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Advaita Vedānta in early modern history

Christopher Minkowskia
a
Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Online publication date: 21 March 2011
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Advaita Vedānta in early modern history

Christopher Minkowski*
Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
This essay considers the possibility of a social history of Advaita Vedānta in early
modern India by doing five things: surveying the principal literary works, authors, and
trends in Advaita in the fifteenth through early eighteenth centuries; mapping the net-
works connecting the authors of those works through pedagogical and familial ties;
locating Advaita in the human geography of early modern India; tracing the linkages of
Advaitins with the social institutions that supported them and their rivals; and consid-
ering what sort of theory of social history might be useful in studying the history of a
long-lived school of thought.
Keywords: Advaita; Vedānta; Banaras; early modern; Indian philosophy; sannyāsin;
Vijayanagara
Introduction
The question posed by the editors of this volume has to do with religious movements in
early modern India and their embeddedness in social and political realities of the period.
The further question posed here is whether that problem can be applied to a school of
thought, Advaita Vedānta. To put it another way, can there be a social history of Advaita
Vedānta, or at least, of its proponents? Can this unworldly philosophy, which propounded
the doctrine of undivided Being, have been changed through its involvement with the world
of ordinary life, in which it found such little conceptual interest, and can it in turn have
affected change in that world?
There are reasons to think so. To begin with, there is the later history. Advaita Vedānta
certainly enjoyed a prominence in the cultural and political life of India in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Regarded as the source for a kind of indigenous secularism or
pluralism, in which many points of view are allowed to coexist because they are found
ultimately to be one in their goals and aspirations, a modernized Advaita became something
like the establishment position for the generation that achieved national independence.1
How did this state of affairs come about? Had Advaita always been the superordinate
Indian philosophy, as perennialists would have it, or was Advaita just one view among
many, before its transformation and elevation by modern reformers of Hinduism in the
early nineteenth century? Of course, the answer requires knowing what the situation had
been in the preceding centuries. The sources make it clear that this was a period of expan-
sive literary activity in Vedānta. A lot was written about non-dualism, often at great length
and sometimes with great intellectual and polemical force. Some Advaitin works from this
period are still remembered for their vehemence. Authors more famous for their work in
*Email: christopher.minkowski@orinst.ox.ac.uk
ISSN 1947-2498 print/ISSN 1947-2501 online

© 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/19472498.2011.553493
http://www.informaworld.com
206 C. Minkowski
other subjects got involved. In short, this was a period of engagement for the Advaitin
movement; but engagement with what, and why?
Although there is currently no accurate or comprehensive survey of the life of Advaita

during these centuries, as a discipline of thought, as a domain of literary production or
as a cultural movement, nevertheless, in their comments on this subject, made usually in
passing, historians of Indian philosophy have tended to notice the same features, even if
they have interpreted them differently. In his History of Indian Philosophy, Surendranath
Dasgupta recognized that from the fourteenth century onwards there had been an increase
in literary activity in Advaita, but he found the work produced lacking in originality
and philosophically uninteresting.2 The authors of the period were ‘good compilers, who
revered all sorts of past Vedāntic ideas and collected them in well-arranged forms in their
works’.3 Karl Potter, on the other hand, wrote that, when it came to the later history of the
school, it was the movement in the direction of producing compendia and syntheses that
was ‘perhaps the most impressive development of Advaitic thought’.4
Dasgupta also attempted to delineate some of what he saw as the active schools of
thought within the camp of Advaita and attributed their internal differences to the networks
of teachers, pupils and colleagues in which they were developed.5 He thus recognized that
for the destiny of the non-dualist position in this period, there was something significant
about the social dimensions of its intellectual activity. This intuition has been shared by
other historians.
In what follows I would like to develop this intuition of Dasgupta in exploring the
theme of Advaita’s ‘sociality’. To explore that theme, however, we require a review of
Advaitin intellectual and literary activity. Although a great deal remains unknown, more
Sanskrit texts of the period have been published since 1922, when the History came out;
more individual Advaitin authors have been studied; and several helpful reference works
have appeared.6 Thus, we should attempt a provisional summary of the current state of our
knowledge.
The essay therefore has five parts: an account of the principal literary works, authors
and trends in Advaita in the fifteenth to early eighteenth centuries; a rough map of the net-
works connecting the authors of those works through pedagogical and familial connections
and, where relevant, through the principal social institution that supported the Advaita posi-
tion, the monastic order of the dasnāmı̄ sannyāsis; the juxtaposition of those two mappings
onto Banaras, a centre for intellectual activity in Vedānta during this period; a considera-
tion of what is known about the institutions, political and monastic, that favoured Advaita
or disfavoured it; and lastly, some thoughts about what was at stake in all this passionate
activity in support of a dispassionate philosophical view.7
A survey of works, authors and trends

Most of the information discussed here is summarized in the form of a chronological list
in Table 1.8 My criterion for determining whether a work or author was ‘principal’ is at
least initially an external one; that is, it is judged by a work’s impact rather than by the
excellence or novelty of its ideas. In turn, impact is here determined by the degree to which
a work attracted commentaries, was cited in other works, provoked replies from philoso-
phers of other schools and continued to be circulated through the networks of manuscript
dissemination.9
We should begin by considering the periodization assumed here: what, if anything,
sets the philosophical activity of the early modern Advaitins off from the activity of pre-
vious centuries? In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the intellectual excitement had
South Asian History and Culture 207
Table 1. Principal texts and authors of Advaita, fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.

1. Sarvajñātman (tenth century): Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka

Viśvaveda (21) (fl. 1500, Banaras?) Siddhāntadı̄pa
Nr.sim . hāśrama (5): Tattvabodhinı̄
Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ (6): Sārasam . graha
Purus.ottama Sarasvatı̄ (22) (fl. 1600, Banaras): Subodhinı̄
Rāmatı̄rtha Yati (9): Anvayārthaprakāśikā
Mahādeva Vedāntin (14): Vivr.ti
2. Laks.mı̄dhara Kavi (fl. 1440, Vijayanagara): Advaitamakaranda
Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma (23) (fl. 1490, ?) Vyākhyā
Svayam . prakāśa Yati (13): Rasābhivyañjikā
Sadāśiva Brahmendra (24) (fl. 1720, Tanjore): Advaitatārāvali
3. Sadānanda Sarasvatı̄ ‘Yogı̄ndra’ (fl. 1500): Vedāntasāra
Nr.sim . hāśrama (5) (fl. 1555): Subodhinı̄
Rāmatı̄rtha Yati (9) (fl. 1610): Vidvanmanorañjinı̄
Āpadeva II (25) (fl. 1610, Banaras): Bālabodhinı̄
Svayam . prakāśānanda Sarasvati (11) (fl. 1610): Sam . graha
subcommentary by Mahādeva Vedāntin (14) (fl. 1645)
Rāmakr.s.n.ādhvarin (26) (fl. 1650, Drāvid.a): T.ı̄kā
Tātparyaprakāśa on Brahmasūtra
4. Prakāśānanda (fl. 1505, Banaras?): Vedāntasiddhāntamuktāvali
Nānā Dı̄ks.ı̄ta (27) (fl. 1590, Banaras) Siddhāntadı̄pa
5. Nr.sim. hāśrama (fl. 1555, Drāvid.a)
∗
Tattvabodhinı̄ (commentary on Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka)
Subodhinı̄ (commentary on Vedāntasāra)∗
Advaitadı̄pikā
Nārāyan.a Āśrama (28) (fl. 1595, Drāvid.a): Vivaran.a
Bhedadhikkāra
Kālahastı̄śa Yajvan (29) (fl. 1590, Andhra):Vivr.ti
Nārāyan.a Āsrama (28): Satkriyā
Appayya Dı̄ks.ita (7): Upakramaparākrama
Tattvaviveka with Dı̄pana or Advaitaratnakośa
Subcommentaries: Kālahastı̄śa Yajvan (29) Annam . bhat.t.a (30) (fl. 1560, Banaras),
Nārāyan.a Aśrama (28), Agnihotra Bhat.ta (31) (fl. 1605, Deccan), Akhan.d.ānanda (32)
(fl. 1670, South), Rāmakr.s.n.ādhvarin (26), Anubhavānanda (33) (fl. 1695, South),
Śāśvatānanda Tı̄rtha (34) (fl. 1740, Banaras)
6. Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ (fl. 1570, Banaras) many works, including
∗
Sam . ks.epaśārı̄rakasārasam . graha
Advaitasiddhi
Purus.ottama Sarasvatı̄ (22): Advaitasiddhisādhaka
Balabhadra (35) (fl. 1610, Banaras): Advaitacandrikā or
Advaitasiddhivyākhyā
(Gaud.a-)Brahmānanda (19): Gurucandrikā and Laghucandrikā
Siddhāntabindu (commentary on Śaṅkara’s Daśaślokı̄)
Purus.ottama Sarasvatı̄ (22): Sandı̄pana
Nārāyan.a Tı̄rtha (36) (fl. 1700, Banaras): Laghuvyākhyā
(Gaud.a-)Brahmānanda (19): Nyāyaratnāvalı̄
Vedāntakalpalatikā
7. Appayya Dı̄ks.ita (fl. 1585, Drāvid.a)
Upakramaparākrama commentary on Bhedadhikkāra∗
Siddhāntaleśasam . graha
(Continued)
208 C. Minkowski
Table 1. (Continued).
Acyuta Kr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ (18) Kr.s.n.ālam . kāra
Dharmayya Dı̄ks.ita (37) (fl. 1640, Banaras) Vyākhyā

