Defending God in Sixteenth-Century

India: The ■aiva Oeuvre of Appaya

D■k■ita Jonathan Duquette
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Defending God in Sixteenth-Century India

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OXFORD ORIENTAL MONOGRAPHS

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Defending God in
Sixteenth-Century India
The Śaiva Oeuvre of Appaya Dīks: ita

JONATHAN DUQUETTE

1
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3
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Acknowledgements

This book is the outcome of seven years of postdoctoral research at the various
academic institutions in Europe and Asia where I had the chance to pursue
exciting research alongside scholars generous with their time and expertise. The
idea of working on Appaya Dīks: ita’s Śaiva oeuvre developed while I was a SSHRC
(Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) Postdoctoral Fellow at the
University of Concordia in Montreal in 2011. Back in 2009, I had co-authored,
together with my then teacher Krishnamurti Ramasubramanian (IIT Bombay), an
article on Appaya Dīks: ita’s critique of the Nyāya doctrine of anyathākhyāti.
I was then only (barely) acquainted with Appaya’s Parimala, his sub-commentary
in the Bhāmatī school of Advaita Vedānta. Later on, I heard about the
Śivārkamanidīpikā,
: his magnum opus of Śivādvaita Vedānta, and acquired a
copy of a printed edition during my stay in Delhi in 2012. I still remember
bringing this copy with me to a reading with Harunaga Isaacson in Hamburg a
month later, as I was just starting a postdoc on a project of a very different nature.
Harunaga noticed it and gladly encouraged me to start reading it. This is how this
project began. The text turned out to be pretty difficult for me in the early stages,
and without the patience and careful guidance of Harunaga I may not have
persisted in my study of Appaya’s work. For this, I am truly grateful to him.
In the years that followed, the aforesaid copy travelled with me to Leiden
University (Gonda Fellowship, 2013–14) where I had the chance to read
passages from the Śivārkamanidīpikā : with Peter Bisschop and Gonda
fellows like myself nearly every week; then to Kyoto University (JSPS Postdoctoral
Fellowship, 2014–15), where I focused on Appaya’s engagement with Vyāsatīrtha’s
Tarkatān: dava
: in readings with Diwakar Acharya, Somdev Vasudeva, and Yuko
Yukochi; and finally to the University of Oxford, where I spent four productive years
expanding my study of the Śivārkamanidīpikā
: to the rest of Appaya’s Śaiva oeuvre.
In Oxford, I benefitted from everything a scholar could dream of: a calm office in a
dynamic research centre (the Oriental Institute), a tremendous library, a collegial
atmosphere and a supportive network of scholars and friends. My stay in Oxford was
made possible by two postdoctoral fellowships: the Newton International Fellowship
(2015–17) and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (2017–19). I wish to express
my sincere gratitude to Christopher Minkowski, my supervisor and guide in Oxford.
Aside from providing me with constant support and advice during those years, he
encouraged me to submit my book proposal to the Oxford Oriental Monographs
series. I also wish to extend my heartful thanks to Alexis Sanderson. His scholarly
work on Śaivism was an unerring guide in this project. I also had the chance to read
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vi 

