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This chapter will address certain problems centering around the continuity and consistency of Madhusudana's thought on bhakti. In this connection, we will examine a number of previously unrecognized but nevertheless significant discrepancies between the outlook of the Bhakti-rasayana and that of the Gudharthadipika (Gudhartha-dipika), Madhusudana's later commentary on the Bhagavad Gita As a starting point for this discussion, however, and with a view to shedding light on questions raised in the previous chapter, I would like to back-step, as it were, and consider the more fundamental problem of what it was our author hoped to accomplish in the Bhakti-rasayana One is, presumably, entitled to regard the purpose of a treatise devoted to glorifying the path of bhakti as problematic when the work comes from the pen of one of the greatest champions of Advaita, a thinker whom the devotional schools regarded as a formidable enemy. Having become familiar with the substance of the text's teachings, we are now in a position to give serious consideration to the question of Madhusudana's intentions in writing it. 322

323 9.1 Possible Purposes of the Bhakti-rasayana It goes without saying that the motivation behind a work like the Bhakti-rasayana must have been complex and that it will be impossible to fathom it completely from a vantage point so far removed in time as our own. Nevertheless, two possible motives do readily suggest themselves. They are related, and taken together they provide a useful starting point for thought about this problem. First, there is the obvious possibility that Madhusudana was trying work out a synthesis between Bhagavata devotionalism and Advaita, an effort that grew out of his personal religious concerns. This hypothesis seems well-supported by what we know of his own spiritual experience. Despite the fact that Madhusudana was an uncompromising Advaitin, he was also a fervent devotee of Krsna and therefore caught up in a certain conflict of interest. Since, as Venkateswaran points out, his bhakti "occurred on a very high level' and after lifelong scholarship and sophistication, there can be no doubt that he was sensitive to its problematic quality, keenly aware of "the dialectical and paradoxical tension in which his mind lived, between the qualityless, transcendent impersonal Brahman, on the one hand, and the particular, concrete, quality-flooded Person Krishna, on the other. As noted in "1 #1 1 the introduction, Madhusudana was a master of all the

324 various branches of learning current in his day and showed a marked tendency to apply his wide knowledge in efforts toward synthesis and syncretism. This can be seen, for example, in his consistent interest in the Yogasutras of Patanjali and the teachings of the Yogavasistha, and in his attempts, of which I shall say more shortly, to make room in Advaita for certain doctrines and practices derived from these texts. It would seem reasonable, therefore, to understand Madhusudana's work on the theory of bhakti as extension of this synthetic activity, an effort to bring together and--to the extent it was possible--integrate two important streams of the spirituality of his age in which he himself was vitally interested. We could then regard the text as something of a personal document, one in which the author attempted to work out the tensions between his own private religious life, in which devotion played a significant role, and his public stance as a defender of the ultimacy of formlessness and non-duality. The assumption that an interest in a theoretical integration of Advaita and bhakti lies behind the Bhakti-rasayana has more or less tacitly informed our discussion of the text up to the present point. It has served especially as the basis of our critique, in chapter eight, of the Bhakti-rasayana's presentation of the metaphysical dimensions of bhakti. Other students of Madhusudana have of course based their evaluations of the

325 text on similar premises. Gupta, for example, regards the Bhakti-rasayana as the attempt of one of the greatest intellects of medieval India to work out a "reconciliation" of Advaita and bhakti, 2 while Mishra sees it as an endeavor to arrive at a "fusion or compromise" between Samkara Vedanta and the religion of the Bhagavatas. 3 Mahadevan goes further, claiming without hesitation that to Madhusudana "must be given the credit of reconciling the philosophy of Advaita with the experience of a bhakta. "14 The idea that Madhusudana himself felt a keen personal interest in the outcome of the discussion in the Bhakti-rasayana suggests, as a corollary to this "theory of synthesis," that the text should be regarded as a presentation of his own final and considered views on the subject. We have not yet committed ourselves to this position, but Modi, Gupta, Mishra, and Mahadevan all seem to take it for granted. They assume that the Bhakti-rasayana is a straightforward statement of its author's personal convictions, an effort to supplement or expand, from the devotional viewpoint, the more conventional version of non-dualist spirituality he outlined in such works as the Vedanta-kalpalatika and the Siddhantabindu This notion seems at first both natural and plausible, and is indeed useful insofar as it facilitates an intial entry into interpretation of the text. Nevertheless we shall shortly have occasion to question its adequacy as the foundation of any final understanding.