Parimala, commentary on Kalpataru commentary of Amalānanda (thirteenth century) on
Bhāmatı̄ of Vācaspati Miśra
Madhvatantramukhamardana
Madhvamatavidhvam . sana
Nayamañjarı̄ on Brahmasūtra
Nyāyaraks.āman.i on Brahmasūtra
8. Bhat.t.ojı̄ Dı̄ks.ita (fl. 1590, Banaras)
∗
Vākyamālā commentary on Tattvaviveka of Nr.sim . ha
Tattvakaustubha
9. Rāmatı̄rtha Yati (fl. 1610, Banaras)
∗
Anvayārthaprakāśikā on Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka
Vidvanmanorañjinı̄ on Vedāntasāra∗
Vastutattvaprakāśikā on Brahmasūtra
10 Raṅgojı̄ Bhat.t.a (fl. 1610, Banaras)
Advaitacintāman.i
Advaitaśāstrasāroddhāra
Mādhvasiddhāntabhañjanı̄
11. Svayam . prakāśānanda Sarasvatı̄ (II) (fl. 1610, South)
∗
Vedāntasārasam . graha
Mahādeva Vedāntin (14) Vyākhyā
Vedāntanayabhūs.an.a commentary on Brahmasūtra
Mitāks.arā on Gaud.apāda’s Mān.d.ukyakārikā
12. Dharmarājādhvarı̄ndra (fl. 1615, Drāvid.a)
Vedāntaparibhās.ā
Pedda Dı̄ks.ı̄ta (38) (fl. 1645, South) Prakāśikā
Rāmakr.s.n.ādhvarin (26): Vedāntaśikhāman.i
Padayojanā commentary on Padmapāda’s Pañcapādikā
13. Svayam . prakāśa Yatı̄ndra (fl. 1640) many works, including: Rasābhivyañjikā on
Advaitamakaranda∗
Dvaitakhan.d.ana
Ātmānātmaviveka
14. Mahādevānanda Sarasvatı̄ or Mahādeva Vedāntin (fl. 1645, Kāñcı̄)
Tattvānusandhāna with Advaitacintākaustubha
Paramāmr.tā
15. Sadānanda Kāśmı̄raka (fl. 1650, Banaras)
Advaitabrahmasiddhi
16. Kr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ I (fl. 1665, South)
Siddhāntasiddhāñjana
Bhāskararāya Dı̄ks.ita (20): Ratnatulikā
Kutūhala commentary on Brahmasūtra
17. Bālakr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ (fl. 1670, Drāvid.a)
Commentaries on Śaṅkara’s Upanis.adbhās.yas
Vārttika and vivaran.a on Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtrabhās.ya
Nyāyāmoda
18. Acyuta Kr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ ‘Yati’ (fl. 1670, South)
∗
Kr.s.n.ālaṅkāra on Siddhāntaleśasam . graha
Commentaries on Śaṅkara Upanis.adbhās.yas
Adhikaran.ānukraman.ikā on Brahmasūtra
(Continued)
19. ‘Gaud.a’ Brahmānanda Sarasvatı̄ (fl. 1700, Banaras)
Gurucandrikā on Advaitasiddhi∗
Nyāyaratnāvalı̄ on Siddhāntabindu∗
Advaitasiddhāntavidyotana
Muktāvalı̄ on Brahmasūtra
20. Bhāskararāya Dı̄ks.ita (fl. 1710, South) many works, including Ratnatulikā on
Siddhāntasiddhāñjanā∗
Commentaries on Upanis.ads
Notes: The principal authors are numbered from 1 to 20, with the earlier author Sarvajñātman heading the list
honoris causa, for the attention he received during the period in question. The principal works of each author
are listed together with the commentaries and subcommentaries that were produced by authors of the period.
The 18 additional authors, of commentaries and subcommentaries, and numbered 21–38 in Table 1, have been
assigned a number, a date and a location at their first mention. An asterisk indicates a commentary that has been
mentioned above. A question mark indicates uncertainty about location or date.
This list has been compiled based primarily on the most recent version (15 April 2010) of the online edition of
Potter’s Bibliography and on Thangaswami’s Kośa. I have supplemented their findings by referring to Mahadevan,
Preceptors of Advaita, some of the secondary sources that Potter lists, the texts themselves and the information
available in Aufrecht’s Catalogus Catalogorum and Raghavan’s New Catalogus Catalogorum.
The sources do not always agree. A number of the authors, especially the sannyāsins, share names. I have
consistently used Potter’s most recent dating (Not all of the dates are correct. I doubt that Gaud.a-Brahmānanda
Sarasvatı̄ and Nārāyan.a Tı̄rtha are as late as Potter has placed them, and suspect that there are two Nārāyan.a
Tı̄rthas involved here, an Advaitin and a Mı̄mām . saka, the Advaitin being earlier. The Mı̄mām
. saka was one
of Nı̄lakan.t.ha Caturdhara’s gurus. More on this in a future article). I have also generally followed Potter in
attributing texts, but Thangaswami in attributing locations.
In his Bibliography, Potter lists about 85 Advaitin authors in the period between Laks.mı̄dhara and Bhāskara
Dı̄ks.ita. The principles identified in the main text for determining which authors and works are the principal
ones have been followed to the extent it has been possible, based on the current information. Which are the
most important authors in the sixteenth century was easier to determine than in the later seventeenth century.
Thangaswami has given his own list of principal figures, as has Mahadevan. Both of these favour southern
authors, especially those affiliated with the Śāṅkara mat.ha in Kāñcı̄. Thangaswami also tends to enhance the
Southern connections of his authors. The activity of modern study and publication has no doubt influenced my
selection as well. I have also included the titles of works under some of the main authors which were probably
not as widely read, but which are illustrative of the predominant genres in which authors wrote.
It remains here to explain a little about the nature of the sources for reconstructing the social networks of
Sanskrit intellectuals in the early modern period. The lineages of teachers and pupils can often be reconstructed
from the Sanskrit works themselves, in which authors mentioned their teachers, and occasionally their pupils
(Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄, for example, mentions at the end of the Siddhāntabindu that he composed the work
because his pupil Balabhadra kept nagging him about it (bahuyācanayā mayā’yam alpo balabhadrasya kr.te kr.to
nibandhah.). Modi, Siddhanta Bindu, 33, Note 7). They also cited works, including recent or contemporary ones,
and referred directly or by allusion to those with whom they were arguing. In addition, there are accounts of
debates and other face-to-face encounters. These have been preserved in various ways, ranging from the family
histories composed at the time, to transmission in living memory (See, for example, Deshpande, ‘Conflicting
Narratives’, on Rangoji; and Y. Bronner, ‘Anecdotes of Encounters’). There is also the evidence that is preserved
in the manuscripts that have survived from those centuries. The manuscripts can provide information about the
circulation networks for texts, as they often record the date when they were copied, the location of copying,
the copyist, the owner and later owners. In this way, even though personal libraries as such do not survive, the
libraries of some noted figures or of families of the period can be reconstructed (see Minkowski, ‘Scientific
Libraries’). There is also some inscriptional evidence about monastic institutions and temples associated with
the rival Vedāntic movements (For the Advaitins, much of this is now collected in Clark, Daśanāmı̄-Sam . nyāsı̄s).
revolved around a confrontation with the philosophers of the Nyāya system of thought.
The principal figures on the Advaitin side were Śrı̄hars.a (twelfth century) and Citsukha
(thirteenth century). Through dialectical argumentation, they sought to bring into ques-
tion the very possibility of the Naiyāyikas’ method of argument and their position, which
at that time was, roughly speaking, that things exist separately from the self and that all
existing things can be known and described. Because of the sophistication and intellectual
autonomy of their argumentative technique, these two authors are often considered to have
brought Advaita to its philosophical high point.
210 C. Minkowski
It appears that in the middle of the fourteenth century, with the works of Sāyan.a,
Mādhava and Bhāratı̄tı̄rtha, the attention of the non-dualists began to shift towards meta-
physical or cosmological issues, based on the interpretation of passages of the Upanis.ads.

