[Advaita-l] Fw: Re: waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually supportive

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

2009/10/26 Shrisha Rao <shrao at nyx.net>:
>
> Correct, actually; both were neo-Vedantins.  There may be numerous
> such examples from recent times, but it would be a lot more persuasive
> in determining the way tradition goes if it were the case that, say,
> Vidyaranya was a क्षत्रिय or that Madhusudana Saraswati was a वैश्य.
>

If you are looking for scholarly personalities from pre-modern times
then the search may be difficult. However, if you look at the
tradition in more general terms then things are quite different. The
dashanami sannyasa tradition in particular is far stronger in the
central Himalayan belt stretching from Himachal to Nepal, as well the
Narmada Valley from Amarkantak to Bharuch, than it is in southern
India, even though the South has had a strong scholarly tradition. One
can hardly refer to these sannyasi-s from various traditional akhada-s
as neo-Vedantins. There have been, for several centuries, people from
various communities among these sannyasi-s, mostly Dashanami-s and a
few Udasin-s. Jaldhar even mentioned one Sadhvi Narmada Giri who was a
Rajput princess in her purvashrama! From my explorations among these
groups, this does not seem unusual at all.


>
> It is said that the Visishtadvaita tradition was once very inclusive
> and open to anyone, but now it is as insular as they come, so these
> are not valid examples either.  Or at any rate though these relatively
> recent groups might profess allegiance to Ramanuja, they definitely do
> not set the standard for what is traditional in Ramanuja's own
> unbroken line.

The Ramanandi-s are far from being a recent group. They have been
around for 700 years.

Ramesh