The significance of Baladeva Vidyabhushana’s Govinda Bhaiya – History, Strategy and Legacy

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you for talking.
So, we all know that Lakshmi Baldevidya Bhushan wrote a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra which established the authoritativeness of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya. Now, there are three things which you could consider about this. One is the historical background Second is the philosophical strategy and the subsequent effect.
So, what came before, what he did and what was the result of what he did. So, what came before was that Gaudiya Vaishnavism was generally not a very influential religious group even in Vrindavan. So, Mahajan Pratap Rudra had adopted it in Orissa and there at that time there were many great scholars but after Pratap Rudra was defeated by the Bengali Muslim rulers then that influence more or less collapsed.
So, in Vrindavan the Goswamis built temples and they were of course considered saints but generally even spiritual teachers become prominent when they get prominent political followers. So, Buddha became prominent Buddhism became prominent and Ashoka got his teachings. So, similarly for several generations after Gaudiya Vaishnavism gained some prominence Akbar supported it in terms of slightly but it was like his generic support to Hinduism not to Gaudiya Vaishnavism in particular.
Then after Aurangzeb came and sacked everything in Vrindavan and then Chakravarti Paad reinstituted everything. And Chakravarti Paad by that by his personal charisma even attracted Baldev Vidyabhushan who had been connected with the Madhya Sampradaya before to become his disciple, to become his shiksha disciple. Now, what happened was that now Raja Mansingh had built helped the Goswamis build temples of Govind, especially Govindadev but because of Aurangzeb ransacking of Vrindavan that deity had to be taken to Jaipur.
And Jai Singh made Govindadev Jai Singh was a subsequent descendant of Mansingh Jai Singh II basically he made them the prominent deities and because of that they became the prominent deities and those who were worshipping them also became prominent worshippers. And that’s how Gaudiya Vaishnavism gained prominence in the in the elite circles over there. And because earlier Vishnu was being worshipped and Govindadev also became more prominent, so naturally those who were worshippers of Vishnu they started challenging the worshippers of Govindadev and that’s where so the challenge was threefold first is, the major thrust was that what is the authenticity of the idea of of the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition when it doesn’t have a Bhagavata commentary second is that, when it doesn’t have Vedanta Sutra commentary second is, what is the specific affiliation of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu which Sampradaya does he belong to and third was that, what is the authorised process of worshipping the deities so Radhakrishna deities are worshipped differently from the way say Lakshmi Narayan are worshipped and of course there was, although Radha was considered to be a worshippable deity but often it was Rukmini and Varkadishi who were worshipped, not Radhakrishna so there are various questions associated with the modality of Radhakrishna worship so it’s interesting that the idea that we are affiliated with the Madhva Sampradaya, Brahma, Madhva, Gaudiya Vaishnav Sampradaya, this is not very clearly indicated in the works of the Goswamis itself the Goswamis in their writings offer respects to all the Sampradayas Sampradaya Acharyas and they seek special blessings from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who is the lord who has delivered them so they focus on Krishna Bhakti with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as the inspirer of Krishna Bhakti but they don’t talk about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as having God authorisation because he is connected with Sampradaya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who he had his enormous personal charisma and whether he took initiation from Ishwara Puri but the link from Ishwara Puri to Madhva Sampradaya is challenged that Ishwara Puri to Madhavendra Puri is clear but how exactly Madhavendra Puri was connected with Madhva Sampradaya often the historical records they are not so clear and then because his Sannyas Diksha was from the Advaita Sampradaya so that also led to confusion they are apparently Vaishnavas because they are worshipping Radha Krishna but their traditional lineage was not very clear you know Baldevi Debushan gave a lineage which connected him with the Madhva Sampradaya but that lineage doesn’t necessarily agree entirely in all the details with the Madhva Sampradaya so but then it’s explained that the Madhva Sampradaya itself may not have the list of all the Acharyas all the disciples of all the Acharyas so they will have only the list of the Mathadhipadis and if somebody is because in the past initiation