[Advaita-l] Regarding Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Wed, 8 Apr 2020, Sharada Das via Advaita-l wrote:

> I have read somewhere that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a dasanami sanyasi. Is
> this true and are there any records to this effect ?

Yes.  Even the Chaitanyite hagiographies such as Chaitanya Karnamrta admit 
this.  His birth name was Vishwambhara Mishra.  At the age of 24 he took 
sannyasa from Swami Keshava Bharati (obviously a Dashanami) under the name 
Krshna Chaitanya Bharati.  His earlier education had been in Navya Nyaya 
under Vasudeva Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya.  This Vasudeva Sarvabhauma later 
was invited to Puri by the Gajapati of Orissa Prataparudra (himself a 
great scholar and patron of Sanskrit) to be his court Pandit.

[Digression: I recently read an article which suggests that this is how 
the knowledge of Navya Nyaya came to South India.  The chief Pandit of the 
Vijayanagara court was Vyas Tirth the Madhvite.  Vijayanagara and Orissa 
declared war but being more civilized instead of battling with soldiers, 
battled with shastras.  The author claims that it was in the course of 
these debates Vyas Tirth learned the innovative Navya Nyaya doctrines and 
techniques which he employed in his famous works such as Tarka Tandava. In 
response Advaitins also began to study Navya Nyaya.)

Anyway in Puri at some point Sarvabhauma became an Advaitin (perhaps in 
connection with the Govardhana Pitha there?)  Later Chaitanya came to Puri 
on yatra and reconnected with his old teacher.  There is a curious 
anecdote where Sarvabhauma tells Chaitanya that Bharati's are an inferior 
order and offers to make him a Saraswati.  This doesn't make much sense 
not least because Sarvabhauma was a householder and therefore would have 
had no influence over the internal affairs of Sannyasis. Sarvabhauma 
offered to teach Chaitanya Vedanta (i.e. Advaita Vedanta) but in the end 
got converted to the Vaishnavism of his pupil.

The Chaitanyites also claim that apart from his sannyasa Guru, Chaitanyas 
"true" guru who gave him diksha in Krshna mantra, was Ishvara Puri. 
Ishvara Puri's guru was Madhavendra Puri (who is also known in 
Vallabhacharyas tradition.)  Supposedly they were Madhvas but Puri is also 
a Dashanami name.  Madhavendra Puri's guru is said to be Lakshmipati Tirth 
was supposedly a disciple of Vyas Tirth.  This creates another problem. 
Vyas Tirth was supposedly a contemporary of Vasudeva Sarvabhauma thus one 
generation before Chaitanya.  But if he is the parameshti guru of Ishvara 
Puri, then he would be three generations before Chaitanya.  Not completely 
impossible as he did live a long life but highly improbable.  Furthermore 
atleast according Prof. B.N.K. Sharma whose history of Dwaita is most 
authoritative, the Guruparampara as taught in Udupi does not match that in 
the Bengali books and there is no trace of Lakshmipati Tirth or any of 
the other people mentioned above.  And of course Madhva and Gaudiya 
doctrinal difference are considerable.


> Also it appears as if
> he has shunned the teachings of Advaita Vedanta and infact preached quite
> the opposite of it. Any information on the above will be appreciated.

Chaitanya himself was purely emotional and hasn't left behind any writings 
except a short stotra.  He was a big fan of Shridharacharyas commentary 
on the Bhagavata Purana and Shridharacharya was an Advaitin (even, it is 
said, Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Puri.)  He even rebuked someone who was 
uncomfortable with this and wrote a "Vaishnava" tika to replace it.

The bulk of Gaudiya theology comes from his disciples know as the six 
Goswamis of Vrindavan or even later. The big controversy in the shastric 
world in those days was between Dwaitins such as Vyasa Tirtha and his 
followers on one hand and Advaitins such as Swami Madhusudana Saraswati 
and his followers on the other. Being more in tune with the pan-Indian 
intellectual currents, they were no doubt aware of and influenced by the 
Dwaita arguments.  There was also a suspicion amongst other Vaishnavas 
that the Gaudiyas weren't a "real" Vedantic sampradaya because their 
founder hadn't written a brahmasutra bhashya.  In the 17th century 
Baladeva Vidyabhushana fullfilled this want but other Gaudiyas must have 
felt the need to attach themselves to a more legitimate tradition.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>