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xi] Madhusiidana Sarasvati 225 preached by him is unknown to his contemporaries and that it was he who first thoroughly expounded this doctrine of philo- sophy!. Prakasananda wrote many other works in addition to his Siddhanta-muktavali, such as Tara-bhakti-tarangini, Manorama tantra-raja-tika, Maha-laksmi-paddhati and Sri-vidya-paddhati, and this shows that, though a thoroughgoing Vedantist, he was religiously attached to tantra forms of worship. Nana Diksita wrote a commentary on the Muktavali, called Siddhanta-pradipika, at a time when different countries of India had become pervaded by the disciples and disciples of the disciples of Prakasananda?. Madhustdana Sarasvati (A.D. 1500), Madhusiidana Sarasvati, who was a pupil of Visvesvara Saras- vati and teacher of Purusottama Sarasvati, in all probability flourished in the first half of the sixteenth century. His chief works are Vedanta-kalpa-latika, Advaita-siddhi, Advaita-manjari, Advaita-ratna-raksana, Atma-bodha-tika, Ananda-mandakini, Krsna-kutihalanataka, Prasthana-bheda, Bhakti-samanya-niriipana, Bhagavad - gita-gidhartha-dipika, | Bhagavad-bhakti- rasayana, Bhagavata-purana-prathama-sloka-vyakhya, Veda-stuti- tika, Sandilya-siittra-tika, Sdastra-siddhanta-lesa-tika, Samksepa-sariraka- sara-samgraha, Siddhanta-tattva-bindu, Hari-lila-vyakhya. His most important work, however, is his Advaita-siddhi, in which he tries to refute the objections raised in Vydsatirtha’s Nyayamrta* és vedanta-sara-sarvasvam ajneyam adhundatanaih aSsesena mayoktam tat purusottama-yatnatah. The Pandit, 1890, p. 428. “ yacchisya-sisya-sandoha-vyapta bharata-bhiimayah vande tam yatibhir vandyam Prakasadnandam isvaram. Ibid. p. 488. 3 Ramajiia Pandeya in his edition of Madhustidana’s Veddanta-kalpa-latika suggests that he was a Bengali by birth. His pupil Purusottama Sarasvati in his commentary on the Siddhdnta-bindu-tika refers to Balabhadra Bhattacarya as a favourite pupil of his, and Pandeya argues that, since Bhattacarya is a Bengali surname and since his favourite pupil was a Bengali, he also must have been a Bengali. It is also pointed out that in a family genealogy (Kula-panjika) of Kotalipara of Faridpur, Bengal, Madhustdana’s father is said to have been Pramodapurandara Acarya, who had four sons—Srinatha Cidamani, Yada- vananda Nyayacarya, Kamalajanayana and Vagisa Gosvamin. Some of the important details of Madhusidana’s philosophical dialectics will be taken up in the treatment of the philosophy of Madhva and his followers in the third volume of the present work in connection with Madhustidana’s discussions with Vyasatirtha. 4 The Advaita-siddhi has three commentaries, Advaita-siddhy-upanyasa, Brhat-tikd, and Laghu-candrika, by Brahmananda Sarasvati. DII 15 226 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. against the monistic Vedanta of Sankara and his followers. Materials from this book have already been utilized in sections 6, 7,8,9 and ro of the tenth chapter of the present work. More will be utilized in the third volume in connection with the controversy between Vyasatirtha and Madhusiidana, which is the subject- matter of Advaita-siddhi. Madhusiidana’s Siddhanta-bindu does not contain anything of importance, excepting that he gives a con- nected account of the perceptual process, already dealt with in the tenth chapter and also in the section “‘ Vedantic Cosmology ”’ of the present volume. His Advaita-ratna-raksana deals with such subjects as the validity of the Upanisads: the Upanisads do not admit duality; perception does not prove the reality of duality; the duality involved in mutual negation is false; indeterminate know- ledge does not admit duality; duality cannot be proved by any valid means of proof, and so forth. There is practically nothing new in the work, as it only repeats some of the important arguments of the bigger work Advaita-siddhi and tries to refute the view of dualists like the followers of Madhva, with whom Madhusiidana was in constant controversy. It is unnecessary, therefore, for our present purposes to enter into any of the details of this work. It is, however, interesting to note that, though he was such a confirmed monist in his philosophy, he was a theist in his religion and followed the path of bhakti, or devotion, as is evidenced by his numerous works promulgating the bhakti creed. These works, however, have nothing to do with the philosophy of the Vedanta, with which we are concerned in the present chapter. Madhusiidana’s Vedanta-kalpa-latika was written earlier than his Advaita-siddhi — and his commentary on the Mahimnah stotra1. Ramajiia Pandeya points out in his introduction to the Vedanta-kalpa-latika that the Advaita-siddhi contains a reference to his Gita-nibandhana; the Gita-nibandhana and the Srimad-bhagavata-tika contain refer- ences to his Bhakti-rasa@yana, and the Bhakti-rasayana refers to the