the beginning of Appaya’s little-known Ratnatrayaparīks: ā with him just before his
retirement.
I wish to thank all the institutions and funding bodies that have made this book
project possible: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, which
granted me the two-year postdoctoral grant that eventually brought me to
Hamburg, a haven for Sanskritists around the world; the J. Gonda Fund
Foundation; the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science; the British
Academy and the Royal Society, which granted me a Newton International
Fellowship to pursue my study of Appaya’s Śivādvaita corpus at the University
of Oxford; and the European Commission, for awarding me a prestigious Marie
Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. I also wish to take this opportunity to thank the
Austrian Academy of Sciences for twice offering me a Visiting Fellowship (2016
and 2017), as well as the École Française d’Extrême-Orient for providing me
accommodation and other resources during my fieldwork in South India. Special
thanks go to Dominic Goodall who helped me in various ways during my stays in
Pondichery and always made himself available for thoughtful discussions on various
aspects of my research. I must also thank libraries that granted me access to their
collections, especially the Adyar Library and Research Centre, the Oriental Research
Institute in Mysore, the Saraswati Bhavan Library in Varanasi, the Government
Oriental Manuscripts Library in Chennai, and the British Library in London.
Aside from the several gifted scholars I met on the way and with whom I had
the pleasure to discuss Appaya’s work, many friends and colleagues have contrib-
uted to this volume through sharing material, ideas, and critical comments (in
alphabetical order): Whitney Cox, Hugo David, Florinda De Simini, Pierre-
Sylvain Filliozat and Vasundhara Filliozat, Elisa Freschi, Elisa Ganser, Kengo
:
Harimoto (with whom I first read the mangalaślokas of the
Śivārkamanidīpikā!),
: Andrey Klebanov, Nina Mirnig, Marion Rastelli, Marcus
Schmücker, Vishal Sharma, and Anand Venkatkrishnan. Special thanks go to
Sharathchandra Swami for the enjoyable time spent discussing matters pertaining
to Vīraśaiva religion and philosophy, as well as for facilitating my fieldwork in
Karnataka in so many ways; to his late guru, Immadi : Śivabasava Swamy, for
bringing to my attention the Śrīkan: t:hasamālocana; and to Jayatīrthācārya
:
Purānika (while revising this book, I learnt that Jayatīrthācārya unfortunately
passed away), who generously offered me copies of several works by Vijayīndra,
one of Appaya’s fiercest opponents. I also wish to take this opportunity to thank
Kristen de Joseph and Martin Noble, who helped with the editing of the book.
Above all else, it is my wife, Aslıhan Bökö, and our son, Emil-Jivan Duquette, to
whom I wish to express my deepest love and gratitude. Loyal companions on this
long journey, they offered me all the support that I truly needed to bring this book
to completion.

Cambridge
30 March 2020
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Contents

List of Abbreviations ix

Introduction: The Rise of Śivādvaita Vedānta 1

1. Śrīkan: t:ha and the Brahmamīmāmsābhā: s: ya 10
1.1 Śrīkan: t:ha’s Date, Lineage, and Influences 10
1.2 References to Śrīkan: t:ha in Sanskrit Sources Prior to Appaya 16
1.3 Śrīkan: t:ha’s Theology and the Vīraśaiva Tradition 21
1.3.1 Śrīkan: t:ha and Nīlakan: t:ha 28

2. Early Śaiva Works 31

2.1 Śivatattvaviveka 33
2.2 Śivakarnām: r: ta 43
2.3 Brahmatarkastava 51
:
2.4 Bhāratasārasamgrahastotra 59
2.5 Śrīkan: t:ha in Appaya’s Early Śaiva Works 65
3. Reading Śrīkan: t:ha’s Commentary 70
3.1 Introducing Śrīkan: t:ha’s Vedānta 72
3.2 Śrīkan: t:ha’s Teachings and Pure Non-dualism 75
3.2.1 Śrīkan: t:ha’s Theory of Transformation 77
3.2.2 An Argument in the Śivādvaitanirnaya: 84
3.2.3 Coordination and Coherence: Daharavidyā in Śrīkan: t:ha’s
Commentary 89
3.2.4 The Argument Continued: Appaya on BS 1.3.16 in the
Śivārkamanidīpikā
: 92
3.2.5 Inclusivism and Hermeneutics: Advaita in Śivādvaita 95
3.2.6 Non-duality and Śiva’s Grace 100
3.3 Appaya on Śaiva Scriptures 106
4. Engaging with Śrīvais: navas
: 117
4.1 On Rāmānuja’s Reading of the Brahmasūtras 119
4.2 Subordination, Tolerance, and Orthodoxy 130
4.2.1 Ratnatrayaparīks: ā: Appaya’s Triadic Theology 130
4.2.2 Ānandalaharī: A Treatise on Cicchakti 139
4.3 Appaya on Sudarśanasūri’s Defence of Aikaśāstrya 152
4.4 Refutation of Pāñcarātra 160
4.5 Sudarśanasūri: Appaya’s Nemesis? 171
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5. Reception of Appaya’s Śaiva Works 174

