vednta, simply began to pay a great deal more attention
to Dvaita arguments. Based on my own survey of pre-sixteenth century Advaita literature,
it appears that Dvaita was actually ignored to a quite surprising extent. Apart from the
single noteworthy exception of the chapter on Mdhva Vednta in Mdhavas (fourteenth
century) Sarvadaranasamgraha, it is difficult to find any systematic treatment, or even
much sign of awareness, of Madhva and his followers as potential rival interpreters of the
Upaniads or the Brahmastras. Up until the early to mid-1500s, it appears that many if
not most Advaita authors wrote as if Dvaita simply did not exist. When Nsihrama,
writing in just around 1550, begins to engage seriously if selectively with Dvaita views in
his Advaitadpik (not, as has sometimes been claimed, in his Bhedadhikkra, which
shows no awareness of Dvaita opponents2), he refers regularly to the Dvaitin opponent as
a navna, a newcomer, and, in discursive if not strictly chronological terms, the
description seems apt.3 It is really only in this period that Dvaita is noticed as a serious
participant in Vedntic debates by those outside the Dvaita movement.
This dramatic explosion in the attention directed toward Dvaita Vednta by exponents
of rival traditions comes immediately in the wake of Vysatrthas work, and it is hard not
to suppose that he played a large if not commanding role in bringing about this transformation. The greater attention Dvaita comes to receive during this period may in part be a
direct result in its increased public prominence as a competitor for patronage, but I do not
think it can be exclusively ascribed to this. It certainly survives, and if anything increases,
following the downfall of the Vijayanagara empire, which was the primary locus of its
patronage support in the sixteenth century. I would argue that a second major force in
raising the intellectual profile of Dvaita in this period was a radical shift in the textual
practices of Dvaita intellectuals, pioneered and most spectacularly embodied in
Vysatrthas major works. It would be misleading, I think, to describe this as a shift
toward a more polemical mode of writing. Polemic, and anti-Advaita polemic in particular, had been a central component of Dvaita self-presentation since the origins of the
tradition. Madhva himself authored several khaanas or systematic refutations of key
Advaita concepts.4 But Madhvas critiques of Advaita, as well as his commentator
Jayatrthas, are directed toward a dehistoricized, generic Advaita opponent; names of
Advaita authors or texts are seldom if ever mentioned, direct quotations are avoided, and
one is often left guessing as to what Advaita sources they are using as the basis for their
arguments.5 One begins to see some shift in this genericized anti-Advaita polemic in the

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Vdaratnval of Viudsa (mid-fifteenth century). Viudsa definitely responds to

updated Advaita positions in his work (though it is not always clear from what texts he
is drawing these updated positions), and he does occasionally cite actual Advaita texts.6
But the scale and detail of textual engagement with Advaitins and other potential interlocutors in Vysatrthas works positively dwarfs anything to be found in the earlier
Dvaita tradition. What is distinctive about his work is not its pronouncedly polemical
cast, but the depth and breadth of his scholarship and the specificity of his analyses of his
interlocutors views and of his own responses. In brief, Vysatrtha engages in a far more
direct, detailed, and historically nuanced manner not only with sectarian Advaita and
Viidvaita opponents, but with a vast range of opinion and argument reaching back a
millennium or more, showing how his own reading of the Dvaita position stands in
relation to both long established and more recent views of grammarians, Mmsakas,
and Naiyyikas, as well as proponents of rival versions of Vednta.7 This depth and clarity
of historical focus is, I think, one of the signal features of Vysatrthas writing one
element shared by his three major works, his anti-Advaita polemic Nyymta, his
Ttparyacandrik subcommentary on Madhvas Brahmastrabhya, and his study of
epistemological and hermeneutical theory the Tarkatava, which are otherwise formally
and discursively very dissimilar from one another. And this more detailed scholastic
engagement with the wider intellectual world is in no doubt at least partly responsible
for the vastly increased attention Vysatrthas works gain outside of Dvaita circles.
Detailed critiques call for detailed responses.
Polemic and intellectual history in the Vysatrthas Nyymta
To explore with some specificity Vysatrthas methods and the extent and manner of his
engagement with Advaita sources, I would like to examine in some detail his arguments in
the third pariccheda of the Nyymta. This is one of the shorter chapters in the work and
is devoted almost entirely to issues surrounding the interpretation of a single Upaniadic
vkya, Bhadrayaka Upaniad 2.4.5: Indeed, the Self should be seen, it should be heard
about, it should be thought about, it should be meditated on [O Maitreyi] (tm v are
draavya rotavyo mantavyo nididhysitavyo maitreyi). This set of injunctions to hear
about, think about and meditate on the self (ravaa, manana, and nididhysana) was
held to be an especially crucial one in Advaita Vednta and had long been a subject of
intense debate within the tradition. Several key questions divided Advaita interpreters of
these apparent Upaniadic commands. In the first place, are they in fact injunctions at all
or, as Vcaspatimira would have it, expressions which [merely] have the appearance of
being injunctions (vidhicchyni vacanni)?8 If they are injunctions, then are they, in
terms of one of the major Mms injunctive typologies, pure or new injunctions
(aprva-vidhis), which enjoin an action the need to perform which is not known (prpta)
from any other source; restrictive injunctions (niyama-vidhis), which prescribe that an
already known action be performed by only one of several possible means, or exclusionary injunctions (parisakhy-vidhis), which enjoin one action while precluding
another that would otherwise be required? How do the injunctions of hearing, thinking
and meditation relate to one another? Is one primary with the others being subordinate to
it, and if so which?
The prominence these questions are given in the Nyymta is certainly a reflection of
the importance they have historically held for the Advaitins; Vysatrthas Dvaita predecessors, as we shall see, had comparatively little to say about these injunctions and the
interpretive issues surrounding them. True to form, therefore, Vysatrtha frames his entire

