[Advaita-l] Gudharthadipika of Madhusudana Sarasvati

saha niranjan sahaniranjan at yahoo.co.in
Sat Aug 18 12:17:14 CDT 2012


Yes, Ramanuja does divide the Gita into three parts. But none of them, like MS, say that the tripartite Gita corresponds to the tripartite Vedas which have karma, upasana/bhakti and jnana kands.Is it MS's own approach to divide the Vedas this way explicitly and then show Gita's division accordingly?

--- On Sat, 18/8/12, rajaramvenk at gmail.com <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:

From: rajaramvenk at gmail.com <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Gudharthadipika of Madhusudana Sarasvati
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Saturday, 18 August, 2012, 2:39 PM

Madhusudana says that he gets the idea of dividing Gita in to three parts  from the Vedas. So, it is fair to say that it is based on tripartite Vedas. 

It is also in line with the advaita tradition. Debatable but Sankara also treats bhakti as a separate path bordering on karma at sadhana stage and jnana at the sadhya stage. Both Sankara and Madhusudana treat bhakti as the prime mover for performing karma and acquiring jnana. You may want to look at Sridhara's position also in this regard. He had a big influence on all though Madhusudana maintained his originality. 

The gaudiya vaishnavas were inspired by Madhusudana's idea as it gave bhakti a central position. Both Visvanath and Baladev follow this scheme. Baladev even verbatim uses Madhusudana differing only on specifics. 

Do Ramanuja and Madhwa use tripartite division of Gita? I thought they mix all three in to one integrated process. 
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-----Original Message-----
From: saha niranjan <sahaniranjan at yahoo.co.in>
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Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:35:24 
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Subject: [Advaita-l] Gudharthadipika of Madhusudana Sarasvati



Dear Scholars,

Namaskaram! Could any one get me clarified the following.

In the introductory verse  4 of the Gudharthadipika, Madhusudana has
termed the Vedas tripartite having karma, upasana, and jnana kandas
respectively and mentioned the Gita too as having three kandas in 18 chapters
accordingly. It is said that Sayanacarya in his Vedabhasya has also divided the
Vedas into three parts , though the division into karma and jnana kands may
seem to be explicit and bhakti or upasana kanda may be the corollary of the
jnana kanda there. And it has been a tradition to consider the Vedas as having
three parts even before the advent of Sankara. 

Yamuna, Ramanuja, Keshavakashmiribhatta (1510 CE. Like Sankara, he describes
the Gita as the essence of the entire Vedic lore), Nilakantha (16th century CE)
etc. too have divided the Gita into three parts, though none of them have
mentioned that the tripartite Gita coressponds to the tripartite Vedas.



So, can it be said that Madhusudana has borrowed the idea of tripartite Vedas
from the tradition or from Sayana in order to make the Gita tripartite? or, it
is Madhusudana's noble approach to the Gita?



With kind regards,

Sincerely yours,

Niranjan Saha

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