365bet娱乐

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 Yogas奴tras of
Patanjali and the teachings of the Yogav膩si峁ａ弓ha, 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 BR 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 BR's presentation
of the metaphysical dimensions of bhakti. Other students of
Madhusudana have of course based their evaluations of the