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discussion around the exegesis and critique of the Advaitins own extensive and mutually
contradictory statements on these questions. After declaring (in the conclusion of chapter
two) that hearing about brahman or God that is listening to the Upaniadic texts
themselves is subordinate to meditating upon Him Vysatrtha begins the third
chapter of the Nyymta with an objector defending the contrary position as explained by
Praktman in his Pacapdikvivaraa (c. 1000 AD?):
But this is not correct, since the author of the Vivaraa has stated that hearing is predominant,
since the means of knowedge [prama, i.e. abda, testimony] is unmediated [in its action]
with respect to the object to be known. Thinking and meditating, on the other hand,
become causes of the minds experience of brahman [only] through the effects of mental
concentration on it brought about by favorable saskras in the individual soul, and hence
are subordinate through assisting in the production of the result.9

Wishing to retain the view that it is only scriptural language itself, abda, that provides
knowledge of brahman, Praktman insists that hearing the Upaniadic sentences is the
primary and direct means of knowledge, even though thought and meditation must
intervene between our first hearing of the text and our final liberating awareness.
Vysatrtha rejects this claim for the preeminence of hearing over meditation in
terms of the very same Mms categories Praktman used to justify it in the
Vivaraa. For thinking of and meditating on brahman to be subordinate to hearing,
this hearing would have to be the primary instrument (karaa) producing knowledge of
brahman as its result, but Vysatrtha shows that this cannot be so, because it plays only
an indirect, mediated role in bringing about this knowledge. But at this point, rather than
accept that he has made his point and move on to the next topic, Vysatrtha begins to
delve more deeply into a range of later Advaita texts that attempt to refine or reinforce the
basic argument of the Vivaraa (employing commentaries on the Vivaraa as well as
independent works). He cites, for example, the view of nandapra Vidysgara (fourteenth century)10 that it is our awareness of the scriptural words themselves, qualified by
[hermeneutically derived knowledge of] the true purport of a passage, that produces our
linguistic awareness, analogously to the way awareness of an inferential mark operates in
the prama of inference. Vysatrtha challenges the analogy, arguing that our understanding of the words of the text themselves is actually analogous to the secondary role of
hypothetical reasoning or tarka in inference a cooperating factor in producing our final
awareness, rather than a direct cause of it. He goes on to consider and reject similar
arguments made for regarding ravaa, hearing, as the direct instrument, or at least part of
the direct instrument, of brahmajna advanced by Citsukha (in his commentary on the
Vivaraa c. 1300) and by Jnaghana in his Tattvauddhi (eleventh century?).11 After
considering further permutations of the argument for the predominance of ravaa (not
traced, this time, to named Advaita works or authors), Vysatrtha cites a single brief
comment from a Dvaita source, Jayatrthas Nyyasudh, asserting the preeminence of
meditation over hearing and thinking, and quickly moves on to the next topic, where a
similar pattern emerges. Here the topic is the more vexed, or at least more elaborately
discussed and controversial, question of what type of injunction we should take the
commands to hear, think about, and meditate on the self to be pure, restrictive, or
eliminative. Vysatrtha begins his discussion once again by exploring the Vivaraa
position:
As for what is said in the Vivaraa, namely that since hearing etcs being a means for
understanding their contents is [already] established through positive and negative

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concomitance, the injunctions respecting these cannot be either pure or exclusionary, and
hence must be restrictive injunctions this is not so12

Praktman argued in the Vivaraa that the injunctions to hear about, think about, and
meditate on the Self the injunctions that for him serve as the entire scriptural basis for
Vedntic study must all be seen as restrictive injunctions: we know from our everyday
experience that at least one normally successful means for acquiring knowledge about any
topic is to engage in a systematic study of suitably informative texts. The need to study
Vednta, then, is, for someone seeking liberation from rebirth, already known already
prpta. The effect of the ravaa vidhi, then, is not to enjoin an act we would otherwise
not know to perform at all. Rather, it restricts the means by which we should engage in
this study: we should investigate the Self by studying the Upaniadic statements concerning it, not by any other means.
Vysatrthas opening objection to this position is to point out that the kind of
knowledge one is expected to gain from Upaniadic study is, by Praktmans own
account, altogether different in kind from that attained by the study of texts on ordinary
matters. Praktman and many of his fellow Advaitins distinguish between the first-order
linguistic awareness we obtain from initially hearing a sentence such as tat tvam asi and
the immediate and full realization of brahman, which we will obtain from the same
sentence once properly purged of obstacles through proper analysis and meditation
(manana and nididhysana); this latter, immediate awareness they term immediate
linguistic awareness (bda-aparoka-jna). The knowledge we gain from ordinary
textual study is, by contrast, non-immediate, paroka. Hence, the study of Upaniadic
texts for the purpose of immediate knowledge is not established in everyday experience,
and the act of Vedntic study expressed by the word ravaa cannot be regarded as
prpta.
At this point, a defender of the Vivaraa objects: We do in fact see immediate
knowledge arising from study in ordinary practice, namely in the study of music
(gndharva-stra).13 When we study texts on music (presumably with a competent
teacher), we not only gain indirect knowledge of particular musical elements such as
the aja-note, we actually hear them, and hence gain immediate knowledge of them.
Hence, the link between stric study and immediate knowledge is established in everyday
practice. Vysatrtha does not identify a source for the music analogy, but it is found in at
least one earlier Advaita text, Rmdvayas (late fourteenth century?) Vedntakaumud, a
text Vysatrtha frequently cites elsewhere. Vysatrthas response to this objection hinges
on the inconclusiveness of the example: We cannot take it as established, on the basis of
the music analogy, that study of a given stra will lead to immediate knowledge of its
subject matter, since we do not see immediate awareness of the subject matter through the
investigation of [for example] the ritual portions of the Veda [karmaka].14 Since not
all everyday stras produce immediate knowledge of their subject matter in the way that
musical study does, the link is not conclusively established, and we cannot know,
independent of any injunction, that Vedntic study will produce immediate awareness of
brahman. Vysatrthas response to the music analogy is, as far as I can determine,
original to him, but it does resurface later, as we shall see shortly.
Having dispensed with this objection, Vysatrtha considers in turn various other
attempts to defend the notion that the usefulness of Vednta study is already knowable
from everyday experience and the injunction must therefore be restrictive. Most of these
are not traced to specific Advaita texts or authors, and I will not review them in detail
here. But one set of arguments is treated at some length and merits particular notice. The