Vedanta-kalpa-latika; and this shows that the Vedanta-kalpa-latika was written prior to all these works. The Advaita-ratna-raksana refers to the Advaita-siddhi and may therefore be regarded as a much later work. There is nothing particularly new in the Vedanta-kalpa- lattka@ that deserves special mention as a contribution to Vedantic thought. The special feature of the work consists in the frequent He refers to the Veddnta-kalpa-latika and Siddhanta-bindu in his Advaita- siddhi, p. 537 (Nirnaya-Sagara edition). See also Mahimnah-stotra-tikd, p. 5. Se op Madhusiidana Sarasvati 227 brief summaries of doctrines of other systems of Indian philosophy and contrasts them with important Vedanta views. The first problem discussed is the nature of emancipation (moksa) and the ways of realizing it: Madhusiidana attempts to prove that it is only the Vedantic concept of salvation that can appeal to men, all other views being unsatisfactory and invalid. But it does not seem that he does proper justice to other views. Thus, for example, in refuting the Samkhya view of salvation he says that, since the Samkhya thinks that what is existent cannot be destroyed, sorrow, being an existent entity, cannot be destroyed, so there cannot be any emancipation from sorrow. This is an evident misrepresenta- tion of the Samkhya; for with the Samkhya the destruction of sorrow in emancipation means that the buddhi, a product of prakrti which is the source of all sorrow, ceases in emancipation to have any contact with purusa, and hence, even though sorrow may not be destroyed, there is no inconsistency in having emancipation from sorrow. It is unnecessary for our present purposes, however, to multiply examples of misrepresentation by Madhusiidana of the views of other systems of thought in regard to the same problem. In the course of the discussions he describes negation (abhava) also as being made up of the stuff of nescience, which, like other things, makes its appearance in connection with pure consciousness. He next introduces a discussion of the nature of self-knowledge, and then, since Brahma knowledge can be attained only through the Upanisadic propositions of identity, he passes over to the dis- cussion of import of propositions and the doctrines of abhihitan- vaya-vada, anvitabhidhana-vada and the like. He then treats of the destruction of nescience. He concludes the work with a discussion of the substantial nature of the senses. Thus the mind-organ is said to be made up of five elements, whereas other senses are regarded as being constituted of one element only. Manas is said to pervade the whole of the body and not to be atomic, as the Naiyayikas hold. Finally, Madhusidana returns again to the problem of emancipation, and holds that it is the self freed from nescience that should be regarded as the real nature of emancipation. I5-2 CHAPTER XII THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE YOGA-VASISTHA Tue philosophical elements in the various Puranas will be taken in a later volume. The Yoga-vasistha-Ramayana may be included among the purdnas, but it is devoid of the general characteristics of the puranas and is throughout occupied with discussions of Vedantic problems of a radically monistic type, resembling the Vedantic doctrines as interpreted by Sankara. This extensive philosophical poem, which contains twenty-three thousand seven hundred and thirty-four verses (ignoring possible differences in different manuscripts or editions) and is thus very much larger than the Srimad-bhagavad-gita, is a unique work. The philosophical view with which it is concerned, and which it is never tired of reiterating, is so much like the view of Sankara and of Vijfianavada Buddhism, that its claim to treatment immediately after Sankara seems to me to be particularly strong. Moreover, the various inter- pretations of the Veddanta-siitra which will follow are so much opposed to Sankara’s views as to make it hard to find a suitable place for a treatment like that of the Yoga-vasistha unless it is taken up immediately after the chapter dealing with Sankara. The work begins with a story. A certain Brahmin went to the hermitage of the sage Agastya and asked him whether knowledge or work was the direct cause of salvation (moksa-sddhana). Agastya replied that, as a bird flies with its two wings, so a man can attain the highest (paramam padam) only through knowledge and work. To illustrate this idea he narrates a story in which Karunya, the son of Agnivesya, having returned from the teacher’s house after the completion of his studies, remained silent and did no work. When he was asked for the reason of this attitude of his, he said that he was perplexed over the question as to whether the action of a man in accordance with scriptural injunction was or was not more fitted for the attainment of his highest than follow- ing a course of self-abnegation and desirelessness (tyaga-matra).