:
5.1 The Vais: nava Response 175
5.1.1 Dvaita Vedānta: Vijayīndra (c.1514–1595) 175
5.1.2 Śuddhādvaita Vedānta: Purus: ottama (c.1657/1668–1725) 184
5.1.3 The Śrīvais: nava
: Response 189
5.2 Two Advaitins in Banaras 198
5.3 The Śaiva Response 202
5.3.1 The Śaktiviśis: t:ādvaita Vedānta of Vīraśaivas 204
Conclusion: In Defence of Śiva 218

Appendix 1: List of Śaiva Works by Appaya Dīks: ita 227

Appendix 2: Opening Verses from the Brahmamīmāmsābhā: s: ya
and the Śivārkamanidīpikā
: 229
Appendix 3: Verses from the Ratnatrayaparīks:ā 234
Appendix 4: Śrīkan: tha
: and Nīlakan: tha:
: Further Details 237

Bibliography 247
Index Locorum 259
Index of Sanskrit Works 262
General Index 265
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List of Abbreviations

BMB :
Brahmamīmāmsābhā :
sya
BS Brahmasūtras
ChU Chāndogya Upanis: ad
MBh Mahābhārata
MS :
Mīmāmsāsūtras
MU Mun: daka
: Upanis: ad
NCC New Catalogus Catalogorum
PāS :
Pāninisūtras
RTP :
Ratnatrayaparīksā
ŚAMD1, ŚAMD2 Śivārkamanidīpikā
: volume 1, volume 2
ŚU Śvetāśvatara Upanis: ad
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Introduction
The Rise of Śivādvaita Vedānta

Once upon a time . . .

:
The illustrious Rangarājamakhin had a famous son, Appaya Dīks
ita,
devoted to the moon-crested [Śiva].
Thanks to him, the fame of the illustrious king Cinnabomma,
breaker of armies, was unobstructed.
He raised up the commentary of Śrīkan: t:ha to support
the doctrine of the supreme Śiva.

These words¹ were inscribed in 1582 on the Kālakan: t:heśvara temple situated in
:
Adaiyapālam, a small village in the Tamil region and the birthplace of the
celebrated scholar at the centre of this book—Appaya Dīks
ita (c.1520–1593).
Appaya was undoubtedly one of India’s most influential Sanskrit intellectuals in
the sixteenth century. A scholar of polymathic erudition, he wrote profusely in a
range of Sanskrit disciplines prominent in his day—especially poetic theory
:
(alamkāraśāstra), :
scriptural hermeneutics (mīmāmsā), and theology (vedānta)²—
and with an idiosyncratic boldness that generated both praise and blame in the
centuries to follow. While he is mostly remembered in India today for his writings
on the non-dualist school of Advaita Vedānta—most notably for his sub-
commentary on Śan
kara’s famous Brahmasūtrabhās
ya, the Parimala, which
continues to be part of the curriculum in some institutions of learning in

¹ The Kālakan: t:heśvara inscription includes a versified portion in grantha script and a prose
portion in both grantha script and Tamil. The passage translated here is extracted from the versified
portion, which reads: vidvadguror vihitaviśvajidadhvarasya śrīsarvatomukhamahāvratayājisūnoh: |
:
śrīrangarājamakhinah: śritacandramaulir asty appaidīks
ita iti prathitas tanūjah: || yena śrīcinna
bommaks
itipabalabhidah: kīrtir avyāhatāsīt yena śrīkan: t:habhās
yam : paramaśivamatasthāpa
:
nāyoddadhāra | tena śrīrangarājādhvarivaratanayenāppayajvādhipenākāri praudhonnatāgra : m:
rajatagirinibham : kālakan: t:heśadhāma ||. The inscription, presumably composed by Appaya himself,
is reported in the Report on South Indian Epigraphy (no. 395). I follow here the transliteration in
Mahalinga Sastri 1929: 148. Sastri rightly suggests reading yaś ca śrīkan: t:habhās
yam instead of yena
śrīkan: t:habhās
yam to make sense of the active perfect uddadhāra (from ud + √dhr: ).
² Appaya, notably, did not write works on Nyāya, a discipline of epistemology and metaphysics most
prominent in his day. However, he was familiar with the technical language of Navya-Nyāya and did
engage in some of its key debates; see Duquette 2020b.