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source of this line of argument is named as the Kaumud , that is the Vedntakaumud of
Rmdvaya, already mentioned above as the possible source of the music analogy.
Vysatrthas summary of his view runs as follows:
[It] is said in the Kaumud that, just as knowledge of the things expressed by mantras is
already known as something achievable through the mantras themselves, but only as one
option (since it is also known that [it could be achieved] through the sentences governing
their application in the ritual stra [kalpastra] texts that are based on these mantras, and a
restriction is therefore made [by the injunction that] Memory should be achieved by the
mantras alone15; in the same way, a restriction is made in order to completely establish [the
need to perform] the hearing, [thinking about, and meditating on] Upaniadic texts, which is
known only as one option (since texts such as smtis and itihsas which are based on the
Upaniads and which are [available] in common with women and dras are also also known
as an option); this is so because there are ruti texts such as Therefore a brhmaa should not
study a non-Vedic text and smti texts such as It should be heard from Vedic sentences.16

The function of the ravaa-vidhi, then, according to Rmdvaya, is to require Vedically

eligible brhmaas to study only Vedic texts on brahman and avoid study of non-Vedic
and ritually unrestricted texts, such as the Puras, even if they offer the same knowledge.
Vysatrtha refutes the argument of the Kaumud simply by pointing to scriptural commands such as One should reinforce the Veda with the itihsas and puras
(itihsapurbhy veda samupabhayet), which specifically enjoin the study of
these texts in combination with the Veda and therefore flatly contradict the restrictive
interpretation of the ravaa vidhi as given by Rmdvaya.
After dealing with several other issues raised by Praktmans interpretation of the
ravana, manana, and nididhysana vidhis, Vysatrtha turns to the strikingly different
understanding of the same issue offered by Vcaspatimira in his Bhmat commentary on
akaras Brahmastrabhya. Surprisingly, their views are not entirely at odds.
Vcaspati, as we have seen, denies that the sentences indicating that the Self should be
heard about, should be thought about, should be meditated on are injunctions at all, while
Praktman takes them to be the very injunctive basis for Vedntic study. Vcaspati
explains the basis for Vednta study in a different way. He argues that Upaniadic study is
prompted not by the supposed ravaa vidhi, but by the injunction One should study
ones own Vedic rescension (svdhyyo dhyetavya). He takes this injunction for
Vedic study to imply not only the need to memorize but to study and understand the
meaning of ones appropriate rescension of the Veda. Vysatrtha comments on
Vcaspatis view as follows:
As for what is said in the Bhmat that, because there are no injunctions for ravaa etc.,
the injunction for Vedic study itself implies the investigation of both [the karma and the
brahma] sections [of the Veda] we accept this, since it is stated that the one implies the
other in [Madhvas] Bhya, etc. on Brahmastra 3.3.3, and in the passage of the k
[Nyyasudh] that says because study of the Veda culminates in the knowledge of its
meaning17 We will, however, prove that the sentences regarding ravaa etc. are
injunctions.18

Rather strikingly, then, Vysatrtha is at least partly in agreement with Vcaspati and is
happy to borrow his arguments to support what he takes to be the implied position of
Madhva and Jayatrtha. It is an implication; neither of them explicitly makes the claim
stated here for the injunction to Vedic study. And, despite his insistence on the injunctivity
of the ravaa vidhi etc., Vysatrtha is here clearly supporting the view of Vcaspati over

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that of Praktman. He reinforces the point in the conclusion of the section, which he
ends with the following statement:
Therefore the position accepted by the author of the Vivaraa that the injunction to Vedic
study cannot imply the investigation, since it is eternal [nitya, rather than based on the desire
for a result, kmya] is rejected.19

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This interesting partiality of Vysatrtha for the views of the Vcaspati is reflected again in
his next reference to the Bhmat, in the following section. Vysatrtha has just set forth
his own definitions of ravaa, manana, and nididhysana, and follows them with this
remark:
And the very same division of ravaa etc. is explained in just the same way in chapter three
of the Bhmat.20 But the injunctions to investigate and the like are pure injunctions [aprvavidhis], since the investigation of the Vedas being a cause for knowledge is totally unknown
[from any other source].21

