South meets North: Banaras from the perspective of Appayya Dīkṣita
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 6; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19472498.2014.969008
ISSN1947-2501
Autores Tópico(s)South Asian Studies and Conflicts
ResumoAbstractDuring the last decades of the sixteenth century, Banaras began to assert itself as a powerful intellectual centre of a magnitude never seen before in South Asia. Scholars working in all disciplines and from every part of the subcontinent were drawn to this city, where they not only produced voluminous innovative scholarship but also created a deliberative body of scholars and jurists that began to assume all-India responsibilities. By the best estimates, the second half of the sixteenth century is also the time when the career of Appayya Dīkṣita (1520–1593), one of India’s most important and influential scholars in early modernity, peaked far to the south of Banaras, in the Tamil country. This essay examines scholarly and social networks between Banaras and the Deep South through the perspective of this seminal scholar, his works and his successors. In particular, I ask what types of transsubcontinental ties between South and North existed during Appayya’s life and how they changed after his time, both in practice and in memory. As the essay shows, it was only towards the very end of the nineteenth century that reports began to surface, suggesting that Appayya visited Banaras and interacted in person with its leading intellectuals. But even though these narratives are demonstrably fictional, Appayya’s afterlife in Banaras is faithful to key aspects of his intellectual persona and to the actual lives of his texts and descendants in the northern city.Keywords: BanarasAppayya DīkṣitaSanskritintellectual historySouth India AcknowledgementsThe author is grateful to Lawrence McCrea, Christopher Minkowski, Rosalind O’Hanlon, Audrey Truschke and Anand Venkatkrishnan for their help, suggestions and encouragement.Notes1. See Pollock, “New Intellectuals”; O’Hanlon, “Letters Home.” The quote is from O’Hanlon, “Speaking from Śiva’s Temple,” 257.2. For the best discussions of Appayya’s dates, see Mahalinga Sastri, “Appayya Dīkṣita’s Age”; Mahalinga Sastri, “More about the Age and Life.”3. The three patrons whose help Appayya credits are, in chronological order, Cinna Timma, who in the 1540s was a Vijayanagara general and envoy in the South (under his patronage Appayya composed his commentary on the Yādavābhyudaya); Cinna Bomma of Vellore (r. ca. 1549‒1582), who supported many of Appayya’s Śaiva works (most famously, the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā); and Veṅkaṭapati, who came to the throne in Penukonda in 1585 and who is mentioned in the Kuvalayānanda and the Vidhirasāyana. See Mahalinga Sastri, “Appayya Dīkṣita’s Age.”4. I know of three inscriptions that mention Appayya explicitly. The first is a 1580 plate in which Cevappa Nāyaka of Tanjore hails him as one of the three leading theologians working in his court, in addition to the dualist Vijayīndra and the Śrīvaiṣṇava Tātācārya, his main rivals (Annual Report of the Mysore Archeological Department, 55‒56; see also Krishnamurti Sarma, “Truth about Vijayīndra Tīrtha,” 661; Bronner, “Renaissance Man in Memory”). The second is the aforementioned 1582 Adayapalam inscription signed by Appayya himself (Government of Madras Public Department, Epigraphy [1912], 89, item no. 71 of 1911; cf. Mahalinga Sastri, “More about the Age and Life,” 148‒149). Finally, a donative inscription of Acyutappa Nāyaka, son of the above-mentioned Cevappa, dated 1595, documents a gift for the merit of Dīkṣitar Ayyan, likely in honour of the recently deceased Appayya (Government of Madras Public Department, Epigraphy [1905], 29, item