́
Defending God in Sixteenth-Century India: The Saiva Oeuvre of Appaya Dı k̄ s: ita. Jonathan Duquette,
Oxford University Press (2021). © Jonathan Duquette. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198870616.003.0001
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India—Appaya also devoted a large share of his long and prolific³ career to writing
about Śaivism, a major religious tradition centred on the god Śiva and to which
Appaya belonged by birth and remained devoted throughout his entire life. It is
this key dimension of Appaya’s career and scholarly persona, highlighted in the
Kālakan: t:heśvara inscription, that forms the central scope of this book.
Appaya wrote all his Śaiva works over the course of three decades (1549–1578),
while serving at the court of Cinnabomma—the ‘breaker of armies’ hailed in the
inscription and whose fame Appaya contributed to spreading. Cinnabomma was
an independent Śaiva ruler based in Vellore, a town in the Tamil country, located
a few hundred kilometres from Vijayanagara, the capital of the empire of the same
name. Vijayanagara was a powerful polity in South India founded in the four-
teenth century and arguably one of the greatest empires in the history of South
Asia.⁴ Appaya’s Śaiva works include a number of hymns in praise of Śiva
(often with a self-authored commentary), a ritual manual on the daily worship
of Śiva and a series of polemical treatises and works of Śaiva Vedānta theology
which, as this book will show, impacted on the intellectual and religious
landscape of early modern India in significant ways. Aside from highlighting
Appaya’s association with Cinnabomma and his construction of the temple
:
in Adaiyapālam, the Kālakan: t:heśvara inscription also hails Appaya as the
author of the Śivārkamanidīpikā,
: a monumental sub-commentary on the
:
Brahmamīmāmsābhās
ya, a Śaiva commentary on the Brahmasūtras (a founda-
tional text of the Vedānta tradition) composed by Śrīkan: t:ha Śivācārya around the
fourteenth to fifteenth centuries.⁵ We are told that Appaya wrote this work thanks
to the generous support of his Śaiva patron. He himself says at the beginning of the
Śivārkamanidīpikā
: that he was commanded to write this work twice: in a dream
by Śiva in His androgynous form as Ardhanārīśvara and, in waking life, in the
form of Cinnabomma, whom Appaya here implicitly identifies with Śiva.⁶ Upon
completion of the Śivārkamanidīpikā,
: continues the inscription, Appaya was

³ The same Kālakan: t:heśvara inscription mentions him as the author of no less than one hundred
works, an attribution that should probably not be taken too literally. See Bronner 2007: 1, fn. 2, on this
point.
⁴ Appaya had three patrons, the first (Cinnatimma of Trichy) and the third (Ven
kat:a II) having
:
blood ties to the Aravīdus, :
the last dynasty to rule the Vijayanagara empire, known for its Vais
nava
proselytism (Rao 2016); his second patron, Cinnabomma of Vellore, was Śaiva. We know from
colophons that he composed the Śivārkamanidīpikā, : his magnum opus of Śivādvaita Vedānta, and
his Śaiva ritual manual, the Śivārcanacandrikā, under the latter’s patronage; it is most likely that he also
composed all his other Śaiva works under Cinnabomma’s patronage. This is supported by the fact that
he composed works with a Vais
nava : leaning under his two other patrons, notably a commentary on
Ven
kat:anātha’s Yādavābhyudaya (under Cinnatimma of Trichy) and the Varadarājastava, a hymn of