Again, we see a partial endorsement of the Bhmat, but with the reservation that the
sentences mentioning ravaa etc. must be seen as genuinely injunctive but as pure
rather than as restrictive injunctions. And again the attempt to ground this view in earlier
Dvaita sources is based on implications, rather than any direct statement on the part of
Madhva or Jayatrtha. He concludes his argument for the pure injunction interpretation
as follows:
It is for this reason that in the Anuvykhyna [when Madhva says] This is enjoined as
something to be desired to be known and in the Bhya when he says, for injunctions
such as One should worship this as the Self, he uses [just] the word injunction without
any secondary designation.22

The very fact that Madhva uses the plain term vidhi in describing such sentences is taken
as sufficient indication that he holds to the pure vidhi theory.
After presenting his own conclusion on the matter in this way, Vysatrtha closes his
discussion of the character of the ravana, manana, and nididhysana vidhis with a brief
review of several alternative Advaita views (this time not keyed to particular texts):
several alternative arguments for taking them to be restrictive injunctions are presented,
as well as an argument that they should be taken as eliminative injunctions since in their
absence the seeker of liberation would be required to seek knowledge of brahman both
through study of the Upaniads and by other means such as the study of inferential
arguments regarding causation.23
So it turns out that nearly all possible views on the status of the ravaa, manana, and
nididhysana vidhis were actually held by one Advaitin or another that they are
restrictive injunctions, they are eliminative injunctions, they are not injunctions at all,
they form the injunctive basis for Vedntic study, or that they do not do so. Interestingly,
Vysatrtha does not present any Advaitins who advocate the view that they are pure
injunctions aprvavidhis though there were some who took this view, as we shall see.
It is unlikely that the exceptionally well-read Vysatrtha would have overlooked this.
Perhaps he omits consideration of the aprvavidhi view because it agrees with his own
and hence stands in no need of refutation.
In spite of this possibly deliberate lacuna, however, we can see that Vysatrthas
survey of Advaita opinion on these topics is impressive in its thoroughness and its

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abundant citations of actual Advaita texts. Interestingly and somewhat revealingly,

Vysatrthas citations of earlier Dvaita works are few and far between here and are in
fact quite dwarfed by his extensive library of Advaitic citations. The simple explanation
for this dearth is that the most basic question dealt with in the complex Advaita debate
around these injunctions whether they are pure injunctions, restrictive injunctions, or
exclusionary injunctions has not been explicitly engaged at all by earlier authors in the
Dvaita tradition. Not only do they not take a stand in this debate; it is not at all clear that
they are aware the debate exists at all. In confronting, analysing, and sometimes, as we
have seen, partially adopting Advaita positions on the questions surrounding these
injunctions and their importance for the endorsing and structuring the properly constituted
study of Upaniadic texts, Vysatrtha is drawing on a long history of explicit intraAdvaita dialogue in which a wide variety of arguments have been made for and against
almost any possible stand on the status of these injunctions. Many of the arguments he
chooses to deploy against one or the other of the factions have already been set forth by
their rivals within the Advaita tradition, enabling him to pit his rivals against one another,
as well as to selectively extract elements of their own arguments that he approves of and
feels he can reconcile with whatever statements Madhva and Jayatrtha may have made
bearing on the same questions.
In presenting what is to be the official Dvaita position on most of these questions, by
contrast, Vysatrtha is usually clutching at straws, trying to construct or infer the views of
Madhva or (more often) Jayatrtha on questions they have nowhere directly addressed
from hints, indirect implications, asides, or particular word choices. As so often in all his
major works, Vysatrtha seems to be playing catch up with other Vednta traditions,
Advaita in particular. He is seeking to produce a state of the art (and if possible of course
conclusive) Dvaita contribution to a complex and highly sophisticated debate that has
already been going on for half a millennium or more in the realm of Advaita and
elsewhere. He is struggling mightily, almost single-handed, to produce an intellectual
apparatus for Dvaita that can rival that built up for so long by its principal rivals.
What seems most noteworthy about Vysatrthas handling of this question is the way
he turns what might well be seen as a weakness the near total absence of Dvaita
reflection on the status of these vidhis, contrasted with the careful analysis they have long
received from the Advaitins into a strength. In his hands, the long strings of mutually
contradictory Advaita arguments become effective tools for tying his enemies up in knots
and turning them against one another, while the scarcity of direct statements from his
Dvaitin predecessors on the question leave him free to shape the official Dvaita position to
meet his own immediate polemical needs. He can borrow from the analyses of the
Advaitins, in particular from Vcaspatimira, as much as he himself finds useful, without
risk of deviating from already established Dvaita tenets and at the same time use the
Advaitins long and self-contradictory paper trail as a weapon against them. His unrivalled
mastery of the history of his opponents arguments maximizes his own freedom of
response, while pinning them down with their own words.
Vysatrtha and the doxography of Advaita Vednta
As we can see from the way Vysatrtha structures his responses to the various Advaita
views he critiques, he is engaged not merely in responding to each individual author one
by one, but in grouping or categorizing them: presenting, for example, the basic view that
the ravaa-vidhi is a restrictive injunction as developed in the Pacapdikvivaraa
(which does indeed seem to be the original formulation of this view) and then responding