no. 710 of 1904; Heras, South India, 522).5. The most prominent of these events are the teaching of his texts in Vellore and Adayapalam to a body of 500 students and his bathing in gold by Cinna Bomma of Vellore, all mentioned in the Kālakaṇṭheśvara inscription.6. Of such works, the most notable is his Varadarājastava, addressed to Viṣṇu in Kanchipuram and containing a description of the temple site (see Bronner, “Singing to God,” 7‒11; Rao, “Vaiṣṇava Writings”). The ascription to Appayya of other hymns, such as the Apītakucāmbāstava and the Mārgasahāyaliṅgastuti (published in Ramesan, Sri Appayya Dikshita, 150‒3), also addressed to local deities, requires further corroboration, as noted in Bronner, “Renaissance Man in Memory.”7. See, for example, Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, a work dedicated in its entirety to a thorough denouncement of Vyāsatīrtha’s opinions, as expressed in several of his works.8. For Vyāsatīrtha’s activities in Vijayanagara, see Stoker, “Polemics and Patronage”; Stoker, “Durbar, Maṭha, Devasthānam,” in this issue. For Vyāsatīrtha as a thinker, see McCrea, “Freed by the Weight of History,” in this issue.9. Bronner, “Text with a Thesis.”10. In writing strictly in Sanskrit he resembled the Devas of Banaras, as noted in Venkatkrishnan, “Ritual, Reflection, and Religion,” in this issue. For Appayya’s familiarity with Telugu proverbs, see Bronner, “Back to the Future,” 74.11. Appayya Dīkṣita, Śivārkamaṇidīpikā 1, verse 4.12. For example, in the Ratnatrayaparīkṣā Banaras comes up in the context of a passage Appayya cites from the Skāndapurāṇa. Here Viṣṇu sends the southern king Prabhākara to Kāśī in order to take on the life of a pāśupata, perform the aśvamedha rite and worship Śiva Viśveśvara in his dakṣiṇāmūrti form. But all that interests Appayya in this passage is the implied identity between the two divinities, since Viṣṇu directs the king ‘to see me there as God Śiva’ (tatra drakṣyasi māṃ devaṃ viśvātmānaṃ pinākinam). Once this identity (nārāyaṇasya śivābhedenaiva) is established, Appayya immediately moves on to a different topic (Appayya Dīkṣita, Ratnatrayaparīkṣā, 16, ad verse 4).13. For a misreading of a comment by Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita to the opposite effect, see Mahalinga Sastri, “More about the Age and Life,” 147. For more on this question, see Bronner, “Renaissance Man in Memory.”14. Pollock, “New Intellectuals,” 21; O’Hanlon, “Letters Home,” 220‒224.15. On Daṇḍin, see Bronner, “What Is New,” 449‒450; on Vedānta Deśika, see Rao, “Vaiṣṇava Writings”.16. On the centrality of maṭhas in this period, see Clark, Daśanāmī-Saṃnyāsīs, 177‒226; Stoker, “Durbar, Maṭha, Devasthānam,” in this issue. For Appayya’s lack of ties to maṭhas and teachers outside the family, see Minkowski, “Advaita Vedānta,” 218.17. See Bronner, “Renaissance Man in Memory.”18. Samarapuṅgava Dīkṣita, Yātrāprabandha, 31. For more on the text’s depiction of Appayya, see Bronner, “Renaissance Man in Memory.”19. Samarapuṅgava Dīkṣita, Yātrāprabandha, 176.20. O’Hanlon, “Letters Home,” 218. As far as I can see, however, the Muktimaṇḍapam itself is not mentioned, although it is possible that a reader with a better knowledge of the temple’s layout and iconography during Sūryanārāyaṇa’s time could make more of this lengthy passage (Samarapuṅgava Dīkṣita, Yātrāprabandha, 168‒171). Note, by the way, that there is a description of the Śivarātri holiday, which is celebrated just when Sūryanārāyaṇa arrives in the city (ibid., 163‒5).21. See also, for example, Samarapuṅgava Dīkṣita, Yātrāprabandha, 9.72, 9.98.22. The identification of the deity Jai Singh acquired as Annapūrṇā is suggested in O’Hanlon, “Speaking from Śiva’s Temple,” 265, where Tavernier is quoted. Tavernier visited Jai Singh’s pagoda in December 