Meanwhile, the argument with the Naiyāyikas began about this time to turn into an
argument with theologians.
For much of the fifteenth century, there was a lull in activity on the Advaitin side.
The only work that attracted the later attention of commentators was the short independent
work by Laks.mı̄dhara Kavi, the Advaitamakaranda. From the end of that century and the
beginning of the sixteenth century, however, there was a marked increase in the production
of influential works, and this active literary production continued up to the end of the
eighteenth century. The three authors who were the most influential for the entire period
were all active in the sixteenth century: Nr.sim
. hāśrama, Appayya Dı̄ks.ita and Madhusūdana
Sarasvatı̄.
Literary trends
What topics attracted the attention of the Advaitins during this period and what literary
genres did they prefer to use to discuss them? To take the latter question first, we should
note, first of all, the appearance in this period of polemical works of a new sort. Polemical
texts as such were nothing new for Advaitins. These were works, however, aggressively
directed not against the proponents of philosophical positions, but rather at critics speak-
ing from within theological movements, especially the movement begun by Madhva. The
aggression can be judged even by the titles of many of these works. It was Nr.sim . hāśrama’s
works, especially the Bhedadhikkāra, ‘Laying a Curse on the Idea of Difference’, that
affected the shift from argument with Naiyāyikas to argument with dualist Vedāntins.
Under Nr.sim . ha’s influence, Appayya’s Madhvatantramukhamardana, ‘Grinding the Face
of the System of Madhva’, and Madhvatantravidhvam . san.a, ‘Devastating the System
of Madhva’, followed suit. Under the influence of Appayya’s works, the two broth-
ers, Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita and Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a produced the Tattvakaustubha, ‘Gem of Truth’
and Mādhvasiddhāntabhañjanı̄, ‘Smashing the Conclusions of the Mādhvas’. Meanwhile,
Madhusūdana’s compendious Advaitasiddhi, ‘Proof of Non-dualism’, was a riposte to the
Nyāyāmr.ta, ‘Distillate of Logic’, a polemical work against non-dualism by the Mādhva
author, Vyāsatı̄rtha. The Advaitasiddhi was a governing text for Advaita for the next two
centuries, attracting many commentaries as well as replies from the dualists, which were in
turn answered by Madhusūdana’s pupils and later defenders.10
Another new genre was the analytical survey, a work that assembled and evaluated the
views deemed to lie within the ambit of non-dualist philosophy. Creating doxographies of
all philosophical schools, arranged into a hierarchy with Advaita at the top, had been an
interest of the Advaitins for some time.11 What was new here was the aim comprehensively
to survey the variety within the school, either by itself or in addition to a survey of other
schools of thought. Appayya’s Siddhāntaleśasam . graha was the most widely known exam-
ple of the former sort; Madhusūdana’s three works, the Advaitasiddhi, Siddhāntabindu and
Vedāntakalpalatikā, all incorporated features of the latter.12
The period also saw the appearance of the brief prose pedagogical work, intended
to explain the principles of the Advaitin position in a systematic way at an introductory
level. The two principal texts were Sadānanda’s Vedāntasāra and Dharmarājādhvarı̄ndra’s
Vedāntaparibhās.ā, both of which attracted commentaries throughout the period.13
Introductory works had been produced before, of course. There were a half dozen or so
attributed to Śaṅkara himself. The two works mentioned are noteworthy for their schematic
style of presentation, entirely without the use of dialectical argumentation in the case of
the Vedāntasāra, which reads almost as if it were the outline for a series of introductory
classes.14 These works, too, assembled views that were drawn from a variety of Advaitin
schools of thought.
Mention should be made here of the Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka of Sarvajñātma. Composed in
the ninth century, this work summarized in about 1250 accessible verses the content of the
Brahmasūtrabhās.ya of Śaṅkara. The Samks.epaśārı̄raka followed the line of interpretation
of Śaṅkara’s disciple Sureśvara, who was Sarvajñātma’s guru, but developed that line in
innovative ways. We know of no commentaries on this work until the early modern period,
when it attracted the attention of many authors, including Nr.sim . ha and Madhusūdana.
There was also renewed interest in the basic text of systematic Vedānta, the
Brahmasūtra. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Advaitin authors in unprece-
dented numbers produced direct commentaries.15 Śaṅkara’s own direct commentary, the
Bhās.ya, whose arguments had by then become constitutive of the Advaitin position, also
received renewed attention (though not always full agreement). Many commentaries also
appeared on the two other canonical texts of Vedānta, the Bhagavadgı̄tā, and the older
Upanis.ads, that is the Upanis.ads that belonged to the ancient recensions of the Veda. These
commentaries addressed the texts either directly or else indirectly, namely, through the
commentaries of Śaṅkara and his disciple Sureśvara. There was, finally, an expansion of
the canon of Upanis.adic texts beyond those on which Śaṅkara had commented, to include
Upanis.ads composed later. This expansion reached its height towards the end of the period
in the work of Upanis.ad Brahmayogin (mid- to late-eighteenth century), who produced
commentaries on a collection of 108 Upanis.ads.
Currents of thought
As for the topics of interest to the Advaitins in the period, the survey of the literary trends
should make it clear that by this time they revolved around the disagreement with the
dualist (and to a lesser extent, qualified non-dualist) theologians. In part, this disagree-
ment was a transmuted form of the dialectical dispute with the Naiyāyikas; but there
were also fresh arguments over Advaitin metaphysics, by way of the philology of the core
Vedāntic texts. The return by so many authors to commenting directly on the Brahmasūtra
was probably the result of the oppositional commentaries on that text that had been
composed by the Vais.n.ava theologians, Rāmānuja (twelfth century), Madhva (thirteenth
century), Nimbārka (twelfth century) and Vallabha (sixteenth century), as well by such
other sectarian theologians as Śrı̄pati (1350–Vı̄raśaiva) and Śrı̄kan.t.ha (1400–Śivādvaita).
The main problem for the Advaitins in this dispute had become the implication, when
it came to the ontological status of God, of their claim that Being was undivided. Was
the Ultimate different from the individual soul? The Advaitins thought ultimately not; the
Dvaitins thought ultimately so, as the Ultimate was just God; the qualified non-dualists, that
is, the Śrı̄vais.n.avas and the Śaivas, thought that the Ultimate was different from the soul
in one sense and not different in another. Other topics of regular discussion were closely
related to this basic problem. Here I mention only the cluster of questions about salvation
or liberation (moks.a): what brought it about, knowledge or action, or some combination,
and how; and was it possible to be liberated while yet alive as a human?
Earlier, a strong version of the Advaitin claim had been that God was a lesser, only
apparent form of ultimate Being, conditioned in some way by beginningless ignorance.
Some of the most well-known Advaitins of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, how-
ever, appear to have felt that this old distinction, between Being free from any possible
212 C. Minkowski
characterization (nirgun.a) and God as characterized (sagun.a) Being, was no longer sat-
isfactory. As a result, there were various forms of experimentation with the system’s
metaphysical theory, in the attempt to alter the theological implications. In addition to his
non-dualist writings, Appayya wrote works from a Śivādvaita point of view, which verged
on qualified non-dualism. He also wrote a fourfold commentary on the Brahmasūtra,
assembling the four points of view: dualist, qualified dualist, Śaiva and non-dualist.
Madhusūdana also lived something of a double life intellectually. He attempted to pro-
duce a non-dualist theology of Kr.s.n.a. Kr.s.n.a in all of his specific qualities was somehow
just as ultimate as the abstract (nirgun.a) Brahman, certainly not less, and possibly some-
thing more; the bhakti path to Him was not a preliminary to Advaitin realization, but a
genuinely alternate path, neither better nor worse than the Upanis.adic one.
It was probably in conjunction with this experimental or adaptive tendency that
Advaitins of the period, concerned as they were to clarify the boundaries of the Advaitin
view, wrote survey works that catalogued the variations within the movement’s position.16
It was also probably why authors devoted efforts to evaluating the various Advaitin views
on offer to establish the correct view, the siddhānta.17 Then too there was the introductory
statement of the position of Advaita in the Vedāntasāra and Vedāntaparibhās.a, which made
use of doctrines from a variety of earlier Advaitin lines of thought.
The reason for the growth of interest in the Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka might be found in a
number of that work’s features: its text kept track of seven different Advaitin points of view
against which it argued; it carried on Sureśvara’s preoccupation with Upanis.adic philology;
and it elaborated the number of core metaphysical categories.
The commentarial activity of Advaitins expanded to include works that had not ear-
lier been canonical, to maintain their claim that their non-dualism was authoritatively the
teaching of the Vedas. They wished not to be outflanked, as it were, by the theologians who
had relied on these later texts, and to show that the sectarian Upanis.ads did not constitute
an alternative authority that superseded them, as the texts confirmed their own non-dualist
view.
It was the development of literary and conceptual activity of the sort described that led
Dasgupta, as we have seen, to characterize most of the authors of this period as nothing
more than good collectors and arrangers ‘who revered all sorts of past Vedāntic ideas’.
What appears to have bothered Dasgupta was that the intellectual activity of these authors
consisted in a syncretism that led them to depart from the demarcated lines of thought that
had developed in the wake of Śaṅkara, these being associated with the Bhāmatı̄ commen-
tary of Vācaspati Miśra (tenth century), with the Vivaran.a commentary of Prakāśātman
(thirteenth century) and with the Vārttika of Sureśvara (ninth century).18 The histories of
Advaita use the differences between the first two of these lines especially as the narrative
structure for their story of Advaita. The Bhāmatı̄ and Vivaran.a lines were in dispute with
each other, each with a cluster of solutions proposed to the problems raised by Śaṅkara’s
work, the problematic implications of these solutions then pursued through later works in
the line.
The Advaitin authors in the early modern period caused difficulties for this narrative
by blurring the demarcations between these lines of thought. They drew on the literature
produced by earlier authors assigned to all three lines, and did not necessarily insist on
maintaining the constellation of views of any one. This is what won them their faint praise
from Dasgupta, for revering past ideas ‘of all sorts’.
On the other hand, Suryanarayana Sastri found creativity in this same tendency to
synthesize or to reassemble.19 It might indeed be closer to the mark to consider that the
Advaitins recognized new vulnerabilities in their position, when confronted with a cri-
tique that came from a new, more theologically grounded source, and to see the Advaitins
as responding to the changed situation by concerning themselves with two tasks: judging
what was allowed them philosophically as Advaitins, given their core textual and doctrinal
commitments; and assembling the arguments allowed them in a way that was maximally
coherent and defensible, regardless of the particular provenance of any given argument
within the world of Advaitin thought.
That the synthetic or compilatory tendencies of the works of this period were the
outcome of a willingness to experiment even radically with the system is supported
by the appearance of outlier views, most notably in the work of Prakāśānanda. His
Vedāntasiddhāntamuktāvali followed one possible approach to its logical conclusion, in
the formulation of a sort of private creationism (dr.s..tisr.s..tivāda). This radical solution
to the Advaitin’s problem of explaining the existence of the shared world is sometimes
described as metaphysical solipsism. It had been avoided by most Advaitins in the past and
is correctly seen by historians as an original and radical step.
From the point of view of general historians of Indian philosophy, however, the
encounter embodied in the chain of Vedāntic texts and countertexts that went from
Vyāsatı̄rtha’s Nyāyāmr.ta to Madhusūdana’s Advaitasiddhi and on through later replies
was the main event in Indian philosophy during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The
arguments begun and sustained in this chain of treatises were conducted at a level of philo-
sophical rigour not found in other works of the period, being comparable in their detailed
specification only with the works of Citsukha and Śrı̄hars.a from several centuries ear-
lier. This is the other reason for the disappointed tone in the descriptions by scholars like
Dasgupta and Potter of the other Advaitin works of the era, namely, that they lacked the
same sort of philosophical intensity.
Nevertheless, these other works, including the many compendia and the syntheses, even
if simpler and less rigorous in philosophical terms, were produced in great quantity during
this period. They made up the base of the Advaitin pyramid, as it were. After all, the texts in
the Nyāyāmr.ta-Advaitsiddhi series were probably read by only a limited number of scholars
in each generation, the preserve of the most technically proficient.20 The other writings,
meanwhile, stabilized and systematized the revised Advaitin position in a way that could
be used and disseminated. Their presence reveals the relationship between non-dualism as
a school of thought and non-dualism as a social movement.
Networks
We turn now to the social settings in which the intellectual activities and concerns of the
Advaitin authors of the period took place, the networks through which they learned and
taught, circulated their writings, and professed and debated.21
Table 2 gives a linear summary of some of the networks through which our principal
authors were connected with other Advaitins. Three types of affiliation are shown: that
between teacher and pupil, often as part of a longer chain of pedagogy; that of members
of the same family, usually by descent through the male relatives; and that of guru and
disciple. The three affiliations can overlap. The networks indicated in Table 2 are primarily
intellectual, but social institutions – families and monastic orders – also form part of the
history.
Like many other works by Sanskrit authors, Vedāntic texts often included rather florid
‘maṅgala’ or inaugural verses, in which praise was lavished on the author’s teachers and
gurus. From these verses, one gets a sense of the variety of settings in which Advaitins were
214 C. Minkowski
taught: by their father or some other senior member of their own family, by a recognized
teacher, either alone or as one pupil among many, or by a guru, possibly in a monastic
centre. Thangaswami makes a useful distinction between the vidyā or śiks.āguru, that is,
the instructor in the texts and doctrines of Advaita Vedānta, and the dı̄ks.āguru, the guru
who formally initiated a disciple into a monastic order. These were sometimes the same
man, but need not have been so necessarily. In the verses, one sees literary tribute paid to
both.
The pedagogical lineages of the authors often match up with the texts that the authors
wrote. It was not uncommon for a pupil to write a commentary on his teacher’s work, as
Nārāyan.a Āśrama did for three works of his guru, Nr.sim
. hāśrama, or for a pupil to write
Table 2. Lines of personal connection between Advaitins.
Three sorts of personal connection are represented in the lines given below: pedagogical
(vidyā- or śiks.āguru), initiatory (dı̄ks.āguru) and familial, usually through the father or uncle. These
are represented by the marks (v), (d) and (f), respectively, but the pedagogical (v) is taken as the
unmarked category. If there is some combination, then both sorts of relationship are marked.
I Śaṅkarānandaa > Sadānanda I > Advayānandab > Sadānanda ‘Yogı̄ndra’ (3)

II Advaitānanda and Jñānānanda > Prakāśānanda (4) > Nānā Dı̄ks.ita (27)
III Jagannāthāśramac (v) and Gı̄r.vān.endra Sarasvatı̄d (d) > Nr.sim . hāśrama (5) > Nārāyan.a
Āśrama (28)
A. Nr.sim . hāśrama (5) > Veṅkat.anātha (f, v) > Dharmarājādhvarin (12) (f, v) >
Rāmakr.s.n.ādhvarin (26)e
B. Nr.sim . hāśrama (5) > (?) Appayya Dı̄ks.ı̄ta (7)
C. Nr.sim . hāśrama (5) > (?) Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita (8)
D. Nr.sim . hāśrama (5) > (?) Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a (10)
IV Rāmeśvara Bhat.t.af > Mādhava Sarasvatı̄g > Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ (6) > Purus.ottama
Sarasvatı̄ (22)
A. Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ (6) > Balabhadra Bhat.t.a (35)
B. Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ (6) > Govinda Śes.ah
V Raṅgarājādhvarini (f, v) and Nr.sim . hāśrama (5) (?) > Appayya Dı̄ks.ita (7) > Nı̄lakan.t.ha
Dı̄ks.ı̄taj
A. Appayya Dı̄ks.ita (7) (?) > Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita (8)
B. Appayya Dı̄ks.ita (7) (?) > Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a (10)
C. Appayya Dı̄ks.ita (7) (d) (?) > Kālahastı̄śa Yajvan (28) (f) > Akhan.d.ānanda Sarasvatı̄
(32)k
VI Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita (8) see also above IIIC and VA
A. Laks.mı̄dhara (f) > Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita (8) (f, v) and Brahmendra Sarasvatı̄l (v, d) >
Bhānuji Dı̄ks.ita/Rāmāśramam
B. Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita (8) (f, v) > Vı̄reśvara (f, v) > Hari Dı̄ks.itan
VII Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a (10), see also above IIID and VB
A. Laks.mı̄dhara (f) > Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a (10) (f, v)> Kon.d.a Bhat.t.ao
VII Jagannāthāśramap and Kr.s.n.a Tı̄rtha (texts?) > Rāmatı̄rtha Yati (9) (v, d) and Nārāyan.a
Bhat.t.aq (v) > Ananta DevaIr
A. Rāmatı̄rtha Yati (9) > Purus.ottama Miśras
VIII Rāmānanda Sarasvatı̄ It > Advaitānanda Sarasvatı̄u > Svayamprakāśānanda Sarasvatı̄ II
(11) > Acyutakr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ (18)
A. Svayamprakāśānanda Sarasvatı̄ II (11) > Mahādeva Vedāntin (14)
B. Svayamprakāśānanda Sarasvatı̄ II (11) > Rāmānanda IIv
C. Svayamprakāśānanda Sarasvatı̄ II (11) > Akhan.d.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ (32)w
IX Kaivalyānanda Tı̄rthax and Śuddhānanda Sarasvatı̄y > Svayam . prakāśa Yatı̄ndra (13)
. prakāśānanda Sarasvatı̄ I > Vāsudevendra Sarasvatı̄ > Kr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ I (16)
z
X Svayam
> Bhāskararāya Dı̄ks.ita (20)
(Continued)
XI Nārāyan.a Tı̄rthaaa (36) (v) and Paramānanda (d) > Gaud.a Brahmānanda Sarasvatı̄ (19) >
Sadānanda Kāśmı̄raka (15)