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to variations on this view set forth in various later texts. In doing so, Vysatrtha is not
only responding to as full as possible a range of views and arguments conflicting with his
own, but is tracing out lines of affiliation between them, grouping them, for example, into
those who defend the Vivaraa view that the injunctions of ravaa, manana, and
nididhysana are restrictive injunctions, those who hold them to be exclusionary, and
so on. He is in effect constructing small-scale and selective histories of the development
of particular lines of argument. These histories are in a sense fairly minimal, beginning
with a basic argument as developed in a key early Advaita text such as the
Pacapdikvivaraa and then tracing the ways later authors have expanded or altered
this argument in the light of subsequent thought and criticism; there is in most cases
nothing to suggest that Vysatrtha has any interest in or detailed knowledge of the
chronological development of, for example, these post-Praktman variations on the
basic arguments made in the Pacapdikvivaraa. Still, he is not simply assembling a
collection of similar but independently developed views. Rather he is tracing lines of
doctrinal affiliation, partly but not wholly the product of links between commentators and
texts commented upon. In particular, as we have already seen, he builds his discussion
here (as in many other parts of his work) around a series of basic doctrinal splits between
the Pacapdikvivaraa of Praktman and the Bhmat of Vcaspati Mira and their
respective followers.
Now this, you may say, is nothing especially surprising or remarkable. We all know, if
we know anything about the history of Advaita Vednta in the second millennium, that it
is defined by the split between the Bhmat School and the Vivaraa School. But how
do we know this? Or, more pointedly, how and when do the Advaitins themselves come to
group themselves into schools in this way and to recognize this division as the most
fundamental doctrinal divide among the followers of akara? This is a question that
merits far more attention than it has so far received. It is worth noting to begin with that
nearly all surveys and extended discussions of the Bhmat and Vivaraa schools focus
largely or exclusively on the doctrines propounded in the Bhmat and the Vivaraa
themselves.24 That is to say, very little attention has been paid to the Bhmat and
Vivaraa schools as schools as associations of like-minded scholars who presumably
saw themselves as constituting a more or less cohesive body of opinion and recognized a
clear division between themselves. But it is far from clear that the scholars generally
grouped under these headings actually saw themselves in this way. Most lists of the
supposed adherents of these schools consist largely or entirely of those who have
commented on these texts.25 But at least two of the authors in these lists Amalnanda
and Akhananda commented on both texts. A comparison between Akhanandas
commentaries (the only ones I have been able to directly compare) suggests that there is
very little sense of cognitive dissonance or boundary crossing to be found there. When
Akhananda comments on some point on one or another of these texts where they take
contrary positions, he generally does not (as far as I have seen) comment on the disparity
or make any attempt to explain or resolve it.
When texts other than direct commentaries are assigned to one or another of these
camps, the assignment is sometimes made on the flimsiest of grounds. T.R. Chintamani,
the first editor of Anubhtisvarpas Prakarthavivaraa commentary on akaras
Brahmastrabhya, confidently proclaims that he writes from the point of view of
Praktman (the author of the Vivaraa), on only two stated grounds: that he titles his
work Prakarthavivaraa, and that he at one point, on Brahmastra 3.4.47, explicitly
criticizes Vcaspatimira.26 But there is a serious problem here. The point on which
Vcaspati is criticized is one we have already examined: his rejection of the view that the

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so-called ravaa-vidhi is actually a vidhi at all. Anubhtisvarpa challenges this, arguing

that the ravaa-vidhi must be understood as a pure or aprva-vidhi.27 So, while
challenging Vcaspati, he takes a position at odds with his, and with that of the
Vivaraa. Not only does Anubhtisvarpa take a position here directly at odds with that
of Praktman; he does not even allude or refer to the existence of the restrictive
injunction view. If he actually saw himself as a follower of the Vivaraa school then,
even if he felt a need to deviate from the Vivaraas stated position on one issue or
another, it seems unlikely that he would simply ignore the difference in their views.
When specific attention has been paid to individual figures said to belong to the Bhmat
or Vivaraa schools, they have not infrequently been portrayed as syncretists or bridgebuilders between the two schools. For example, Amalnanda, who comments on both works,
has been portrayed in one students Masters Thesis as A Link Between Bhmat and
Vivaraa Schools.28 Citsukha commented on the Vivaraa and is generally listed as an
adherent of the Vivaraa school, but he also wrote an independent commentary on akaras
Brahmastrabhya reconciling the Bhmat-prasthna and Vivaraa-prasthna, in the
words of its editor.29 This shows, if nothing else, that lines of affiliation within the so-called
Bhmat and Vivaraa schools are far more fuzzy and complex than has generally been
supposed to be the case and merit much more study than they have so far received.
I do not wish to claim, of course, that pre-sixteenth century, Advaitins were unaware
that there were significant differences between the views of Vcaspatimira and
Praktman. Particular differences are certainly noted and discussed in some cases (as
are discrepancies between these two and other authors such as Surevara, for example).
What I am suggesting, rather, is that, among all the complex and often seemingly
contradictory pronouncements of those who claimed to follow akara, the specific
differences between just these two texts do not seem to have loomed as large for
pre-sixteenth century authors as they were to do later.
In light of this seeming lack of a clearly demarcated line between the adherents of
Vcaspatimira and Praktman in pre-sixteenth century Advaita, Vysatrthas positioning
of these two figures as the main poles of Advaita opinion may appear both more original and
more historically significant than at first seemed to be the case. The division between
followers of the Vivaraa and followers of Vcaspatimira is well established in
Appayya Dkitas Siddhntaleasagraha and later Advaita literature, but, as we have
seen, it is already presented as the most basic division of Advaita opinion by Vysatrtha,
writing a generation or so before Appayya. This foregrounding of the Bhmat/Vivaraa
divide is even more pronounced in Vysatrthas Ttparyacandrik, his subcommentary on
Madhvas Brahmastrabhya. Here Vysatrtha, filling a substantial lacuna in Madhva and
Jayatrthas earlier treatments, provides a careful survey and critique of the interpretations
rival schools of Vednta have given for each word in the Brahmastras. And, in his
commentary of Brahmastras 1.1.14 (the catustr) the portions covered by both the
Bhmat and the Vivaraa (the latter of which deals only with these four stras) Vysatrtha
regularly divides his discussion into three sections: the view of the Bhmat, the view of the
Vivaraa (both texts being named), and the views of Rmnuja (unnamed and usually labelled
simply as some people [kecit]). The divide between these two Advaita texts, then, becomes
the primary structuring device in Vysatrthas careful dissection of Advaita opinion.
Considering the sharp division he draws between these two strands of Advaita thought
and the seeming lack of such clear differentiation earlier, it seems almost reasonable to
describe Vysatrtha as the discoverer, not to say the inventor, of the Bhmat and
Vivaraa schools of Advaita Vednta. That Vysatrthas own foray into the doxography
of Advaita seems to have had such a significant impact on the way the Advaitins saw the