1665, and the goddess was already there, probably since the late 1650s or early 1660s. At any rate, Sūryanārāyaṇa visited the temple before its destruction by Aurangzeb in 1669. I am much indebted to O’Hanlon for conversations on this topic.23. Pollock, “New Intellectuals,” 21; O’Hanlon, “Letters Home,” 230‒3. On Appayya III, see Raghavan, “Some Appayya Dīkṣitas.”24. Raghavan, “Introduction,” 19, 36‒7 (where Bhāskararāya is identified as his student).25. Tanjore ms. 8244; see Sastri, Descriptive Catalog, 6410. None of the printed editions of the work mention the scribe’s colophon. I am grateful to Lawrence McCrea for pointing out this colophon to me.26. Jagannātha, Śrībhāskaravilāsakāvya, verse 20.27. De, History of Sanskrit Poetics, 1:226; cf. Krishnaswami Sastri, “Introduction,” xxii.28. For these and similar Brahmin household practices in Banaras, see O’Hanlon, “Speaking from Śiva’s Temple.”29. See Aiyaswami Sastri, “Tantrasiddhāntadīpikā,” 247; Raghavan, “Some Appayya Dīkṣitas,” 2.30. Raghavan, “Some Appayya Dīkṣitas,” 2.31. Aiyaswami Sastri, “Tantrasiddhāntadīpikā,” 249.32. See Gopalachariar, “Life of Sri Appayya Diksita,” x; Raghavan, “Introduction,” 36. The quote is from Appayya Dīkṣita, Kuvalayānanda, 1.33. Appayya Dīkṣita, Vidhirasāyana, 10, verse 4 of the introduction to the commentary, which ends with ‘veṅkaṭakṣoṇipālam.’ Note, however, that other printed editions of this text do not include this verse. If the verse is authentic, the work must have been written after 1585, that is, in the last decade of Appayya’s life.34. See H. Shastri, “Dakshini Pandits at Banaras,” 11.35. All but the last work were certainly composed in Banaras. I do not know where to locate Kolluri Nārāyaṇa Śāstrī.36. Minkowski, “Appayya’s Vedānta.”37. Ibid.38. Deshpande, “Appayya Dīkṣita.” Deshpande primarily refers to the fact that Appayya’s attack on the authenticity of Madhva’s sources and his reverence for Śaṅkara’s views inspired Bhaṭṭoji’s ‘fundamentalist’ approach to Vedānta and grammar, as well as that of Bhaṭṭoji’s younger brother Raṅgoji, and of later descendants in his and his brother’s lines. Note that in the Tattvakaustubha, Bhaṭṭoji, like Appayya, does not begin by attacking the dualists' theology; instead, he impugns their social practices on textual grounds, in a move that can be seen as analogous to Appayya’s accusations that Madhva invented scriptural passages. I am grateful to Anand Venkatkrishnan for this suggestion.39. Minkowski, “I’ll Wash Out Your Mouth,” 124.40. Ibid., 124‒5.41. This is clear from the citations of Jayārāma Pañcānana’s commentary on Mammaṭa in Viśveśvara, Alaṃkārakaustubha, e.g., 11, 23, 106. Viśveśvara, too, was highly critical of Appayya as well as of Jagannātha; see Bronner, “What Is New,” 454‒5.42. Bronner, “Back to the Future,” 47‒8.43. This last work was composed in Jodhpur according to De, History of Sanskrit Poetics, 1:171.44. For a discussion of Kavīndra and his list, see Sharma and Patkar, “Introduction.” I am grateful to Audrey Truschke for sharing with me portions of her forthcoming work on Kavīndra.45. A. K. Shastri, “Introduction,” xi.46. Kavīndrācāryasūcipatram, items 361‒2. The Vidhirasāyana itself is not listed.47. Ibid., items 231, 245, 237 and 242, respectively.48. Ibid., item 273.49. Ibid., items 1946‒1947, 1951. The Gadādhara in question is perhaps the logician who also commented on Mammaṭa (De, History of Sanskrit Poetics, 1:173). Also listed is a copy of Jagannātha’s Rasagaṅādhara, which deals extensively with the Citramīmāṃsā.50. Kavīndrācāryasūcipatram, item 122. The work as we have it today has only the first 5 of the 27 essays promised by the title, and we do not know whether it was completed. I am grateful to Lawrence McCrea for conversations on this topic. Deshpande believes that