A. Gaud.a Brahmānanda Sarasvatı̄ (19) > Annam . Bhat.t.a (30)
ab
Notes: The numbers in parentheses are the same as those assigned to Advaitins who were mentioned in Table 1.
The works of other Advaitins, when known, are listed in the notes.
The bibliographical sources used have been discussed in the notes to Table 1. The notes of caution sounded there
are applicable here as well.
a (fl. 1290, Śrṅgerı̄) Comments on many Upanisads, early and later. Also guru of Vidyāranya; b (Early six-
. . .
teenth century, South?) Vedāntasam c
. graha; (Early sixteenth century, South) T.ı̄kāyojanā on Brahmasūtra.
Subrahman.ya Śāstrı̄, ed., Advaitadı̄pikā, however, deems him to be from Banaras. See also VII; d (1530,
. graha; = Rāmādhvarin = Rāmakr.s.n.a Dı̄ks.ı̄ta; (Early sixteenth century, Banaras);
South) Prapañcasārasam e f
g (1515, Banaras) Sarvadarśanakaumudı̄, Vedāntasarvasva; h (1530, Banaras) Commentary on Śaṅkara’s
Sarvasiddhāntasam i j
. graha; (Early sixteenth century, South) Advaitamukura, Vivaran.adarpan.a; (fl. 1660, South)
Nyāya texts; k (fl. 1670, South) Dı̄pikā on Nr.sim hāśrama’s Advaitaratnakośa∗ , Rjuprakāśikā on Bhāmatı̄;
. .
l (fl. 1590, Banaras) Advaitāmrta, Vedāntaparibhāsā; m (Mid-seventeenth century, Banaras) Vyākhyāsudhā
. .
on Amarakos.a. Durjanamukhacapet.ikā (see Minkowski, ‘Guide to Argument’), Tattvacandrikā; n (fl. mid-
seventeenth century, Banaras), Works on Vyākaran.a and Philosophy of Language, Vr.tti on Brahmasūtra;
o (fl. 1640, Banaras) Works in Mı̄māmsā, Nyāya, and Philosophy of Language; p He is probably the
.
same as the guru of Nr.sim q
. ha mentioned above in III; (fl. 1640, Banaras) Sarvamatasaṅgraha. Works
on Mı̄mām r
. sā and Dharmaśāstra. Potter’s date for him seems too late; (fl. 1600, Banaras) Siddhāntattva,
with Sampradāyanirūpan.a; s Potter identifies him with Purus.ottama Sarasvatı̄ (22), and attributes to him
the Subodhinı̄ commentary on the Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka. Thangaswami attributes only that work to him, and
distinguishes him from Purus.ottama Sarasvatı̄; t a.k.a. Dharmabhat.t.a. (fl. 1670, South) Brahmāmr.tavars.in.ı̄,
Vedāntasiddhāntacandrikā, Vivaran.opanyāsa; u a.k.a. Advaitānanda Vān.ı̄, and as Advaitānanda Bodhendra
(ca. 1700, South) Brahmavidyābharan.a. Potter attributes this work to Advaitānanda Tı̄rtha, fl. 1762;
v (Early eighteenth century, South) Ātmatattvavivekasāra; w Dı̄pikā on Nrsimhāśrama’s Advaitaratnakośa∗ ,
. .
R.juprakśikā on Bhāmatı̄, etc; x a.k.a. Kaivalyendra Sarasvatı̄ (fl. 1680, Banaras) Pran.avārthaprakāśikā,
Vedāntabhūs.an.a; (?, Banaras) Probably author of Vedāntacintāman.i with Prakāśa; z (Mid-seventeenth cen-
y
tury, South) Pañcı̄karan.avivaran.a, Paramasiddhāntasāra, Vedāntasam aa
. graha.; There are probably several
Nārāyan.a Tı̄rtha’s. Laghuvyākhyā on Siddhāntabindu∗ , Vivaran.adı̄pikā on Pañcı̄karan.a and Sureśvara’s Vārttika;
ab Banaras, Vyākhyā on Nrsimha’s Tattvaviveka∗ , Mitāksarā on Brahmasūtra. Date given by Potter (1560) seems
. . .
too early.
a commentary on the work of his teacher’s teacher, as Rāmakr.s.n.ādhvarin did, also for
Nr.sim. hāśrama. Table 2 also shows longer chains of authors, even if not all of the authors
are listed among our principals in Table 1. Some in these chains piled up more layers of
commentary on the text that had interested their teachers, whereas others started afresh.
Many of our authors acknowledged more than one guru or teacher, and many of the
major figures had more than one pupil. Thus, it is possible from the lineal descents shown in
Table 2 to piece together parts of an overlapping network, in which there were generations
of contemporaries who were likely to have known each other, and to have shared loyalties
or possibly to have inherited disputes.22 Dasgupta enumerated some of these networks of
personally connected Advaitins.23 Although he would have liked to do it for the entire
Vedāntic tradition, he found that his evidence was specific enough to establish lineages and
milieux only for the early modern period.24
Dasgupta sensed that in addition to lines of pedagogical descent, there were also col-
legial relations among contemporaries, through which intellectual influence was exerted.25
This collegial interaction is more difficult to demonstrate from the primary sources, except
among those who shared a guru. The stories of encounters come in here, as do the few
surviving documents that record meetings among pandits, and the institutional records of
the monastic orders. More about these is mentioned below.
Dasgupta also thought that the groupings he identified coincided with intellectual
groupings. Thus, he supposed that from Nr.sim . ha came a strong influence towards the views
of the Vivaran.a line and that Nr.sim . ha’s ‘sphere of influence’ included Appayya Dı̄ks.ita
216 C. Minkowski
and his pupils, Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita and his family, Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ and his pupils, and
Sadānanda. Meanwhile, he thought that there were other, separate milieux, which were
‘free from the influence of the Vivaran.a’, including the strand numbered X in Table 2,
which ends with Bhāskararāya Dı̄ks.ita.26
There is certainly merit in supposing that there was some degree of match between
lineages and views, but there are also difficulties in doing so. As shown earlier, this
period has been characterized as one of ‘syncretism’ as well as of reviewing the range
of positions within the school. The older, stronger division between Vivaran.a line and
the Bhāmatı̄ line is difficult to draw for this era. Although Appayya is said to have been
under Nr.sim . hāśrama’s influence, he famously wrote a commentary, the Parimala, on the
Vedāntakalpataru, which itself was a commentary on the Bhāmatı̄. Even Dasgupta noticed
that Nr.sim . hāśrama wrote a commentary on the Vivaran.a but also on the Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka,
a text in the Sureśvara line. That Nr.sim . ha did so was explained by Dasgupta as due to ‘the
syncretistic tendencies of the age’.27
The crucial links for our purposes here, those between Nr.sim . hāśrama, Appayya Dı̄ks.ita
and the brothers Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita and Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a are most difficult to verify with
certainty. Although the received opinion in India has been that there were meaningful
personal contacts between these figures, the contacts are hard to demonstrate.28 There
was certainly intellectual influence. Appayya cited Nr.sim . ha’s work and took it seriously.
Bhat.t.oji commented on one of Nr.sim . ha’s most well-known Vedāntic texts. Raṅgoji referred
frequently to Nr.sim . ha with great respect, as a guru, in one of his works. Furthermore,
Bhat.t.oji appears to have taken Appayya’s attack on the position of the Mādhvas as the
model for his own, whereas Raṅgoji explicitly mentioned his elder brother as one of his
gurus. Bhat.t.oji, Raṅgoji and other members of his family received commissions and sup-
port from Nayaka rulers in Karnataka, and Raṅgoji certainly travelled there at least once.
Appayya seems to have received support from one of these rulers as well. Meanwhile, it is
entirely possible that Appayya and Nr.sim . ha, though figures of the Tamil-speaking country,
made the pilgrimage to Banaras, a centre that drew pilgrims and scholars from the whole
subcontinent.
Banaras and the south

The accounts of trips from Banaras to the south by Bhat.t.oji and Raṅgoji, or from the south
to Banaras by Appayya and Nr.sim . ha, bring into focus the geographical dimension of this
story. The history of Advaita Vedānta, from the time of Bhāratı̄tı̄rtha, Vidyāran.ya, Sāyan.a
and Mādhava at least, is centred in south India. This can be seen even from the information
provided in Table 1, as supplemented by Table 2. The majority of our authors belonged
to families or institutions located in south of the Marāt.hı̄-speaking region of the Deccan,
especially in what is now Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.29
Thus, the lineage described in Table 2 as line I, from Śaṅkarānanda to Sadānanda, is
entirely south Indian, as are the lines under VIII, from Rāmānanda I to Acyutakr.s.n.ānanda,
and to Rāmānanda II, and to Mahādeva Vedāntin, who was in fact the Śaṅkarācārya of
Kāñcı̄. The lines under X, from Svayam . prakāśānanda I to Bhāskararāya Dı̄ks.ita and to
Anubhavānanda, are also southern. The lines passing through Nr.sim . hāśrama and Appayya
(the lines under III and V, respectively) are entirely southern, with the exception of those
that have the uncertain connections with Bhat.t.oji and Raṅgoji discussed in the excursus.
On the other hand, there were also networks of Advaitins in Banaras, as captured by the
lines under IV, those passing through Madhusūdana, and those passing through Bhat.t.oji and
Raṅgoji (VI and VII). The lines under XI, from Nārāyan.a Tı̄rtha to Sadānanda Kāśmı̄raka
and Annam . Bhat.t.a, also show clusters of scholars based in Banaras.
There are several lines in the table which might indicate ways in which southern
Advaitin knowledge and argument were brought to Banaras, though the information is not
entirely reliable. In the simplest case, there is Svayam . prakāśa Yati who had as his teachers
both Kaivalyānanda, who was probably a south Indian, and Śuddhānanda, who was proba-
bly of Banaras.30 In line II, we similarly have Nānā Dı̄ks.ita, a Banarası̄, whose lineage of
teachers goes back to Advaitānanda, who might be the same as Advayānanda, the guru of
Sadānanda, and a figure of the south. Then again, in line VII, there is Ananta Deva, another
Maharashtrian Brahmin based in Banaras, who through Rāmatı̄rtha Yati was intellectually
descended from Jagannāthāśrama. This appears to be the same Jagannāthāśrama who had
earlier been Nr.sim . hāśrama’s guru, in the south. Not all of this information is certain, but
it does indicate how particular Advaitins might have moved to Banaras after contact with
teaching in the south.
Rāmeśvara Bhat.t.a was an Advaitin and, according to the chronicle of his family com-
posed by his grandson, taught Advaitin texts among others to Mādhava Sarasvatı̄, the guru
of Madhusūdana, and to another Sannyāsin, Dāmodara Sarasvatı̄.31 Rāmeśvara established
the prolific Bhat.t.a family in Banaras, and their writings on Dharmaśāstra and Mı̄mām . sā
came to be authoritative throughout the subcontinent. The chronicle goes on to mention
that Rāmeśvara’s son, Nārāyan.a Bhat.t.a, was a teacher of similar achievement, instructing
notable sannyāsins in the city, especially Brahmendra Sarasvatı̄ and Nārāyan.a Sarasvatı̄.32
During this era, the intellectual scene in Banaras was dominated by families of
Brahmins from the Deccan.33 Most of these families held Advaitin views, so much so
that Advaita can be said to have been in the establishment position in the city. Aside from
the influential Bhat.t.a family, there was also the family of Bhat.t.oji and Raṅgoji, and through
them the families of their protegés, especially Nāgeśa or Nāgoji Bhat.t.a, who occupied a
prominent position in Banaras at the close of the seventeenth century and the beginning
of the eighteenth. The members of the family of Devas were also Advaitins. Anantadeva,
a pupil of Rāmatı̄rtha Yati and author of the Siddhāntatattva, has already been mentioned.
Āpadeva, meanwhile, wrote a commentary on the Vedāntasāra. In fact, of the seven promi-
nent families that H.P. Shastri mentions in his article on the influence of Deccanı̄ Brahmins
in Banaras, it was only members of the Śes.a family who were followers of the doctrines of
Madhva.34
At this time there were many sannyāsins in the city, and the most influential ones
were followers of Śāṅkara Advaita. The position occupied by Nārāyan.a Bhat.t.a at the
end of the sixteenth century, as the unofficial but acknowledged leader of the commu-
nity of pandits, and by his son Śaṅkara Bhat.t.a after him, was subsequently occupied by
Kavı̄ndrācārya Sarasvatı̄.35 Kavı̄ndra, himself an Advaitin, received a felicitation volume,
the Kavı̄ndracandrodaya, to celebrate his success as the public representative of the city’s
pandits in persuading the Mughal ruler of the day, Shah Jahan, to abolish the tax on pil-
grims to the city.36 This volume consisted of an anthology of addresses in prose and verse
contributed by many learned notables of the day. In this volume, copies of which survive,
there are addresses gathered from a number of Advaitin sannyāsins, including Brahmendra
Sarasvatı̄.
Brahmendra was the pupil of Nārāyan.a Bhat.t.a, as mentioned earlier.37 He was
the author of three Advaitin texts.38 Brahmendra and another sannyāsin, Pūrn.endra
Sarasvatı̄, are mentioned both individually and as a pair by the other contributors to the
Kavı̄ndracandrodaya.39 It is clear from these references that the two were looked upon
as leaders in the city.40 In 1657, both sannyāsins appeared at a meeting of about 70 pan-
dits and sannyāsins in the Muktiman.d.apa of the Viśvanāth temple, the principal venue for
218 C. Minkowski
pan.d.itasabhās in the city, where they jointly signed a judgement (nirn.ayapattra) concern-
ing the caste status of Devrukh Brahmins.41 As in that document Brahmendra is given the
alternative name of Nr.sim . hāśrama, P.K. Gode has suggested that this was the sannyāsin
who received letters from the Mughal prince Dārā Shukoh, the son of Shah Jahan, the
prince who famously commissioned the translation of 50 Upanis.ads and of other Sanskrit
texts.42
Some of the polemical writing of the day brings out more clearly the position of
Advaitin thinkers in the city. Elsewhere, I have described how Bhat.t.oji’s son Bhānuji,
who became the sannyāsin Rāmāśrama, argued for the authority of the Bhāgavata Purān.a
among other ways simply by appeal to the personal authority of recent and contem-
porary authoritative figures. The figures he invoked were Appayya, Mādhava Sarasvatı̄,
Madhusūdana, Pūrn.endra and Brahmendra.43
Thus, throughout this period, both Advaitin sannyāsins and householders occupied
positions of prominence in the literate institutions and public spaces of Banaras, and
Advaitin views held sway.44 Their position was not unchallenged, however. There were fol-
lowers of the Vais.n.ava sampradāyas present in the city as well.45 The most notable Mādhva
in the city was Kr.s.n.a Śes.a, who, in some rival accounts, was the one who occupied the
position of chief pandit.46
Advaita Vedānta and social institutions