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divisions in their own field is a testament to his achievements as a scholar and as an

intellectual historian. One might almost go so far as to say that Vysatrtha knows the
Advaitins better than they know themselves.

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From external to internal doxography

While Vysatrthas critical survey of Advaita philosophical literature thus presents a more
elaborate and systematic survey of Advaita opinions on key topics than the Advaitins
themselves had yet produced, it was very shortly to be surpassed by a work produced
within the Advaita tradition itself, namely Appayya Dkitas strasiddhntaleasagraha
(A Brief Condensation of the Established Conclusions of the System). This work represents a decided break with the earlier Advaita tradition and indeed appears to be of a genrecharacter altogether without precedent in any of the Vednta traditions (and even more
widely, perhaps). It is, avowedly, a work purely doxographical in intent. That is to say, it
seeks to describe the various conflicting views expressed by Advaita authors on various
topics, but makes no effort whatsoever to resolve these conflicts and establish a definitive
Advaita position on the topic in question. Appayya describes his own project as follows in
the second and third introductory verses of the Siddhntaleasagraha:
Out of heedlessness, various streams [of thought] regarding matters established in everyday
practice have been set forth by the ancient teachers [of Advaita], as they have been wholly
intent on proving the unity of the Soul. Here I gather together briefly some of the different
siddhntas rooted in these [streams], (as they have been declared in the words of my fathers
commentaries), for the purification of the mind.
I will write about these, not too extensively, for the most part justifying by reasoning those
views that stand in need of justification, as far as my intellect allows.30

Appayya notes the profusion of conflicting views set forth in earlier Advaita works in
the preceding verse he likens the Advaita tradition to a stream that has broken on the earth
and split into a thousand rivulets and he explicitly ascribes this scattered and confused
state of affairs in Advaita doctrine to heedlessness (andara) on the part of earlier
Advaita teachers. But Appayyas declared intention here is not to reunite these multiple
streams, but simply to pay heed to them, where others have been heedless. He seeks to
summarize and to justify all the views he sets forth to the best of his ability, not to justify
some and falsify others. And Appayyas actual practice in the Siddhntaleasagraha
follows just this pattern; he sets forth and explains the various conflicting Advaita
positions on the topic in question, but does not, overtly at least, argue for one over the
others.
To give a somewhat clearer idea of Appayyas practice here and to shed some light on
its possible relation to Vysatrthas own critical doxography of Advaita as reflected in the
Nyymta, I want to examine briefly the first section of Appayyas work, which also
deals with the status of the injunctions to hear about, consider, and meditate on the
self, and hence forms a useful point of comparison with the section of the Nyymta we
have already examined.
Like Vysatrtha before him, Appayya considers a variety of arguments for taking
these sentences to be pure injunctions, restrictive injunctions, and eliminative injunctions,
as well as the position of Vcaspati that they cannot properly be seen as injunctions at all.
True to his mission statement, he seeks to provide the best possible defense for each of the
views he relates, but does not attempt to resolve the question from his own perspective.

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The overall structure of the discussion does not precisely mirror that of the Nyymta,
but there are several specific links between them that strongly suggest that Appayya knew
Vysatrthas text well and borrowed from it at least some elements in constructing his
own doxography. In the interests of space, I will mention here only two specific points
which suggest such contact. Both revolve around arguments drawn from Rmdvayas
Vedntakaumud, a text which plays a very important role in both of their accounts and
which they would appear to have been, respectively, the first and the second person to
cite. This in itself, given their closeness in time and Appayyas known familiarity with
Vysatrthas other works, would strongly suggest a link between the two. And in fact
several of the specific points in the latters discussion match up exactly with the former.
The first parallel comes while discussing variations on the Praktmans restrictive
injunction theory. Appayya summarizes one interpretation of this as follows:
Just as Memory of the things referred to in mantras is to be achieved through mantras alone
is a restrictive injunction, since the sentences governing the application of these mantras
found in the kalpastras are also known as another option, in the same way, since human
compositions such as the itihsas and puras which are based on the upaniads may also be
known as an option [for studying the Self], this too [i.e. the ravaa-vidhi] should be seen as
a restrictive injunction.31