326 nature. A second possible impulse behind the Bhakti-rasayana is social in That is to say, the text may represent in part an attempt to mitigate the socio-religious elitism of the Samkara school and a concern that Advaitic realization be opened, at least in principle, to a broader spectrum of religious seekers. Mahadevan, for example, characterizes the Bhakti-rasayana as effort to liberalize Advaita by including bhakti along with jnana as an independent means to salvation: 鈥� Madhusudana was the fist to claim that the path of devotion (bhakti) leads to non-dual realization. To Madhusudana Sarasvati, devotion is as good a means release as knowledge. Whether we agree with him or not in bestowing on bhakti the importance which he gives it, we cannot help but admire the catholicity of spirit which animates his exposition of Advaita. 鈥� Divanji, another perceptive commentator, accepts this outgoing social concern as the primary factor behind the Bhakti-rasayana, and seems to de-emphasize Madhusudana's personal interest in the topic. In his excellent introduction to the Siddhantabindu, he writes: Bhaktirasayana seems to have been specially composed in order to establish that those persons who according to the orthodox view are debarred from resorting to the works of the first type [the Vedanta texts] for their salvation have another way, namely Bhaktimarga, open to them and that just as the Vedanta doctrine can be expounded scientifically with the help of quotations taken from the Upanishads so the Bhakti doctrine can be expounded scientifically with the help of quotations taken from the Bhagawatpurana and the Bhagawadgita. Divanji suggests that, though a high-caste Brahmin himself and a member of one of the most respected orders of Samkara samnyasins, Madhusudana did not believe that salvation was

327 available to his kind only. He was a "magnanimous soul" whose vision of Advaita included the low and the humble and who, "believing that they had as much a claim on his services as the members of his own class had expounded for their benefit the same doctrine [Advaita] in another form with slightly different variations through works like the Bhaktirasayana."7 The implication is that Madhusudana was writing, not primarily to address problems of a personal nature or questions of interest to those following his own path--namely, the Advaita samnyasins--but for the benefit of others who, because of social restrictions or personal factors such as temperament, were not able to engage in the pursuit of Brahman-knowledge. Divanji's remarks should 8 remind us of Advaita's commitment to the concept of the enlightened individual who acts unselfishly out of concern for lokasamgraha, the welfare of the unenlightened world. At the same time, they bring to mind Madhusudana's own statement of purpose, given in the first stanza of the Bhakti-rasayana: "to bring contentment to everyone. "1 This apparently deserves to be taken as more than a casual remark. The notion that our author was writing primarily for the sake of others may conflict to a certain extent with the view that the Bhakti-rasayana represents a personal statement containing his own final views. As we have seen in chapter two, the Advaitin's idea of noblesse oblige includes supporting

328 others in their worship, even though it may be opposed to his understanding of the ultimate truth of non-duality.1 10 So we must remain open to the possibility that, in speaking for the "contentment of everyone, for the benefit of those not able to follow the path of samnyasa, Madhusudana was not giving us the final truth, the paramarthikasatya, as he saw it. That this is not a mere idle suspicion will be seen when it is realized that there are significant differences between the teachings on bhakti found in the Bhakti-rasayana, on one hand, and those of the Gudhartha-dipika, on the other. We shall see that the teachings of the latter are considerably closer to the orthodox doctrine. Any judgment, therefore, as to the nature of Madhusudana's purposes in writing the Bhakti-rasayana must await at least a preliminary comparison of its teachings with pertinent material gleaned from his commentary on the Gita.