The greater part of Advaitin intellectual activity during these centuries, therefore, took
place in the south, with the Advaitins in Banaras drawing from, and being drawn into,
conversations that began there. It was, furthermore, the pressure of the other Vedāntic
movements in the south that drove Advaitins to select certain genres, topics and lines of
argument. We can specify the nature of this pressure more by examining the history of the
institutions – monastic, religious and political – which supported the southern Vedāntic
movements.
The resurgence of Advaitin literary activity and fresh statements of arguments and
positions, first of all, coincide with the emergence of the two principal Advaitin monastic
centres (mat.ha) in the south, one in Śr.ṅgerı̄ in what is now southern Karnataka, and the
other in Kāñcı̄puram in what is now northern Tamil Nadu.47 All the Advaitin authors based
in the south whom we have considered, with the probable exception of Appayya and his
family, had close connections with one or the other of these two mat.has.
A recent study by Clark has shown that the Śr.ṅgerı̄ and Kāñcı̄puram mat.has arose
as centres for Advaita Vedānta only in the late medieval and early modern periods, and
not earlier.48 Inscriptional evidence suggests that both mat.has had earlier been sectarian,
Śaiva centres, associated with tantric Śaiva movements. There were also Vais.n.ava mat.has
in the south, linked with the great Vais.n.ava temples. Monastic institutions specifically
for the Śrı̄vais.n.ava-Viśis.t.ādvaitins and for the Mādhvas grew in importance and popu-
larity through their contact with those centres. Probably in response to the growth of
the Śrı̄vais.n.ava institutions, Śr.ṅgerı̄ and Kāñcı̄puram emerged as Advaitin centres with
a smārta Śaiva focus; that is, as centres where the Vedas were accepted uniquely as the
highest authority, not second to or in combination with, the sectarian Āgama literature, as
the tantric movements would have it. The daśanāmı̄ orders of sannyāsins, to which many
of our early modern Advaitin authors belonged, were formulated only in the early mod-
ern period, according to Clark’s account. Their linkage to the social organizations of the
monastic ‘families’ or akhād.ās was a contemporary development as well.
The emergence of the Śr.ṅgerı̄ and Kāñcı̄puram mat.has as prominent and influential
centres for Advaitin authors in south India was largely due to the favour and patronage
of rulers, especially those of the Vijayanagara state. The first dynasty of Vijayanagara,
the Saṅgamas, came to power in the fourteenth century. Although this dynasty, who were
Śaivas, made donations to temples and sects of many denominations within their domains,
they especially supported Śaiva institutions for their royal rituals, and oversaw the trans-
formation of the Śr.ṅgerı̄ mat.ha, which lay within their domain. The Advaitin authors
connected to the Śr.ṅgerı̄ mat.ha and to Vijayanagara at that time – Bhāratı̄tı̄rtha, Mādhava
and Sāyan.a – received patronage for their literary activities. The kings of Vijayanagara
gave special emphasis to the Śaiva temples and Advaitin mat.has in their capital city as well.
Inscriptional evidence shows a similar history for the Kāñcı̄puram mat.ha, whose leaders
received patronage from the Vijayanagara kingdom and other rulers.49
Thus, the mat.has and the monastic organizations that supported Vedāntic intellec-
tual and literary activity of all varieties were part of a developing cultural and political
scene in post-Chola south India. The structure and functioning of that scene was ‘ethno-
sociologically’ described by Arjun Appadurai as participating in a ‘single system of
authoritative relations’.50 In Appadurai’s description, this single system consisted in a tri-
angular relationship between kings, temples and the leaders of sects, with honours and
material resources exchanged between them through transactions that were mediated by all
three. All three groups benefitted from the system: the rulers through the durability and
legitimacy of their kingdoms, the temples and religious sects through the increase in their
followers, gifts and prestige. As part of their activities the leaders of sects were sometimes
intellectual figures, the developers of doctrines and arguments. For his examples Appadurai
drew on the Śrı̄vais.n.avas, but he suggested that the description applied to the movements,
temples and rulers in Vijayanagara and other kingdoms of south India more generally.
For the history of Advaita that we are attempting to sketch, the crucial figure here is
neither a Śrı̄vais.n.ava–Vis.is.t.ādvaitin, nor an Advaitin, but a follower of Madhva, the Dvaitin
Vyāsatı̄rtha (1460–1539).51 Vyāsatı̄rtha, whom we have mentioned earlier, was the head
of a mat.ha in the capital city of the Vijayanagara kingdom and represented the Mādhva
movement in its dialogue with the Vijayanagara court. Vyāsatı̄rtha was active in the city
at a time when the rulers, members of the new T.uluva dynasty, shifted the focus of state
religion to Vais.n.ava temple ritual. A recent study by Valerie Stoker follows Vyāsatı̄rtha’s
career in the city and delineates the ways in which he attempted to reposition the Mādhva
movement, which hitherto had been of minor importance in Vijayanagara.52 These ways
included the founding of monasteries, the installation of icons and construction of additions
to politically important temples and supporting public works such as irrigation projects
that would benefit temple worship.53 In turn, he received donations from the Vijayanagara
rulers for himself and for his mat.has, especially from the most celebrated of all rulers
of Vijayanagara, Kr.s.n.adevarāya. Vyāsatı̄rtha also secured the award of temple rights to
Mādhva priests in some of the great temples of the south, including Tirupati.
Vyāsatı̄rtha also involved himself through his writings. These comprised critiques
of the views of Naiyāyikas and Śrı̄vais.n.avas, but especially of Advaitins. Vyāsatı̄rtha’s
Nyāyāmr.ta was an encyclopaedic demonstration of what he argued were the philosoph-
ical failings of Advaita Vedānta. He argued using not only the dialectical methods of
54
Navyanyāya but also of Mı̄mām . sā and Vyākaran.a.
The Nyāyāmr.ta came as a watershed in philosophical terms not only for the Dvaitins
but also for the Advaitins. Although the Dvaitin Vis.n.udāsa (1390–1440) had made many
of the same arguments in his Vādaratnāvalı̄ a century earlier, because of Vyāsatı̄rtha’s
prominent placement in the capital city, the Nyāyāmr.ta was the text that was noticed, and
appears finally to have shattered the complacency of the Advaitins. Until then they seem
220 C. Minkowski
to have been happy to rely on the corrosive critique of realist (and therefore by implication
also of dualist) positions that had been mounted by Śrı̄hars.a and Citsukha some centuries
earlier. Certainly the Advaitins became more philosophically contentious in the sixteenth
century by comparison with the fifteenth. B.N.K. Sharma asserts that Nr.sim . ha’s works, the
Vedāntatattvaviveka and the Bhedadhikkāra, were composed in response to Vyāsatı̄rtha,
as were the anti-Mādhva works of Appayya.55 It was really Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄, how-
ever, who explicitly responded to the Nyāyāmr.ta point by point, in his Advaitasiddhi. The
Advaitasiddhi quickly provoked a rejoinder by the Dvaitin Rāmācārya (ca. 1550–1620),
and the argument continued right through the seventeenth century.56
The challenge to the philosophical position of the Advaitins by the followers of
Mādhva, therefore, was given strength and urgency by its relationship to cultural and polit-
ical developments in the Vijayanagara kingdom in the sixteenth century, in a context of
competition for royal favour and support, prestige, temple rights and popular acceptance.
Vyāsatı̄rtha’s Nyāyāmr.ta drew responses not just from Advaitins living in the
Vijayanagara kingdom, but from those based in Banaras as well. Madhusūdana and
Brahmānanda were drawn into the argument with the Mādhvas, and Bhat.t.oji and Raṅgoji
got involved as well. What should we make of the involvement of śāstrins of Banaras in a
dispute with Dvaitins based in the South? After all, Banaras did not lie within the domain
of the Vijayanagara rulers or their successor states.
There are several things to consider, first of all the status of Banaras in the subcontinent
at this time. Banaras would have been a natural place to look for an Advaitin champion who
was capable of a rejoinder to such a sophisticated critique as Vyāsatı̄rtha’s, requiring as it
did an expertise in Nyāya, Vyākaran.a, Mı̄mām . sā as well as Vedic philology.
Banaras, furthermore, occupied an anomalous position in India during this period.
There was no local ruler of Banaras whose favour and support the śāstrins uniquely sought.
Instead, the various śāstrins had connections to many courts across the subcontinent.
Bhat.t.oji and Raṅgoji got involved with the Dvaitins because a south Indian ruler com-
missioned them to do so.57 In a similar way, the temples in Banaras were of transregional
importance for pilgrims and were connected to sectarian networks spanning India.
Elsewhere in this volume, O’Hanlon has described the collective ambition of Banaras’
śāstrins to a status of continent-wide leadership when it came to matters of dharmaśāstra:
representing Hindu India to the Mughal court in Delhi, while also adjudicating local
disputes in various places, especially in the Deccan.58 Banaras lay within the domain, ulti-
mately, of the Mughal emperor in Delhi, and Hindu courtiers in the Mughal court did play
some role in administering relationships between movements and temples in Banaras. Yet
Banaras was also, in its own sphere, free from the control of Delhi and was the closest
thing to an independent centre for scholars, sects and temples, by virtue of its connections
throughout the continent.
Social history of Advaita Vedānta?