Appayya does not name the source of this view, but it corresponds very closely, almost
down to the exact wording, with the summary of the Vedntakaumud view found in the
Nyymta, and quoted above. This in itself is not quite a smoking gun revealing a link
between the Siddhntaleasagraha and the Nyymta. Both are here simply recapitulating the view expressed in the Vedntakaumud, and it is perfectly possible, however
unlikely, that they should independently have happened to summarize the same argument
in reviewing the same set of problems.
The second point of contact is more compelling in establishing this link. It concerns
the music analogy the Vedntakaumud deployed in defense of the restrictive injunction
theory. Pressed for an example of a link between study of a stra and immediate
awareness (aparoka-jna) of its subject matter, the author of the Vedntakaumud
turns to the science of music, which not only provides indirect and mediated knowledge
of its subject matter, but gives students direct, perceptual awareness of the various notes
and scales it deals with. Vysatrtha, it will be recalled, does not directly challenge the
relevance of the example, but points out that, even if it is granted, the link between study
of a stra and immediate knowledge of its contents will remain inconclusive, since there
are other domains, such as the study of the ritual portion of the Vedas, where textual study
is not seen to produce immediate knowledge. In the Siddhntaleasagraha, Appayya
deals with the same question when presenting the arguments of the author of the
Prakarthavivaraa and others that the ravaa, manana, and nididhysana vidhis are
not restrictive injunctions but pure injunctions (aprva-vidhis) the position taken by
Vysatrtha himself, it will be recalled. There he has the proponent of the pure injunction
view note that we cannot accept that Upaniadic study is known, prior to hearing the
ravaa-vidhi, to be a means for immediate awareness of brahman because (to quote),
there is deviation since, even if we accept that the study of such things as the stra of
music is a cause of immediate awareness of such things as the aja-note, we do not see
from such things as study of the ritual portions of the Veda the arising of immediate
awareness of those things such as dharma which they refer to.32 This, as we saw earlier,
is exactly the response Vysatrtha himself makes to the music analogy in the Nyymta.

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This argument is not to be found in the Prakarthavivaraa or, as far as I can determine,
in any other Advaita text prior to the Nyymta. The argument for inconclusiveness and
the counterexample of the study of Vedic ritual texts appear to be of Vysatrthas own
creation. It would seem that among the others included in the phrase, the author of the
Prakarthavivaraa and others is actually Vysatrtha himself.
In the light of these specific textual links between Vysatrthas and Appayya Dkitas
surveys of the (somewhat embarrassing) wealth of Advaita opinion on the ravaa -manana-nididhysana question, it is highly likely that the Appayyas discussion of the ravaa
vidhi question was to some extent modelled on the parallel section of the Nyymta.
Indeed, seen in the larger context of Vysatrthas works and his pervasive and pioneering
quest to chart the welter of Advaita opinion on a host of questions, and his obvious
importance as an interlocutor for Appayya in other areas, it seems quite reasonable to
suppose that Appayyas own efforts as a doxographer of Advaita Vednta in the
Siddhntaleasagraha were actually in no small measure inspired by Vysatrthas example. If so, this suggests an even larger range of impacts for Vysatrthas work. While the
Siddhntaleasagraha is Appayyas only work devoted entirely to an intra-systemic
doxography, many of his other major works his Parimala subcommentary on
Vcaspatis Bhmat, his monumental ivrkamaidpik, and, especially, his literary-theoretical magnum opus, the Citramms make a serious move toward the deployment of
doxography and intellectual history as tools for resolving major theoretical problems in their
respective disciplines. And Appayyas own brand of historicist scholarship certainly provided an important model for several key intellectuals in sixteenth and seventeenth century
Vras, such as Bhaoji Dkita in grammar, Khaadeva in Mms, and Mahdeva
Punatambekr in Nyya. If it is true, as some have argued, that a turn toward historicism is
one of the signal features of the work of the new intellectuals in sixteenth and seventeenth
century India,33 then Vysatrtha, to the extent that he inspired Appayyas own historical
turn, may be seen as an important forerunner of this intellecual newness a newness that
draws much of its strength from a creative engagement with and reappropriation of the old.

Notes
1. For details, See Stoker, Polemics and Patronage, as well as Stokers paper in this volume.
2. See, for example Sharma, History of the Dvaita School, 375 and Minkowski, Advaita Vednta
in Early Modern History, 210.
3. See Nsihrama, Advaitadpik, Vol. 1, 10, 62; Vol. 2, 78, 283, etc.
4. Myvdakhaana, Prapacamithytvnumnakhaana, and Updhikhaana all published with various commentaries in Madhva, Daa Prakarani.
5. In his Vdval, an independent polemical work, Jayatrtha does on one occasion both quote and
name the (thirteenth century) Advaitin Citsukha. Vdval, 97. The extreme rarity of such direct
citations, however, serves precisely to emphasize the early Dvaitins disinterest in the kind of
close engagement with rival text traditions that becomes a trademark of Vysatrthas work.
6. He either quotes or paraphrases the views of Citsukha on several occasions: Vdaratnval, 24, 77,
90. He quotes two verses from Surevaras (eighth century) Taittiryopaniadbhyavrttika: See
Vdaratnval, 109 and 118, and Gerow, Vdaratnval, 186 and 207, and one from
nandabodhas (eleventh century) Nyyamakaranda: See Vdaratnval, 119, quoting
Nyyamakaranda, 260. Gerow, oddly, misidentifies this as a citation of a lost Dvaita work
named Makaranda: Gerow, Vdaratnval, 109.
7. For more on the specifics of Vysatrthas engagement with Nyya, See Williams, Mdhva
Vednta.
8. The phrase is actually akaras and is specifically used by him to describe BU 2.4.5. See
akaras Brahmastrabhya and Vcaspatis Bhmat on BS 1.1.4 in Shastri, The Brahmastra
kara Bhya, Vol. 1, 12930.

