Freed by the weight of history: polemic and doxography in sixteenth century Vedānta

Abstract

The early sixteenth century saw a dramatic rise in the worldly fortunes and intellectual influence of Dvaita Vedānta, principally through the career of the great scholar Vyāsatīrtha (c. 1460–1539 AD). With exhaustive precision, he mapped the full range of philosophical opinion ranged against the tenets of the Dvaita system, not only dating from Madhva’s time, but stretching back to earlier Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita interpretations of Vedānta, as well as the views of Mīmāṃsakas, grammarians, and logicians on more general philosophical and hermeneutical topics. He broke with the practice of his forerunners in the Dvaita tradition, who made few direct references to specific authors and texts from rival traditions and directed their criticisms toward a generic and abstracted representation of a single rival tradition, Advaita Vedānta. In crafting his elaborate surveys, Vyāsatīrtha created what was in effect a systematic doxography of Advaita Vedānta, far more detailed, sophisticated, and historically sensitive than had ever yet been devised by the Advaitins themselves. Yet, while Vyāsatīrtha’s historical survey of Advaita opinion was without precedent, it was certainly not without a sequel. Quite soon after Vyāsatīrtha’s time, the first (and perhaps only) major internal historical doxography of Advaita was produced – Appayya Dīkṣita’s Śātrasiddhāntaleśasaṃgraha. Appayya was acutely conscious of Vyāsatīrtha’s work, which formed the direct target of much of his vicious anti-Dvaita polemic. He was also clearly much influenced by him, both in his treatment of specific topics and in his overall methodology. It is likely that Appayya’s own markedly ‘historical turn’ in his treatment of Advaita was at least partly inspired by Vyāsatīrtha’s pioneering efforts, and a close examination of their works does in fact reveal significant links in their construction of the history of Advaita. The historical/doxographic method displayed most dramatically in the Śāstrasiddhāntaleśasaṃgraha is evident in his other works as well. It played an important role in his remoulding of standard positions in his Alaṃkāra and Mīmāṃsā works as well as his Vedānta ones and became in succeeding generations one of the signal features of the ‘navya’ movements in all of these disciplines. Hence, among his many other accomplishments, Vyāsatīrtha may well be seen as a pioneer in the new brand of historicist scholarship that was to become one of the hallmarks of the ‘new intellectuals’ of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.