Let us return to our initial question about Advaita Vedānta and its social history. The mate-
rial that we have assembled does suggest that one can usefully describe the proponents of
Advaita Vedānta in the early modern period, and the doctrines they propounded, as embed-
ded in a larger system of social relations. At the very least we can rule out a history of
Advaita Vedānta in the early modern period that is wholly internalist, in which philosoph-
ical necessities alone are sufficient to explain the timing and shape of its trajectory. We
can also rule out a perennialist non-history of Advaita, as the unchanging philosophy of
India above the vicissitudes of time, or at least we can rule it out when it comes to the form
and content of Advaitin arguments and literary genres during this period, and the life of its
schools of thought, links to monastic orders and settings for teaching and professing.
Most authors of general histories of Indian philosophy who have bothered with this
late period have had a sense that there is a larger social or political history involved.
Potter comes the closest to a purely internalist history of Advaita, in that he sees its
‘Sureśvarization’ and progress towards becoming a ‘leap philosophy’, and therefore even-
tual retreat from philosophy altogether, as inevitable given Advaitin presuppositions and
commitments. Even he must assume the social setting of debate and confrontation with
other philosophers, especially with the Mādhvas, as the driving force in this progress.59
As for the theory involved, the current essay will remain unambitious. It is not neces-
sary to maintain that social or political settings drove the content of particular ideas in any
sort of instrumentalist or functionalist way; nor would it be correct to do so. On the other
hand, it should not be problematic to suggest that the history of those settings can provide
the context in which to understand the meaning of the Advaitins’ arguments and at least
one reason why they were argued.
Beyond that, we might note with interest how some distinctively Advaitin doctrines,
or doctrines that distinguished the views of opponents from those of Advaitins, had real-
world implications. A cluster of these doctrines was concerned with the condition of the
individual soul when it reached liberation. As Valerie Stoker has suggested, for example the
Advaitin insistence that it was possible to become liberated while still alive and embodied,
is plausibly linked to their claim that the leaders of Advaitin mat.has had achieved this
state. The Mādhvas did not accept the possibility of this state (jı̄vanmukti), arguing instead
that liberation was achieved only after death of the body. Nor did they maintain that their
leaders were liberated. Given the context of the competition between Vedāntins, especially
in the South, it is therefore not surprising that Vyāsatı̄rtha should have devoted so much
attention to criticizing the Advaitins’ various defences of the possibility of jı̄vanmukti.60
In a similar way, Appadurai has proposed that an internal fission in doctrine in the
movement of Śrı̄vais.n.avas over how active the devotee of God needed to be in seeking sal-
vation, was linked to a doctrinal difference over how much the devotee needed to rely on a
human leader. In turn, Appadurai went on to argue, those differences, between the Sanskrit
school and the Tamil school, were also tied to the relative popular success of the two, with
the school emphasizing the need for greater authority vested in the leader attracting the
larger following.61 Although in themselves these examples do not yet constitute a satisfac-
tory theory or method for a social history of Advaitin philosophy, they do suggest the sorts
of materials one should assemble to proceed to create one. For that purpose, it would be
necessary to enter into the internal workings of the philosophy, in a way that we have not
done here, and to specify exactly how the Advaitins differentiated themselves from their
interlocutors.
The only attempt at a fully social theory of the history of Advaita is that of Randall
Collins in his book, The Sociology of Philosophies.62 In this work, Collins proposed a
non-reductionist model for the global history of philosophy, with a general theory of the
‘sociology of thinking’, in which ‘interaction rituals’, ‘networks across generations’ and the
principle of the ‘partition of attention space’ ensured intellectual autonomy for the activity
of philosophers, while at the same time embedding that activity in a social context.63
Collins relied on Dasgupta and Potter for his data about Indian philosophies, and for
his version of their collective historical arc. He therefore saw India’s later medieval period
as the time of ‘the highest level of sophistication in metaphysical and epistemological argu-
ment in Indian history’.64 This high point was over, however, by 1500; after that came a
period of scholasticism and syncretism, the ‘clouding of philosophical attention space’ and
222 C. Minkowski
a ‘collapse from within’. Indian philosophy died ‘from its own success’.65 He credits the
(crypto-solipsist) Prakāśānanda with the last original philosophical contribution. Collins
attributes the cause of this collapse of Indian philosophy from 1500 to the presence of Islam
in India. In this account, Sanskritic philosophy was inevitably weakened after the demise of
Vijayanagara (in 1565), where the ‘great syncretizers Vijñānabhiks.u and Appayya Dı̄ks.ita
lived’.66 The syncretism that was characteristic of the period was created in a search for
strength in unity against a Muslim threat.
Unfortunately, no compelling historical explanation of the deleterious effect of Islam is
given, nor why 1500 should be the cut-off date for Indian philosophical originality. It has
been shown in recent studies that, if anything, the period of Mughal ascendancy that began
in the early sixteenth century coincided with an efflorescence of intellectual activity on the
part of the Sanskrit śāstrins. Given the dispersed nature of power in the Mughal imperium
and their employment of Hindus as courtiers and administrators even in the heart of their
kingdom, it was far from necessary for a śāstrin to live in the Vijayanagara kingdom during
this period to receive patronage or honours.67 The article by O’Hanlon elsewhere in this
volume describes some of the interactions that the śāstrins of Banaras had with the Mughal
court, some proud to have received honours from the Padshah.
Collins does identify an important theme, however, and the one with which we will
conclude. The ascendancy in many parts of India of Mughal and other Muslim rulers and
states during the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries had an influence on the fortunes
of Sanskrit philosophers, in Banaras and elsewhere. It is instructive in this regard to return
to the career of Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄. The involvement of Madhusūdana in the contro-
versy with the Dvaitins hints at what seems to be a transformation taking place in India
during these centuries, towards the generalization of regional arguments and arrangements
in religious matters.
Madhusūdana was a worshipper of Kr.s.n.a and wrote several works on bhakti topics,
in which achieving union with Kr.s.n.a was the central theme.68 His religious commitments
indicate that the philosophical confrontation between Advaitins and Dvaitins, as it came
north, was no longer the same thing as a sectarian argument between Śaivas and Vais.n.avas,
a form of argument that Madhusūdana, who believed the Deity was ultimately one and
variously approachable, deplored.69
In the Advaitasiddhi and his other writings, Madhusūdana also transformed Advaita
itself. He allowed a scope for bhakti as a path independent of Vedic and Vedāntic pre-
scription, in a way whose philosophical implications for Advaita have still not been
fully assessed. In several places in his writing he openly, if respectfully, disagreed with
Śaṅkarācārya himself. In the Advaitasiddhi, he accepted the terms of debate established
by Vyāsatı̄rtha and, in putting Advaitin arguments into the form necessary for that con-
frontation, altered their structure and meaning. Madhusūdana was the last Advaitin to
whom Dasgupta devoted a separate discussion in his survey of Advaitin authors, but
Madhusūdana’s writings exerted a great deal of influence on later authors. He was anything
but the end of the story for Advaita.
Now, we might have expected Madhusūdana to be more concerned with the issue con-
fronting Vedāntins in north India in a more immediate way, the pressure of Islamic religious
authority on Hindu religious forms. The collective memory of Madhusūdana certainly
emphasizes his interactions with Akbar and his participation in the ‘ecumenical’ project
at Akbar’s court.70
There were, in fact, genuine possibilities for dialogue and comparison in Akbar’s court.
The problems of, and approach to, theology and philosophy that underlay the arguments
between the non-dualists and dualists in Vedānta had counterparts in the Islamic theology
that developed in India in this period: over the ultimate unity or disunity between God and
human souls, the condition of the soul in salvation and so on.71 And yet, in his own writing,
Madhusūdana ruled out any serious consideration of Islamic theology, even in works where
he surveyed the other philosophical positions on offer in his world. The ‘yavanas’ were too
far outside the Vedic fold.72 Instead, Madhusūdana devoted his efforts to the argument with
the Dvaitins.
An explanation of Madhusūdana’s choice of opponent that might be in keeping with
the contextual suggestions above would be that, in doing so, Madhsūdana sought to take
up an argument about the conceptual organization of Hinduism as a whole. Through engag-
ing with the Dvaitins, he was attempting to accomplish two things at once, to (re)describe
Advaita as the position most amenable to providing a ‘large-tent’ theology for the many
doctrines and traditions of Hindus, while at the same time to reject the Dvaitin’s doctri-
nal position, as committing Hindus to a world of religious practices and beliefs that were
explicitly sectarian and irreducibly divided.
At the same time, it must also have been the vitality of the philosophy itself that inter-
ested Madhusūdana. Dialogue or confrontation with comparable Islamic doctrines, after
all, would have to have been conducted without the shared ground rules, textual presup-
positions and philosophical commitments of the universe of Sanskritic discourse, unless
Madhusūdana made the effort to create them anew for this ecumenical purpose. It would
have been very difficult to bring such a dialogue up to the level of philosophical seriousness
that Madhusūdana could expect from the start in engaging with the Dvaitins.
If this account is correct, then Madhusūdana can be seen to have been participating in a
reformulation of Advaita in relation to the variety of lively religious movements of his own
day, in terms that had consequences for the development of Advaita in the modern period.
Advaita was rearticulated to become once again the meta-discourse of Indian philosophy,
and at the same time to represent the mainstream or properly Vedic view.
Although there were many social, political and economic upheavals from the later eigh-
teenth century through the twentieth, the fortunes of the positions articulated within the
Vedāntic movements and sampradāyas were less endangered than was the early modern
Sanskrit intellectual ecumene as a whole. The social organizations that supported these
movements would have been relatively durable through the transformation to Indian moder-
nity. During the early modern period many sampradāyas, mat.has and families had been
accorded income through land grants. These would often have been confirmed by later
rulers well into the modern period. Those movements with popular followings and far-flung
networks would also have been able to weather the disruptions in further state patronage
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In any case, the doctrine of undivided Being,
linked to a comprehensive taxonomy of what constituted the Vedic literature and the reli-
gious practices that belonged to them, in which Advaita was positioned at the top, was alive
and well and living in Banaras when Rammohan Roy and other modern Hindu reformers
came there.
Excursus – four Advaitin authors and the personal contact between them:
Nr.sim
. hāśrama, Appayya Dı̄ks.ita, Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita and Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a
For convenience let us label these four authors as N, A, B and R, respectively. The personal
contacts between them have been represented in Table 2 above as N(?)A, A(?)B, N(?)R
and B(?)R, where the question mark indicates that personal contact between them has been
claimed, but is difficult to prove decisively. In this excursus, I review those links.
224 C. Minkowski
N(?)A: Nr.sim . ha and Appayya

Appayya wrote no commentary on the work of Nr.sim . ha. He cited Nr.sim. ha’s Tattvaviveka
in his Siddhāntaleśasam . graha and did not reject Nr sim
. . ha’s views. In all his works,
Appayya listed his own father, Raṅgarājādhvarin, as his guru.73 He did not specify Nr.sim . ha
as a guru or teacher in any of his writings.
Suryanarayana Sukla supposed that Appayya and his father went to Banaras to perform
some religious observances, and while they were there they had Nr.sim . hāśrama, also visit-
ing the city, stay with them. The instruction by Nr.sim . ha of Appayya then took place at that
time.74 Although this account is certainly possible, no contemporary evidence is offered to
support it.
S. Narayana Swamy Sastry, in the introduction to his edition of Nr.sim . ha’s
Tattvavivekadı̄pana attempted to show that Nr.sim . ha was Appayya’s guru in the following
way. He cited a work attributed to Appayya, a grammar of Prakrit, the Prākr.taman.idı̄pa,
in which a guru other than Appayya’s father was named. This guru was not Nr.sim . ha,
but someone else, called Saccidānanda. Nevertheless, it shows that Appayya did receive
instruction from other sources, and so it is possible that he learned from Nr.sim . ha. Aside
from the obvious difficulty with this argument, it has the further one that it is not universally
accepted that Appayya was the author of the Prākr.taman.idı̄pa.75
Evidence that Nr.sim . ha and Appayya were in Banaras at the same time is offered
by Subrahman.ya Śāstrı̄ in his edition of Nr.sim . ha’s Advaitadı̄pikā. He cites a contempo-
rary document from 1657 recording a collective decision (nirn.ayapattra) on a matter of
dharma drawn up by an assembly of pandits in Banaras, which Nr.sim . hāśrama, Appayya
Dı̄ks.ita, Gāgā Bhat.t.a, Khan.d.a Deva and Ananta Bhat.t.a signed.76 However, as pointed out
by O’Hanlon, citing the relevant scholarship by Gode and others, this Nr.sim . hāśrama was
someone else, the local figure, Brahmendra Sarasvatı̄, as discussed above, and the Appayya
mentioned was probably the grandson, or Appayya III.77
N(?)B: Nr.sim . ha and Bhat..toji