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9. Nyymta, Vol. 3, 605: nanv etad ayukta vivarae ravaam agi, pramasya
prameyvagama
praty
avyavadhnt.
manananididhysane
tu
cittasya
pratyagtmapravaasaskraparinipannatadekgravttikryadvrea
brahmnubhavahetut pratipadyete iti phalatopakryage ity uktatvt.
10. Presumably expressed in his (unpublished) commentary on the Vivaraa. For a listing of extant
manuscripts, See Vizhinathan, New Catalogus Catalogorum, Vol. 11, 34.
11. Ibid., 606.
12. Nyymta, Vol. 3, 620: yac cokta vivarae ravadn viayvagama praty
anvayavyatirekasiddhopyatvdin tadvidher aprva[pari]sakhyvidhitvyogena niyamavidhitvam
iti. tan na
13. Ibid., 621.
14. Ibid.
15. Mantras, the ritual formulas to be uttered at various points during Vedic rituals, are classically
understood by ritual theorists to serve the function of reminding the performers of the ritual of
the specific actions to be undertaken. The purely practical function of reminding could just as
well be served by the non-scriptural and human-authored stra texts that describe the various
ritual procedures. The injunction that Memory should be achieved by the mantras alone
therefore serves a restrictive function, requiring one to use mantras, rather than any other
means, to remind oneself of the appropriate procedures.
16. Ibid., 622: kaumudy tu yath mantrrthajnasya tanmlakalpastryagrahaakavkydiprpty
pake prptamantrasdhyatva niyamyate mantrair eva smti sdhy iti. tath
vedntamlastrdrasdhraa-smtipurdiprpty pake prptavedntaravadipariprartho
niyama, tasmd brhmao nvaidikam adhyta iti rute, rotavya rutivkyebhya iti smte
cety uktam.
17. Cf. Nyyasudh on Brahmastra 3.3.3, Vol. 10, 90. Vysatrtha is either paraphrasing or has a slightly
different text of the Nyyasudh; the text in the printed edition reads
adhyayanasyrthajnaparyantatsthite.
18. Nyymta, ibid., 644: yat tu bhmatyuktam ravadividhyabhvd adhyayanavidhir eva
kadvayavicrkepaka iti tat svdhyyasya hi tathtvene'ty atra strabhydau adhyayanasya
crthajnaparyantatvd iti ky ca tasya tadkepakaty uktatvd iam. ravadividhis tu
samarthayiyate.
19. Ibid., 645: etena nityatvd adhyayanavidher na vicrkepaka iti yad vivarabhipreta tan
nirastam.
20. See Bhmat on Brahmastra 3.4.26, in The Brahmastra kara Bhya, Shastri, 898.
21. Ibid., 648: ukta ca bhmatym api ttydhyye ittham eva ravadn bheda. vicravidhis
tv aprvavidhi, brahmajne vedavicrahetutay atyantprptatvt.
22. Ibid., 648: ata evnuvykhyne jijsyo ya vidhyata iti bhye ca
tmetyevopstetydividhnm iti nirupapadavidhipadaprayoga.
23. Ibid., 64950.
24. See, for example, Roodurmums Bhmat and Vivaraa Schools; Balasubramanian, History of
Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, Volume II, part 2: Advaita
Vednta, 242ff. and 285ff., and Potter, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume XI:
Advaita Vednta, 624 passim.
25. See, e.g., Roodurmun, 367, 42.
26. Prakarthavivaraa, Vol. 1, ixxi.
27. Prakarthavivaraa, Vol. 2, 989.
28. Chakrabarti, Amalananda Svamin.
29. Shastri, Brahmastrakarabhya, title page.
30. strasiddhntaleasagraha verses 23, 3:
prcnair vyavahrasiddhaviayev tmaikyasiddhau para
sannahyadbhir andart saraayo nnvidh darit |
tanmln iha sagrahea katicit siddhntabhedn dhiya
uddhyai sakalaymi ttacaraavykhyvacasthpitn ||
tepapdanpekn pakn pryo yathmati | yuktyopapdayann eva likhmy anativistaram ||

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31. strasiddhntaleasagraha, 201: yath mantrair eva mantrrthasmti sdhy iti

niyama,
tanmlakalpastrytmyagrahaakavkydnm
api
pake
prpte,
tath
vedntamlaketihsapurapaurueyaprabandhnm api pake prptisambhavn niyamo yam astu.
32. Ibid.,
89:
gndharvdistraravaasya
ajdisktkrahetutvbhyupagame
pi
karmakdiravat tadarthadharmdisktkrdaranena vyabhicrt.
33. See, for example, Pollock, New Intellectuals, 611; Bronner and Tubb, Vastutas Tu, 6224.

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