Bhaṭṭoji’s preference for the ‘three sages’ of grammar is another form of ‘fundamentalism’ (see note 38), and that here, too, he was inspired by Appayya, who in Vedānta showed full reverence to Śaṅkara over his commentators (Deshpande, “Appayya Dīkṣita”). It would be interesting to see whether a similar approach is promoted in the Pāṇinitantravādanakṣatramālā.51. Ibid., items 1915, 2010 (the latter could be a different campū, however). Kavīndra also owned other southern works of the period, such as the Viśvaguṇādarśa (with a commentary) by Veṅkaṭādhvarin, a classmate of Nīlakaṇṭha’s (item 1942).52. On Appayya’s independence and versatility, see Bronner, “Renaissance Man in Memory.”53. On this rivalry, see Bronner and Tubb, “Blaming the Messenger,” 83‒88; Tubb and Bronner, “Vastutas tu,” 627‒32.54. This rivalry and its possible circumstances are meticulously studied in Bronkhorst, “Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita on Sphoṭa,” 11‒23; the quote is from Jagannātha’s Kucamardinī, 3.55. Minkowski, “I’ll Wash Out Your Mouth,” 126.56. O’Hanlon and Minkowski, “What Makes People Who They Are,” 393.57. Deshpande, “Will the Winner Please Stand Up.”58. On this theory, see O’Hanlon, “Letters Home,” 203, 218; Minkowski, “Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara’s Mantrakāśīkhaṇḍa,” 332, 336‒339.59. Deshpande, “Will the Winner Please Stand Up.”60. E.g., Śivānanda Yogī, Śrīmadappayyadīkṣitendravijaya, 28.267.61. For a discussion of this work, see Bronner, “Renaissance Man in Memory.”62. Śivānanda Yogī, Śrīmadappayyadīkṣitendravijaya, 26.247‒8.63. The visit is dwarfed by a lengthier description of his tour of Vellore, Chidambaram, Aruṇācala, Tirupati, Kaveri and other pilgrimage sites in the Tamil country. Compare 26.249–50, which merely state that he reached, performed rituals in and was respected by the learned in Banaras.64. Thus Appayya’s year of birth is said to have been in the second half of the sixteenth century (1550, 1553, 1564 and 1587 have been suggested), and his time of death around the mid-seventeenth (estimated between 1626 and 1660); all these also roughly fit calculations based on a dubious horoscope given in the Śrīmadappayyadīkṣitendravijaya.65. Nārāyaṇa Sudarśana, “Appayyadīkṣita,” 4.66. This quote is from Venkataraman, “Appaya Dikshita,” 264, whose account is almost entirely based on that of Nārāyaṇa Sudarśana.67. Nārāyaṇa Sudarśana, “Appayyadīkṣita,” 3‒4.68. Ibid., 4.69. Ibid.70. Ibid., 5. The verse appears in Jagannātha, Bhāminīvilāsa, verse 19. The translation, based on a slightly variant reading, is from Bronner and Tubb, “Blaming the Messenger,” 87.71. Nārāyaṇa Sudarśana, “Appayyadīkṣita,” 5.72. See, for example, Thangaswami, Advaita-Vedānta Literature, 271‒8.73. Ramesan, Sri Appayya Dikshita, 131‒2; Sri Ramachandrudu, Panditaraja Jagannatha, 8‒11.74. Ramesan, Sri Appayya Dikshita, 131.75. Harinārāyaṇa Dīkṣita, Śrīmadappayadīkṣitacaritam, 31‒2.76. E.g., Kuppusvāmiśāstrī, “Introduction,” 4.77. Aiyaswami Sastri, “Tantrasiddhāntadīpikā”; Raghavan, “Some Appayya Dīkṣitas,” 1‒2.78. Ramesan, Sri Appayya Dikshita, 130.79. On Bhaṭṭoji’s ties in Ikkeri, see Gode, “Contact of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita.”80. Unni, “Introduction,” 2‒3.81. Bronner and Tubb, “Blaming the Messenger,” 87‒8.82. Hueckstedt, “Some Later Arguments,” 62‒70.83. Deshpande, “Appayya Dīkṣita.”84. Kuppuswāmiśāstrī, “Introduction,” 4.85. Coward and Kunjunni Raja, Philosophy of the Grammarians, 240.86. For a discussion of the possible ties between Appayya and Nṛsiṃha, see Minkowski, “Advaita Vedānta,” 224. Alternatively, we are told that Appayya studied Mīmāṃsā under Khaṇḍadeva and wrote his Vidhirasāyana for him. See Nārāyaṇa Sudarśana, “Appayyadīkṣita,” 3.
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