[Advaita-l] Madhusudana Saraswati

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

The onus of proving Madhusudana was influenced by gaudiya vaishnavism is on
you. You are asking me to prove that he was not. Anyone who has basic
understanding of proof will say it is silly. If a policeman stopped you and
asked you to prove that you are not driving under the influence of alcohol,
what will you say? Anyway, like I said there is no literary evidence and it
is highly improbable that Madhusudana will hide his greatest influence.

GDD clearly says Bhakti is he goal of jeans (e.g. 18.66) and treats BhR as
an authority in 3 places. GDD was definitely later than Advaita Siddhi,
there is no reason to reject his views on bhakti. So, even if you can prove
that Advaita Siddhi was later than BhR, it will not serve any purpose. But
it was not. You have not comprehended what Prof. Sanjukta says. She places
Vedanta Kalpa Latika and Advaita Siddhi around the same time before BhR.

Dating of texts and biographies are not absolute facts but there is no
reason to say that "he did not understand" or "he might not have". For that
you take his position and show it is incorrect according to earlier
writers.

On Saturday, February 18, 2012, Sunil Bhattacharjya wrote:

> If you stop your discussion with me all the better. No compulsion at all.
> I will prefer to say good-riddance in that case..However please do not run
> away
> just like that. First admit that you are wrong in your imagination that
> Advaitasiddhi was written before  Bhagavad-bhakti-rasayana. Your claim
> has been blasted and shown  to be fake.
>
>
> Further please do not try to be smart. I did not repeat what you wrote
> about Nelson. If you have the guts pl;ease show by quoting side by side
> what your wrote as Nelson's view  vis-a-vis what I wrote as Nelson's views.
>
>
> I am not ashamed to say that I did initially think that MS might not have
> not  understood Advaita properly before his (MS's) writing the
> Bhakti-rasayana, till I read the Advaita-kalpa-latika and thge comments of
> Prof. Karmarkar.  Any intelligent person reading my last few mails
> carefully will see this clearly.
>
>
> Now as regards your questions:
>
>
> Firstly prove that MS was not affected by the Gudiya school.
>
> Secondly prove that MS's original name was not Kamalajanayana. As regards
> whether the word "muni"  implied sanyashi or not and how could MS continue
> to use his name Madhusudana if he became a sanyashi before writing the
> Advaita-siddhi.  You can take it up with Anand Hublji as it was he who
> brought in the argument that MS became a Sanyashi and used the word "Muni"
> to indicate that. I did not find fault with Hubliji on that count as his
> conclusion was correct though I may not agree with him on equating muni
> with sanyashi.
>
>
> Thirdly the point was regarding whether Advaita-siddhi preceded
> Bhagavad-bhakti-rasayana (BBR) or succeeded BBR. Don't try to disown your
> own statements now. There is absloutely no doubt that
> Bhagavad-bhakti-rasayana preceded Advaita siddhi.  Prof. Sanjukta Gupta
> could not be sure as she too was probably confounded by MS's advaita works
> before and after Bhagavad-bhakti-rasayana.
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l]  Madhusudana Saraswati
>
> You first said that Madhusudana did not understand advaitam initially. Now
> you are giving a new theory. You just quoted my post on Prof. Nelson.
>
> I will continue the discussion after you
>
> 1. Show concrete literary evidence of influenced by gaudiya vaishnavam or
> even prove that he had read Rupa, Sanatana or Jiva
> 2. Agree that his works are signed Madhusudana and no room to say that he
> was not a sannyasi when he wrote some of his works or offer a logical
> defense of your position
>
>
> Prof. Sanjukta does say that GDD refers to Advaita Siddhi.
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
> Sender: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:22:20
> To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org<
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Reply-To: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>,
>     A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
>     <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Subject: [Advaita-l]  Madhusudana Saraswati
>
>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> From: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
> To: Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>
> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 10:20 AM
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Madhusudana Saraswati
>
>
> Dear Sri Rajaram,
>
> Truly speaking, you should not be glad at all  as I stick to my view that
> Advaita-siddhi was written after the Bhakti-rasayana, unlike you claimed.
> You have not been able to admit the facts. It appears that historically
> Madhusudana Saraswati (MS) was an advaitin inherently. Lord Krishna said
> that a yogi is born in a family of the yogis so as to be able to continue
> his work of the earlier birth. So also MS could have been an advaitin in
> the beginning before his dilly-dallying with the Bhaktimargis of the
> Chaitanya-school. But that dilly-dallying did not last long. MS read the
> Sankara-bhashya and came back to the advaita-fold with a vengeance and
> later on went to contest the Dvaita school with his Advaita-siddhi.
>
> As regards how a Krishna-bhakta or a Shiva-bhakta can be an Advaitin, can
> be understood only by an
> advaitin. Adi Sankaracharya was no less Krishna-bhakta than MS or
> Shiva-bhakta than any other Shiva-bhakta. It appears you have not read
> the bhakti works of Adi s
> Sankaracharya.
>
> You are really not aware of the views of Prof. Sanjukta Gupta. Prof.
> Gupta  said that as far as she knows Bhakti-rasayana was written earlier
> than the
> commentary on Bhagavadgita but she really does not know where
> Advaitasiddhi stands qua Bhaktirasayana or
> Bhagavadgita commentary. You can contact Prof Sanjukta Gupta if you want
> to check it out. On this point I support the views of the other scholars
> like Nelson (I quoted earlier) as well as the views of Ramajna Pandeya. I
> also like the reasoning advanced by Anand Hubliji.
>
> Till you stop jumbling up the chronological issues you will not understand
> the advaitins and their works.
>
>
> Hope this clarifies.
>
> Sunil KB
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
> Dear Sri Sunil,
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 11:01 PM, Sunil Bhattacharjya <
> sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Dear friends,
> >
> >May I present before you some aspects of Madhusudana Saraswati's
> scholarship on Advaita. This appears to show that he had inherent intimacy
> with Advaita from the very beginning, even though he passed through the
> influence of the Chaitanya school.
> >
> >
> Rajaram: I really glad to note that you have revised your views about
> Madusudana from one who did not understand Advaita in the beginning to one
> who had inherent intimacy with Advaita from the very beginning. It
> is laudable to revise views in the face of facts. However, you continue
> stick to the popular myth that he was influenced by