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As promised in the introduction, the third part of this study will be concerned with an evaluation of the teachings of the Bhakti-rasayana We shall, in this connection, consider certain important views that Madhusudana presents in this text in terms of their compatibility with (1) the principles of Sankara's non-dualism and (2) the later and somewhat different thinking on the relation of bhakti and Advaita that Madhusudana himself sets forth in his Gudhartha-dipika The first and more general of these problems will be our concern in this chapter. 8.1 Is Madhusudana's Presentation Convincing? The teachings of the Bhakti-rasayana, as we have had repeated occasion to notice, represent a radical departure from the traditional Advaitic attitude toward devotional spirituality. Hence we may well ask whether Madhusudana is able to deal adequately with the theoretical problems that these teachings raise. It is one thing to declare that bhakti is an independent path to, and itself sufficient as, the supreme spiritual goal, one thing to say that it is the 307

308 crown of the experience of liberation-in-life; but it is another to show that these teachings are justifiable in terms of Samkara's Advaita. Madhusudana's follower and interpreter Narayana Tirtha, for one, seems to have been satisfied that they were. In his Bhakticandrika, which depends heavily on the Bhakti-rasayana, we read: "The devotion that is an end is never a means; itself the only goal of life, it reduces even moksa to straw."1 Despite the fact that we do not know of any Advaitins who chose the opposite course of explicitly criticizing the position of the Bhakti-rasayana, I think that there are good reasons for concluding that Narayana's estimate is far too sanguine. For an Advaitin, the notion of bhakti as the paramapurusartha involves serious difficulties on several levels. If, to take a relatively minor example, Madhusudana wants to say that the highest stages of bhakti occur only after Advaitic realization has taken place, he must find some way to make room for such an experience in the nondualist understanding of jIvanmukti. But it is difficult to see how the realization of an ecstatic climax of devotion in that state, as envisioned in the Bhakti-rasayana, could be justified. The admission of even the faintest trace of dualistic awareness in jIvanmukti--since it implies the continued presence of Ignorance (avidya) after the rise of knowledge--

309 leads to theoretical embarrassment and is, in fact, a 2 problem much discussed in the tradition. Nowhere in his writings, to my knowledge, does Madhusudana attempt an exposition of the expanded conception of liberation-in-life that his enthusiastic advocacy of the possibility of bhakti in that state would seem to require. This, however, is only the beginning of the problems that arise if the teachings of the Bhakti-rasayana are examined, with any kind of rigor, from an Advaitic standpoint. Even if we grant that Madhusudana's case for the superiority of bhakti as enjoyed by the jivanmukta is plausible, the Bhakti-rasayana is frustratingly vague as to what happens to the liberated devotee's experience of devotion after his earthly life is over. What, we might well ask, is the significance of the devotional experience when viewed from perspective of eternity? This problem, in turn, leads to an even more difficult question, that of the ultimate metaphysical status of bhakti. No matter how convincing Madhus@dana's efforts to establish the experiential superiority of devotion, it is not all all clear that he is successful in demonstrating that it has a greater ontological value than moksa, or indeed even an equal ontological value.