Bhat.t.oji wrote a commentary on Nr.sim . ha’s Tattvavivekadı̄pana, called the Vākyamāla
or the Vyākhyā or the Vivaran.a.78 Thangaswami asserts that Bhat.t.oji learned from both
79
Nr.sim. ha and Appayya, but does not provide the evidence. Bronkhorst lists, rather scep-
tically, three sources which make the claim that Bhat.t.oji was a direct pupil of Nr.sim
. ha, but
none of the three provides contemporary evidence.80
A(?)B: Appayya and Bhat..toji

It has also been claimed that Bhat.t.oji was a pupil of Appayya’s.81 Bhat.t.oji certainly knew
Appayya’s work, and appears almost certain to have taken some inspiration for his own
polemical tracts against the doctrines of the Mādhvas from Appayya’s tracts. The main
contemporary evidence that Appayya was Bhat.t.oji’s guru, that is that they knew each other
personally, comes from a text attributed to Bhat.t.oji called the Tantrasiddhāntadı̄pikā, in
which the author praises Appayya as his guru.82 Unfortunately, there is good reason to
suppose that this text was not by Bhat.t.oji, but was in fact the work of Appayya’s grand-
son, Appayya Dı̄ks.ita III.83 The problematic evidence discussed above, which puts an
‘Appayya’ in Banaras in the mid-seventeenth century is also invoked.
There are several versions of the story of a face-to-face encounter between the two.84
Rāmacandra Śāstrı̄ Sūri observes that the preference for a version has a geographical deter-
minant. Scholars from the north of India, he says, have claimed that Appayya made a
pilgrimage to Banaras to perform an elaborate arcana of the principal form of Śiva there,
Viśveśvara, and met Bhat.t.oji at that time. On the other hand, the southerners have claimed
that Bhat.t.oji went south to make a pilgrimage to Rāmeśvaram, and met Appayya during
that trip. Although, he says, there is no way to decide between these claims, Sūri concludes
that it is more reasonable to suppose that Appayya went north.85 We might, however, con-
sider it just as reasonable to suppose that Bhat.t.oji met Appayya on a trip to the south. It
is certain that Bhat.t.oji was commissioned to write his attack on the Mādhvas by a Nayaka
ruler in Ikkedi, in the region of modern-day Karnataka, and it appears nearly as certain that
Raṅgoji travelled to Ikkedi at the request of that same ruler, Veṅkatappa, to engage in a
debate with a representative of the Mādhvas.86 Appayya seems to have been supported by
the same Veṅkatappa.87
N(?)R and BR: Nr.sim

. ha, Bhat..toji and Raṅgoji
In his Advaitacintāman.i, Raṅgoji identifies (his brother) Bhat.t.oji as his guru.88 In the body
89
of the text, however, he also frequently refers to Nr.sim . hāśrama as a guru. It is possible
that this simply means he views Nr.sim . hāśrama as a figure worthy of great deference, but
the passages are usually taken to mean that Nr.sim . ha was in fact his guru.
Acknowledgements
I thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton,
and the Mellon Foundation for their support. I also thank the anonymous reviewers, and Madhav
Deshpande, Valerie Stoker, Mike Collins, Yigal Bronner and Polly O’Hanlon for their help.
Notes
1. See, for example, Potter, Presuppositions of Indian Philosophies, 252–4.
2. With some exceptions. ‘From the fourteenth century, however, we have a large number of
Vedānta writers in all the succeeding centuries; but with the notable exception of Prakāśānanda,
Madhusūdana Sarasvatı̄ . . . and probably Vidyāran.ya . . . and Dharmarājādhvarı̄ndra. . . there
are few writers who can be said to reveal any great originality in Vedāntic interpretations’.
Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 2, 53.
3. Ibid.
4. Potter, Presuppositions of Indian Philosophies, 181.
5. Ibid., 53–7. Some of the lineages and attributions of texts he made have been corrected by later
scholars.
6. The two most referred to were Potter, Bibliography (online version) and Thangaswami, Kośa.
7. I cannot claim to be an expert in Advaita Vedānta, but I have undertaken this survey, based
largely on the current secondary scholarship, because of my own research on Nı̄lakan.t.ha
Caturdhara, best remembered for his commentary on the Mahābhārata. Nı̄lakan.t.ha was active
as an Advaitin author in the mid- to late-seventeenth century, though this feature of his career
has been forgotten. The sooner this first approximation of a history is replaced by a more
authoritative one, the better.
8. Information about the sources used and the problems inherent in using them has been provided
in the table.
9. See the notes on the table for further discussion.
10. More about the Advaitasiddhi below. There are also the Madhvamatakhan.d.ana, ‘Reducing the
Views of Madhva to Rubble’, of Ānandāśrama (fl. 1585), and the Dvaitakhan.d.ana, ‘Reducing
Dualism to Rubble’, of Svayamprakāśa Muni.
11. See Halbfass, India and Europe, 349–68.
12. The second verse of Appayya’s opening statement emphasized the variety of views: prācı̄nair
vyavahārasiddhavis.ayes.v ātmaikyasiddhau param . sannahyadbhir anādarāt saran.ayo nānāvidhā
darśı̄tāh. | tanmūlān iha sam
. grahen.a kati cit siddāntabhedān dhiyah. śuddhyai saṅkalayāmi
226 C. Minkowski
tātacaran.avyākhyāvacah.khyāpitān || Nı̄lakan.t.ha Caturdhara’s S.at.tantrı̄sāra and Vedāntakataka

followed the pattern of Madhusūdana’s works.
13. See Table 1. There was another Vedāntaparibhās.ā, by Brahmendra Sarasvatı̄ (fl. 1590).
14. Indeed the commentaries on the Vedāntasāra read as if they are the texts of the lectures their
authors would have given based on that outline. The Vedāntaparibhās.ā was comparatively more
specialized, focusing largely on epistemology.
15. No doubt the list is not absolutely complete, but Potter’s Bibliography records direct
commentaries by the following Advaitins after Śaṅkara up to 1750 (dates are Potter’s):
Prakāśātman (975), Śaṅkarānanda (1290), Citsukha (1220), Ānandapūrn.a Vidyāsāgara (1350),
Sadānanda Yogı̄ndra (1500), Rāmeśvara Bhāratı̄ (1550), Annam . bhat.t.a (1560), Appayya
Dı̄ks.ita (1585), Rāmāśrama (1590), Rāmatı̄rtha (1610), Svayamprakāśānanda Sarasvati (1610),
Mukunda Muni (1640), Rāmānanda Tı̄rtha (1650), Kr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ I (1665), Rāmānanda
Sarasvatı̄ (1670), ‘Acyuta’ Kr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvatı̄ (1670), Gaud.a Brahmānanda Sarasvatı̄
(1700), Sadāśiva Brahmendra (1720), and Jñānendra Muni (1740).
16. In Nı̄lakan.t.ha’s Vedāntakataka, a work of this genre, one finds an awareness of the current
state of diversity of views in the field, expressed in his references to the older Advaitin authors
(prācı̄na), to contemporary authors (ādhūnika) over against them, and then to those of the
present who know the boundaries of the movement’s doctrines properly (sampradāyavid).
There are also those who are generally all right but who have said insupportable things
(asāmpradāyika), probably not realizing that they have strayed outside the bounds.
17. The term ‘siddhānta’ became a regular choice for inclusion in the title of a
text in this period. See Deshpande ‘Bhattoji Diksita’s Perceptions’. This prefer-
ence is especially noticeable in Advaita, where the term looms into prominence:
Consider, for example, Sadānanda’s Vedāntasiddhāntasārasam . graha, Prakāśānanda’s
Vedāntasiddhāntamuktāvali, Kr.s.n.ānanda Sarasvati(I)’s Siddhāntasiddhāñjanā, Viśvaveda’s
Siddhāntadı̄pa, Madhusūdana’s Siddhāntabindu, Anantadeva’s Siddhāntāmr.ta,
Nārāyan.āśrama’s Advaitasiddhāntasārasam . graha, and Gaud.a Brahmānanda Sarasvatı̄’s
Advaitasiddhāntavidyotana.
18. The Bhāmatı̄ was a commentary on Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtrabhās.ya; the Vivaran.a was a com-
mentary on the Pañcapādikā of Padmapāda (ninth century), which was in turn a commentary
on the first five sections (pāda) of Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtrabhās.ya; the Vārttika was a versi-
fied digest of Śaṅkara’s commentaries on the Br.hadāran.yaka Upanis.ad and on the Taittirı̄ya
Upanis.ad.
19. He did not emphasize them as characteristics of any period. Suryanarayana Sastri,
Siddhāntaleśasam . graha, 5–6. See also Potter, Presuppositions of Indian Philosophies, 181.
20. Thanks to Mike Williams for a discussion of the issues involved here.
21. On the sources available, see the notes at the end of the table.
22. On the dispute between Śes.a Kr.s.n.a and Bhat.t.oji dispute, which was carried on through gener-
ations, for example, see Deshpande, ‘Lineage of Bhat.t.oji’, and Bronkhorst, ‘Bhat.t.oji Dı̄ks.ita’,
12–9.
23. Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 2, 46–58.
24. Thangaswami, however, includes a table at the end of his Kośa that purports to trace the net-
works of affiliation of all prominent Advaitin authors, from the modern period back to Śaṅkara,
and beyond him to the ancient teachers.
25. Thangaswami also identifies authors whom he thinks were contemporaries passim.
26. Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 2, 55–7. In his reconstruction, Dasgupta conflated
several authors called Kr.s.n.ānanda and Svayamprakāśānanda, but more is now known about
these authors and their relationships.
27. Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 2, 54.
28. Some of the information is summarized in an excursus at the end of this article.
29. My source here is almost entirely Thangaswami, and the scholars whose work he compiles.
Thangaswami appears to have been the only one interested in the geographical question.
Thangaswami has a tendency to connect everyone to Kāñcı̄. The cautions voiced earlier in
this article are even more pertinent here. In particular, we may not know the movements of our
authors, even if we do know the area where they were born. Sannyāsins especially, unless they
were attached to administrative duties in a mat.ha, were likely to move around. Furthermore,
there is the danger of confusion of two sannyāsins with the same name.
30. Table 2, line IX. See Thangaswami, Kośa, 333 and 399, on Kaivalyendra and Vidyendra.
31. Shastri, ‘Dakshini Pandits’, 9. According to this chronicle, he was also the teacher of several
south Indian Vedāntins, and before coming to Banaras had taught the Vārttika of Sureśvara in
Dvāraka.
32. Shastri, ‘Dakshini Pandits’, 10. Some caution is of course necessary in evaluating the peda-
gogical claims of this chronicle, which was created by a member of the family to describe their
own preeminence.
33. Shastri, ‘Dakshini Pandits’, 7.
34. The seven families listed by Shastri (‘Dakshini Pandits’, 13) are the Śes.as, the Dharmādhikārı̄s,
the Bhat.t.as, the Bhāradvājas, the Pāyagun.d.es, the Caturdharas, and the Puntamkars. The reli-
gious affiliations of the Puntamkars are unknown to me. The most prominent author in the
family, Mahādeva, was a Naiyāyika. For more on these families see O’Hanlon, ‘Letters Home’,
203–4.
35. Gode (Bernier and Kavı̄ndrācārya) proposed that it was Kavı̄ndra who met Bernier and was
called the chief pundit by Bernier, whereas Bronkhorst (‘Bhat.t.oji’) considered whether it might
have been Bhat.t.oji, before arguing for another figure, Jagannātha.
36. See Sharma and Patkar, Kavı̄ndracandrodaya. v–ix for a list of contributors.
37. The information in this paragraph together with some of the wording is taken from Minkowski,
‘Guide to Argument’, 125.
38. The Advaitāmr.ta, the Prabodhacandrikā commentary on the Bhagavad Gı̄tā, and a
Vedāntaparibhās.ā. The last title is not to be confused with the Vedān.taparibhās.ā of
Dharmarājādhvarı̄ndra.
39. For example, in the fifth verse of the Kavı̄ndrās..taka that was produced by a collective of resi-
dents of Banaras, or again in the seventh verse of that same contribution. Sharma and Patkar,
Kavı̄ndracandrodaya, 24–5. See also Raghavan, ‘Kavı̄ndrācārya’, 163. To Pūrn.endra Sarasvatı̄
two Advaitin works are attributed, the Pran.avārthaprakāśikā and the Brahmabhāvanānirn.aya.
40. No other figure receives the same sort of treatment in this anthology, except, of course,
Kavı̄ndrācārya.
41. O’Hanlon, ‘Letters Home’, 31–2. See the remainder of this article for other sannyāsins involved
in collective decisions about matters of dharma.
42. Gode, ‘Identification of Nr.sim . hāśrama’. This Nr.sim
. hāśrama is not to be confused with the
Advaitin author of the previous century, however.
43. Minkowski, ‘Guide to Argument’, 124–6.
44. For more about the Muktiman.d.apa and other institutions and public spaces of the pandits in
Banaras in this period, see O’Hanlon, ‘Speaking from Siva’s Temple’, in this volume.
45. See Hawley, ‘Four Sampradāys’, in this volume, for some discussion of the internal histories of
Vais.n.ava movements, which recall the shift northward, but which nevertheless remember Kāśı̄
as the stronghold of Śaivism and of Advaita.
46. O’Hanlon, ‘Speaking from Siva’s Temple’.
47. Other rival or satellite mat.has of Śaṅkarācāryas were scattered through much of western India
in the erstwhile Vijayanagara domains. Clark, Daśanāmı̄-Sam . nyāsı̄s, 133–8.
48. Clark, Daśanāmı̄-Sam . nyāsı̄s, 177–226.
49. Ibid., 128–38.
50. Appadurai, ‘Kings, Sects and Temples’.
51. See Hawley, ‘Four Sampradāys’, in this volume for an account of early modern texts in the
Vallabha tradition that accord a similarly prominent role to Vyāsatı̄rtha, in which his position
in Kr.s.n.adevarāya’s Vijayanagara is central.
52. Stoker, ‘Polemics and Patronage’.
53. Ibid., 2–3 (in the unpublished manuscript). I follow her wording very closely here.
54. Sharma, History of Dvaita School, 345.
55. However, Subrahman.ya Śāstri in the introduction to his edition of Nr.sim . hāśrama’s
Advaitadı̄pikā, states that this polemical work was aimed at the works of the earlier Mādhva
author Jayatı̄rtha (ca. 1365–1388) ‘and others’ (jayatı̄rthādigranthān). Subrahman.ya Śāstri,
‘Upodghātah.’, 1.
56. Among other works on the Advaitin side, Gaud.a-Brahmānanda’s Candrikā commentary on the
Advaitasiddhi was a response to the Mādhva critiques.
57. Gode, ‘Contact of Bhat.t.oji’. See the Excursus. The ruler in question, Veṅkatappa of Ikkeri (r.
1586–1629), was the king of the Kel.adi Nayaka successor state to the Vijayanagara kingdom,
228 C. Minkowski
which had been fragmented after a military defeat and sack of its capital city in 1565. He was
also a patron of Appayya Dı̄ks.ita.
58. O’Hanlon, ‘Speaking from Siva’s Temple’.