was not that formal you have to be authorized by your Guru through a formal initiation process they won’t have a list of initiating Gurus so in that sense it’s not a major major problem but the major problem was this that we had neither a clear Sampradaya authorization nor a clear commentary what is our Siddhanta and what is our Sampradaya neither was clear so then when Baldevi Debushan established that they did not resolve the issue but at least that issue was put on the side the more pressing issue was the was the lack of a Bhagavatam commentary so now when he wrote the commentary the question philosophical strategy that comes up is that actually there are among all the four Vaishnava Sampradayas Madhva’s philosophy is significantly different from the other three Sampradayas and it’s significantly different from our philosophy also Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy also and if at all we have to say that whether we are philosophically affiliate our philosophy is similar it’s most similar to Mahishradvaita of Ramanuja so when Baldevi Debushan claimed a Sampradaya affiliation with the Madhva Sampradaya then the question comes up that the fact that he wrote a commentary and the commentary itself was powerful that resolved some issues at least at the immediate crisis but then subsequent scholars questioned whether his commentary is in pursuance with Madhva’s commentary because if we are in the Madhva Sampradaya then for Baldevi Debushan the challenge is that what does he do when Jiyu Goswami makes points which are different from the points which are made by Madhvacharya because Jiyu Goswami is the prominent Acharya as far as our philosophy Siddhanta Acharya you can say so so broadly speaking what Baldevi Debushan has done now these are all complicated subjects and I can’t say that I have understood them myself and for me to explain them also is very difficult but I’ll just give couple of illustrations to illustrate to indicate what he did so basically one of the challenges that all the Vaishnav Sampradayas had to deal with was to explain the concept of variety within the concept of oneness because the Upanishads are quite clear that the absolute truth is one and it is non-differentiated so then but we see the material world is differentiated and how the material world is not an illusion while it is differentiated how do we explain that the Advaitic explanation is that this is a Vyavaharic reality and it is just a matter of perception when we go beyond this illusionary perception then there is oneness the Vaishnav explanation is about atleast the Gaudiya Vaishnav explanation is Shakti and Shaktimaan so the energy is at one level non-different from the energetic and at the same time another level is different also so Jiyu Goswami gives the example of fire burns so as soon as you talk about fire the fire’s defining quality is that burning so is fire and burning the same thing or different things you could say that fire is a noun a thing and burning is an action so at one level you can’t think of burning without fire you can’t think of fire without burning but at the same time while the two are one they are different also so basically he introduced the concept of Achintya now this term specifically in this context of describing the relationship between the between the absolute and his energies or the world this particular usage of the word Achintya in this context is something which Jiyu Goswami has done it was not done by the previous Acharyas the term Achintya is of course there in scripture but its usage in this technical way was not there and it’s not there with Madhava also so Madhava has the uses the concept called Vishesh so now it’s interesting that this is not exactly same as Vishishta Advaitavada Madhavacharya uses the term Vishesh and Ramacharya uses the Vishishta Advaita that is Vishishta is more of qualified it’s oneness but within oneness there is variety so Baldevidya Bhushan is the first person in our ashram pradaya who has used the term of Vishesh the term Vishesha in our tradition and that term is clearly derived from we could say the tradition of Madhava now while using that term if we consider that so now if we consider what are the challenges for Baldevidya Bhushan it is like he has to build a bridge he has to build a bridge normally you have a bridge between two points that is place A to place B you connect but in his case he had to build a bridge between Vedanta Sutra that bridge had to run through Jiva Goswami and that bridge had to run through Madhavacharya and that bridge had to run to to him or to through him to his audience so now because they are almost like two divergent paths the Vedanta Sutra has been explained in one way by Madhavacharya and in another way by Jiva Goswami so what does Baldevidya Bhushan do so it is now there are some who say that in this Baldevidya Bhushan has actually completely diverted the trajectory of Gaudiya Vaishnavism from Jiva Goswami and its interesting now if we consider subsequent Acharyas it’s