[Advaita-l] Did Madhusudana Saraswati Reconcile Bhakti and Advaita?

[श्रीमल्ललितालालितः]

*श्रीमल्ललितालालितः <http://www.lalitaalaalitah.com/>
lalitAlAlitaH <http://about.me/lalitaalaalitah/bio>*



On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 00:58, <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Shri LalitAlAlitah, namaskarams. If one can trace the lineage to
> Sankara, great. I have no problem with that. But if there is difference of
> opinion on fundamental issues, each one is going to assert that his guru or
> lineage is right. If one wants to reconcile the difference, then objective
> and unbiased analysis is the only way. This is what academic scholars who
> regard truth high do.
>

You are generalizing things. Neutrality is not unique to academicians and
bias is also not unique to saMpradAyavit-s. This is causing uneasiness for
many here.


> May I ask who are you to limit the validity of Madhusudana's views? Do you
> have any basis at all?
>

You know that I didn't say anything about madhusUdana's view.

This is what I said :

Krishna and His form are different or that
> Bhakti is not an ultimate goal, without studying Madhusudana, who closely
> follows Sankara.
>

Traditional scholars know the limit and scope of each book. They don't
mingle things to create a new theory which can not stand tests.

I said that every work of a writer has a limit. When a person like
madhusUdana starts to write a treatise on bhakti, he goes to elaborate it
up to a level where it seems to be greater than anything else.
Actually, greatness of any type of popular bhakti is a baseless thing. It
has no bases in veda-s itself. Let Agama-s and purANa-s say anything. We
don't care that much about them. They are acceptable when not in conflict
with veda-s and yukti.

bhakti as defined by shrI-sha~Nkara in vivekachUDAmaNi is one of the types
of bhakti accepted by madhusUdana. This is just re-branding of GYAnam. We
accept that such bhakti is same as GYAnam and not greater and better than
that.
Other types of bhakti-s are special types of rasa originating from
shravaNa, kIrttana, etc. They are definitely limited in their scope. They
can't be said higher and better than GYAna.
This is what members tried to tell you in a previous threads.