59. Potter, Presuppositions of Indian Philosophies, 242–54.
60. Stoker, ‘Polemics and Patronage’, 7–18 (in the preprint).
61. Appadurai, ‘Kings, Sects and Temples’, 55–7.
62. Collins, Sociology of Philosophies.
63. Ibid., 19–133. The first two features of this theoretical framework have had an influence on the
organization of this essay, if not a constitutive one.
64. Collins, Sociology of Philosophies, 262.
65. Ibid., 269.
66. Ibid., 270.
67. Pollock, ‘New Intellectuals’.
68. Modi, Translation of Siddhanta Bindu, 156–75.
69. Similarly, Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a in his Advaitacintāman.i repeatedly identified Kr.s.n.a as the supreme
being and his is..tadevatā. For an example of inter-sectarian rivalry, see Minkowski, ‘Guide
to Argument’. For a later author who followed Madhusūdana’s view, see Minkowski,
‘Nı̄lakan.t.ha’s Mahābhārata’.
70. Modi, Translation of Siddhanta Bindu, 21–7; Gupta, Advaita Vedānta and Vais.n.avism, 5–7.
There are also legends that associate Madhusūdana with the militarization of some of the
orders of daśanāmı̄ sannyāsins, with the agreement of Akbar and his minister Birbal. Clark,
Daśanāmı̄-Sam . nyāsı̄s, 228–32.
71. My thanks to Muzaffar Alam for pointing this out to me after a presentation of parts of this
article in Chicago.
72. In his Prasthānabheda, a survey of the views and literature of the Āryan world, he
dismissed the ‘mlecchas’ on the way to ruling out close description of Buddhist and
Jaina (nāstika) positions: vedabāhyatvāt tu tes.ām . mlecchādiprasthānavat paramparayāpi
purus.ārthānupayogitvād upeks.an.ı̄yatvam eva. Madhusūdanı̄ commentary on verse 7 of the
Śivamahimastotra. Pus.padanta, Śivamahimastotra, 9. This judgement stood. Consider the
review of philosophical positions in the S.at.tantrı̄sāra by a later, anonymous author, which
recognized that some recent Sanskrit philosophers had taken Islamic theology seriously. It
mentions a theologian called Barāk, who argued against undivided being in salvation. A verse
attributed to Madhusūdana is cited, to the effect that such views need not be responded to
any more than a lion need roar back at the meowing of the village cat: yavanopādhyāyas
tu muktāv api dvaitadarśanam asty eva. tadanusārin.aś ca ke cid arvācı̄nā api dr.śyante. tes.ām
apeks.an.ı̄yatvam āhuh. śrı̄manmadhusūdanasarasvatı̄caran.āh.. iha kumatir atattve tattvavādı̄
varākah., pralapati yad akān.d.e khan.d.anābhāsam uccaih. | prativacanam . amus.mai tasya ko
vaktu vidvān, na hi rutam anurauti grāmasim . hasya sim. ha iti || 1 Anonymous, S.at.tantrı̄sāra,
folio 3r, lines 1ff.
73. Appayya, Madhvatantramukhamardanam, 4.
74. Nr.sim . hāśrama, Nr.sim . havijñāpana. Unfortunately, this work is not available in the United
Kingdom. It is referred to by both Thangaswami, Kośa, 272, and by Nr.sim . hāśrama,
Vedāntatattvaviveka, 6. For the evidence Suryanarayana Sukla has probably used, and the
problem with it, see the note after next, on the introduction to the Bhāt..tacintāman.i.
75. Nr.sim . hāśrama, Vedāntatattvaviveka, 6–7.
76. Nr.sim . hāśrama, Advaitadı̄pikā, 1–2. His source is Viśveśvara Bhat.t.a, Bhāt..tacintāman.i, 1–2.
The question at issue in the nirn.ayapattra is the status of the Devrukh Brahmins.
77. O’Hanlon, ‘Letters Home’, 229–34. The collective agreements described by Sukla in the
Bhāt..tacintāman.i are all covered in O’Hanlon’s article.
78. Raghavan, New Catalogus Catalogorum, vol. 8, 64.
79. Thangaswami, Kośa, 279–80.
80. Bronkhorst, ‘Bhat.t.oji’, 12 and note 42. The three sources are Gode, ‘A New Approach’;
Kaun.d.a Bhat.t.a, Br.hadvaiyākaran.abhūs.an.am, 5 and Upādhyāy, Kāśı̄ kı̄ pān.d.itya, 61. The lat-
ter two offer no evidence for the claim. Gode bases himself on Bambardekar, Bhat..tojidı̄ks.ita,
353, but Bambardekar also provides no contemporary evidence for the claim. Bambardekar,
Bhat..tojidı̄ks.ita, 304–7, records a version of the legend of the meeting of Nr.sim . ha with
Appayya, in which Appayya was inspired to turn from Śivādvaita to Advaita, and to enter
into anti-Mādhva polemics.
81. Bronkhorst, ‘Bhat.t.oji’, 12 and note 40, lists two sources, Coward, Philosophy of the
Grammarians, 240, where a version of the story of their meeting is told, but provid-
ing no sources, and Mı̄mām . saka, Vyākaran. Śāstra kā Itihās, 487, which states that in his
Tattvakaustubha Bhat.t.oji salutes Appayya. The wording of this salute is not provided, and
I cannot locate it in the (fragmentary) manuscript of the Tattvakaustubha to which I have
access, nor is it found in the available descriptions of the Tattvakaustubha in descriptive
catalogues of manuscripts. Instead, Bhat.toji devotes the beginning and ending statements of
the Tattvakaustubha to saluting his patron, Kel.adi Veṅkata Nāyaka. See Gode, ‘Contact of
Bhat.t.oji’, 33–6. It is likely that there has been a confusion of works, and that what Mı̄mām . saka
was thinking of was the Tantrasiddhāntadı̄pa, on which see below.
82. Aiyaswami Sastri, ‘Tantrasiddhāntadı̄pikā’, 247, for the text of the verse, together
with the information about manuscripts: appayadı̄ks.itendrān aśes.avidyāgurūn vande
‘ham . /yatkr.tibodhābodhau vidvadavidvadbhājakopādhı̄.
83. Aiyaswami Sastri, ‘Tantrasiddhāntadı̄pikā’.
84. For a discussion of the legends of the encounters between Bhat.t.oji and Appayya, see Bronner,
‘Appayya, Bhat.t.oji, Jagannātha’.
85. Appayya Dı̄ks.ita, Madhvatantramukhamardanam, 5–6: tatra nirn.etum anyatarad yady api
nopāyas tathāpi appayyadı̄ks.ı̄tānām . bhat.t.ojinā sahāsikāvārān.asyām abhavad iti spas.t.am
sapramān.am . brūmah..
86. See Gode, ‘Contact of Bhat.t.oji’, Deshpande, ‘Will the Winner Please Stand Up’.
87. See Appayya Dı̄ks.ita, Madhvatantramukhamardanam, 4–5.
88. Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a. Advaitacintāman.i, 76: vāgdevı̄ yasya jihvāgre narı̄narti sadā mudā |
bhat.t.ojı̄bhat.t.asam
. jñam
. tam. gurum . naumi nirantaram.
89. See, for example, Raṅgoji Bhat.t.a. Advaitacintāman.i, 3: ata evoktam .
nr.sim. hāśramagurucaran.aih..
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South Asian History and Culture

Advaita Vedānta in early modern history

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Advaita Vedānta in early modern history

Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

ISSN 1947-2498 print/ISSN 1947-2501 online

Although there is currently no accurate or comprehensive survey of the life of Advaita

A survey of works, authors and trends

Table 1. Principal texts and authors of Advaita, fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.

1. Sarvajñātman (tenth century): Sam . ks.epaśārı̄raka

Dharmayya Dı̄ks.ita (37) (fl. 1640, Banaras) Vyākhyā

physical or cosmological issues, based on the interpretation of passages of the Upanis.ads.

Table 2. Lines of personal connection between Advaitins.

I Śaṅkarānandaa > Sadānanda I > Advayānandab > Sadānanda ‘Yogı̄ndra’ (3)

Sadānanda Kāśmı̄raka (15)

Banaras and the south

Advaita Vedānta and social institutions

Social history of Advaita Vedānta?

N(?)A: Nr.sim . ha and Appayya

N(?)B: Nr.sim . ha and Bhat..toji

A(?)B: Appayya and Bhat..toji

N(?)R and BR: Nr.sim

tātacaran.avyākhyāvacah.khyāpitān || Nı̄lakan.t.ha Caturdhara’s S.at.tantrı̄sāra and Vedāntakataka

58. O’Hanlon, ‘Speaking from Siva’s Temple’.

Rao Bahadur Bambardekar. Bhat..tojidı̄ks.itajñātiviveka. Mumbai: Published by the Author, 1939.

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