Yet again, philosoraptor, you raise some excellent points. This is one of the reasons I enjoy using HDF; it provides me with a valuable opportunity to broaden my understanding of my own tradition and that of others. So, thank you for your insightful comments. I consider myself to be placed in somewhat of an advantageous position, actually. I am relatively young and despite my love and preference for the Sri Caitanya Sampradaya, I make sure that I am familiar with the main tenets of other traditions. For example, I have a particular interest in Sri Vaishnavism and my deep love for this tradition essentially means that I have one foot in both camps.
Let me now try to respond to some of your points. Again, I should preface this by saying that the main thrust of what you are saying is compelling and very hard to argue against. What would really be wonderful is to get somebody of Satyanarayan das Babaji’s calibre to respond to this discussions (and others like it). Part of the big problem with the Caitanya tradition today is that, with the exception of a few individuals, we do not have the sort of scholars who could defend the main tenets of the tradition in a inter-Vedantic debate.
I argued that the scholastically fertile nature of the 15th and 16th century suggests that it would have been difficult for thinkers of various traditions to fabricate texts. My point was not specifically in reference to Sri Caitanya. You are quite right to suggest that Sri Caitanya’s polemics were, largely, of a non-Vedantic nature. In my view, that Caitanya’s devotional credentials were enough to win people over is really testament to the saintliness of his character. With particular respect to Jiva Goswami, I cannot agree with your suggestion that he was not writing for the sort of scholarly audience that I had in mind. That he expects his reader to be thoroughly well-versed in Vedanta and intimately familiar with the various nuances of different traditions is made very clear, for example, in his Bhagavata Sandarbha. The problem with English translations is that they tend to fill in what the Sanskrit leaves out: in other words, many a time Jiva Goswami simply quotes a few words of a particular Acharya’s bhasya without necessarily expanding upon it. Now despite the fact that this strategy may appear to lend to his work a somewhat cryptic feel, it indicates that the author expected his audience to be very familiar with the commentaries of the various Vedantic traditions.
You argue that Jiva’s arguments in the Tattva Sandarbha are not air-tight. It is only natural for adherents of other traditions to feel somewhat unconvinced about the merits of other tradition’s tenets. Fair enough. That you don’t find all of his arguments compelling doesn’t in any way however detract from my otherwise overwhelmingly positive assessment of his contribution and his theological ability. Many scholars, of both a partisan and non-partisan type, consider, for example, Sri Ramanuja’s concept of Aprthak-Siddhi to be flawed. Again, many scholars are not convinced with Sri Madhvacharya’s suggestion that Brahman is not the upadana-karana or material cause of the universe. The fact that members of a particular tradition do not find the tenets or arguments other rival schools compelling or ‘airtight’ is certainly not surprising and very much to be expected!
You write: ‘I note that modern Maadhvas don’t usually rely on these lost pramANa-s in modern debates’. This is a good point. I think it is important for Caitanya Vaishnava’s to ensure that when engaged in inter-Sampradayic discourse, they rely only on those pramanas that all participants regard as authoritative and therefore acceptable. In many ways, our historical reluctance to do this perhaps reflects on how poorly our philosophical and theological views are supported by shruti. Or, of course, it could just mean that the thinkers of this school regard the quotes that they furnish from smriti as sufficient.
With respect to Sri Caitanya’s divinity, I granted in my earlier post that many of these texts are not explicit. I would like to argue, however, that every tradition has the tendency of regarding its founder or pre-eminent acharyas as ‘special’ or divine in some way. For the Advaitins, Adi Sankara is Lord Shiva himself. According to the Tattvavadi’s, Sri Madhva is Vayu. According to some hagiographic accounts, Sri Ramanuja is regarded as an incarnation of Adi-Shesa. The Pushti-Margi’s, in turn, regard Vallabhacharya as an incarnation of Krishna’s lotus-mouth. None of these traditions, however, can point to explicit evidence in the scriptures to support their arguments. By and large, they adopt such views on faith and faith alone. The Caitanya Vaishnava’s, it could be argued, are no different.
Perhaps I was not clear with my passage on the Brahma Samhita. Let me clear, according to C.V. Lord Shiva is not a jiva. He falls outside the category of Jiva-Tattva altogether. He is said to occupy a unique ontological category of his own (Siva-Tattva) which is below and distinct from Vishnu Tattva. The Brahma Samhita text (sort of) suggests that Lord Shiva is a transformation of Lord Vishnu. Jiva is arguing that this should not be taken literally. There are two important points to be made here. First, according to C.V. everything other than Bhagavan (I.e. Jiva and Jagat) is regarded as a transformation of Bhagavan’s sakti. This is as applicable to the various Vedic divinities as it is to us and the universe. However, and this is point number two, such transformations do not, in any way whatsoever, affect the svarupa of Bhagavan. He remains unaffected by such transformation. That is why, Jiva Goswami argues that the milk-yoghurt analogy is only intended to convey the idea of cause and effect. Just as the effect is one with and yet different from its cause, so similarly, Shiva is one with and different from Bhagavan. Now you could argue that this causal relationship is common to all entities so why is Shiva being singled out- the only answer I can think of is that the text is somehow suggesting that the causal oneness and difference that subsists between Shiva and Bhagavan is somehow more pronounced. To suggest that Shiva is of the same category as other Vedic divinities is seriously to ignore an overwhelming number of texts that distinguish him from other such entities. He is, after all, and certainly not without reason, called Mahadeva.
The fact that I have not ‘studied these texts in great detail’ does not mean that I have not read them and therefore not familiar with their contents. Moreover, I have had the opportunity to read a very useful academic treatment of the Bhagavata Sandarbha, and the author, Professor Ravi M Gupta, essentially articulates a similar point in the work (the author is a CV practitioner himself). If you are interested the book can be purchased on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chaitanya-Va...1636571&sr=1-1
I would really appreciate it if you could refer me to the sort of references the Nimbarkis rely on to ‘prove’ the divinity of Sri Radha.
Thank you for the opportunity to engage in this meaningful discussion. I hope that I can continue to learn from your contributions on this forum.
Best,
Anuj
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Originally Posted by philosoraptor
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