[Advaita-l] Advaita-l Digest, Vol 220, Issue 4

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Fri, 4 Nov 2022, sunil bhattacharjya via Advaita-l wrote:

> I found a list of the Nimbarka sampradaya, long ago,  where Keshava
> kash=miri was the 32nd guru. though it may not matter,  whether he was the
> 29th or the 32nd guru. Anyway it will be nice if you can tell me where can
> I find the list you have seen.

There is a book on archive.org called Nimbarka Paddhati which is about 
nitya puja, seva etc. for followers of that sampradaya.  It has a section 
called Guru Parampara which lists all the acharyas upto the time of 
publication.  Keshava Kashmiri Bhatt is listed as 33rd but the first 
three, Brahma in the form of Hamsa, Sanatkumars, and Narada are of divine 
origin.  Nimbarka is the 4th and therefore Keshava Kashmiri is the 30th 
human guru (not 29th as I wrote.)  The 35th (i.e. 32nd human) guru 
Harivyas is a famous bhakti poet in Brajbhasha so his dates are fairly 
settled and he was contemporary with Chaitanya.

>
> Secondly to my knowledge, Shri Chaitanya did challenge Keshava Bharati,

You mean Keshava Kashmiri not Chaitanyas dikshaguru Swami Keshava Bharati.

> but
> the debate did not happen as Chaitanya realized his mistake. Shri
> Chaitanya  obviously realized that the Vedic sanskrit is pre-paninian
> sanskrit and not exactly the same as the paninian sanskrit.

The Chaitanyacharitamrita does not put it like this.  The events as 
related there are:

1. Keshava Kashmiri a great pandit comes to Navadvipa as part of his 
digvijaya and challenges the Bengali pandits.

2. Nimai Pandit (i.e. Nilambara Mishra, Chaitanyas purvashrama name.) is a 
teacher of the kalapa vyakarana (kalapa is another alternative system of 
vyakarana on the lines of mugdabodha.) challenges KK to compose poetry.

3. KK extemporaneously composes 100 verses on Ganga.  However NP is able 
to find 5 stylistic flaws in just one of the verses.

4. KK goes away dumbfounded but Saraswati Devi comes to him in a dream 
that night and explains who NP is.

5. The next morning KK goes back to NP, falls at his feet and becomes his 
disciple.

Anyway we are wandering far off the track.  The point is that ISKCON types 
have no business criticising Advaitains when there own links to "Vedic" 
tradition are -- even by the loosest definitions -- laughably week and 
well-meaning but naive people on our side shouldn't think they are 
contributing in any useful way to knowledge of the siddhanta.

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