significant that Bhaktivinod Thakur in most of his writings refers more to Jiva Goswami’s writings than Baldevidya Bhushan’s writings so to explain Gaudiya Vaishnavism he doesn’t use the Baldevidya Bhushan’s Vedanta Sutra commentary so much it’s not that he doesn’t use it but it is not used as much as his as say Jiva Goswami’s commentary and interestingly also you will see that in Baldevidya Bhushan’s works he hardly ever quotes any Gaudiya Vaishnav Acharyas so he has written the Bhagavad Gita commentary and his Guru Baldevidya Bhushan Thakur has written the Bhagavad Gita commentary but in his entire commentary he doesn’t quote his Guru at all which might seem like a shocking Maryada Vatikraman how can you do that and in his Vedanta Sutra commentary also he doesn’t quote Jiva Goswami anywhere he quotes the Shrutis so this again is a matter of strategy let’s say suppose somebody is going to write a scientific presentation of Krishna Consciousness using mathematical equations and things like that then those mathematical equations are not going to come from from say even if that person is a faithful follower of Srila Prabhupada those mathematical equations are not going to come from Prabhupada they are going to come from contemporary mathematical teachers so somebody might write a scientific commentary on the Bhagavad Gita and in order to have credibility among scientists you quote the terms and the references that the scientists will respect and a spiritual teacher will not be respected at all so they may not it is understandable if in a scientific commentary on the Bhagavad Gita a follower of Srila Prabhupada doesn’t mention Srila Prabhupada it would be considered sacrilegious now but maybe that indicates a certain lack of broad mindedness today which was not there at that time so Baldevidya Bhushan when he uses the term Vishesha now his commentary has been evaluated by current Madhava scholars and they do say that at one level they take credit that the Gaudiya is commentary is based on our commentary but then they are also they also don’t hesitate to highlight the differences so we could say that for philosophical purposes there is only the importing of terminology as a strategic tool for gaining credibility and for the subsequent generations of Vaishnav teachers once the British came to India and started ruling India, the whole dynamics changed substantially and then to be credible you didn’t need to have to prove yourself like antecedents you needed to establish how what you taught was rational so rational in terms of say modern scientific, logical way of thinking so Bhaktivinoda Thakur had to write books like say Jaiva Dharma and Krishna Samhita primarily Krishna Samhita to gain credibility over there so Baldevidya Bhushan is considered to be the last commentary among the traditional commentaries on the Vedanta Sutra there are others but none by a Sampradayika Acharya because even other Sampradayas did not feel the need for that in general in the colonial India the traditional discourse became largely irrelevant or the traditional modes of discourse in debating on the import of Vedanta became irrelevant for most Indians those traditional scholars themselves became sidelined and the Bhadraloka emerged in Bengal where people who were more molded by the rational mindset of the west than by the traditional mindset of the east so in terms of his legacy Baldevidya Bhushan did not his specific strategies were not used subsequently so much and his Vedanta Sutra commentary is a very important intellectual landmark in our tradition but it is not itself a major source of of doctrine of theology for us as Gaudiya Vishnava so it’s more like a strategic commentary which was required for a particular time and which gave us credibility so the credibility has turned out to be more important than the commentary itself and so we could say that Baldevidya Bhushan is the most resourceful Acharya who who very intelligently adapted or presented our tradition to protect to counter a challenge that he faced at that time and the Vedanta Sutra commentary if we study it today his Vedanta Sutra commentary we do get a lot of understanding of what the what the Vedanta Sutra itself says and he quotes the Upanishads and other things to try to establish how the Vedanta Sutras are pointing to Gaudiya Vishnava Siddhanta but it’s only pointing to in the Vedanta Sutra commentary he can talk about how something like that those points he can say that how the absolute truth is how the absolute truth is a loving person but the specifics of say Gaudiya Vishnava in terms of Krishna and Radha being the divine couple such things are very far from Vedanta Sutra itself and traditionally it is the mood of worship of Krishna in the mood of Radha Rani that is the centerpiece of Gaudiya Vishnava so because that is what is the meditation of devotees even that mood is particularly elevated still so the credibility more in the commentary is the legacy of Baldevidya Bhushan to the subsequent generations of Gaudiya Vishnava Thank you