praise to Vis
nu: (under Venkat:a II). I agree with Rao that ‘it is likely that this connection between
patronage and scholarly activity was not incidental’ (Rao 2016: 62).
⁵ Śrīkan: t:ha’s commentary was translated into English and studied by Roma Chaudhuri (1959,
1962). On Śrīkan: t:ha’s date, see Chintamani 1927 and Chapter 1, Section 1.1 in this book. Accounts
of Śrīkan: t:ha’s theology are found in Dasgupta 1991[1922]: 65–95, Sastri 1930 and Sivaraman 1989.
⁶ See v. 12 of the ŚAMD in Appendix 2; see also v. 14.
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literally covered with gold by his patron and an endowment was established for
500 scholars to study Appaya’s magnum opus both in Adaiyapālam : and Vellore.
The composition of the Śivārkamanidīpikā : marked a new beginning in
Appaya’s Śaiva career. Prior to this work, Appaya had only written polemical
works claiming Śiva’s supremacy over Vis
nu-Nārāya
: : based on a creative exe-
na
gesis of passages taken from smr: ti literature and Upanis
ads. With the
Śivārkamanidīpikā,
: Appaya begins a new, more extensive exegetical project in
which he articulates the view that the canonical Brahmasūtras centre on Śiva as
the conceptual and semantic equivalent of Brahman, the absolute reality eulogized
in the Upanis
ads. From here on, Appaya shifts his focus from plain polemics to
establishing a new theological position (siddhānta) combining Śaiva doctrine with
the orthodox theology of non-dual Vedānta—a position he refers to as Śivādvaita
Vedānta.⁷ Although he relies on Śrīkan: t:ha’s commentary as his main textual
source in this endeavour, Appaya approaches the latter with an unusual degree
of freedom, substantially reinterpreting its core teachings along the lines of
Advaita Vedānta, the school of Vedānta he cherishes the most. In this sense,
Appaya truly positions himself as the founder of a new school. Before him,
virtually no scholar had paid attention to Śrīkan: t:ha and his Śaiva commentary;
with Appaya’s commentarial work, the figure of Śrīkan: t:ha achieved wider recog-
nition among early modern scholars of Vedānta. Appaya was not only the first
scholar to present Śrīkan: t:ha’s Vedānta as a legitimate participant in intra-Vedānta
debates of his time, but also the first to actively promote and defend the positions
of Śrīkan: t:ha vis-à-vis other Vedānta schools, notably Viśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta, as
I shall demonstrate in this book.
His work on Śivādvaita Vedānta not only earned Appaya a formidable reputa-
tion as a scholar, but also established him as a legendary advocate of Śaiva religion
in South India. Already during his lifetime, he was held as the representative of
this school par excellence: a Sanskrit copper-plate inscription, dated to 1580 and
ascribed to Sevappa Nāyaka of Tañjāvūr, praises him as the ‘sole emperor of Śaiva
Advaita’ (śaivādvaitaikasāmrājya).⁸ For his pioneering work on Śrīkan: t:ha’s com-
mentary, Appaya continued to be praised as an emblematic figure of Śaiva religion
in later hagiographies, and even as Śiva incarnate: his grand-nephew Nīlakan: t:ha
Dīks
ita (seventeenth century), a great scholar in his own right, says in the opening
of his Nīlakan: t:havijayacampū that Śiva (śrīkan: t:ha) took on the body of Appaya,
the teacher of Śrīkan: t:ha’s doctrine (śrīkan: t:havidyāguru), in this Dark Age, just as

⁷ Appaya uses the term śivādvaita to label Śrīkan: t:ha’s position (siddhānta) at the beginning of his
Śivādvaitanirnaya,
: presumably following Śrīkan: t:ha’s own usage of this term in the
Brahmamīmāmsābhās :
ya. See Chapter 3, fn. 1, for my usage of this term in contradistinction to the
more general term ‘Śaiva Vedānta’.
⁸ This inscription can be found in the Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department of
1917 (1917, pp. 15–17, 55–6) and reads: tretāgnaya iva spas
t:am : vijayīndrayatīśvarah: | tātācāryo
:
vais
navāgrya h: sarvaśāstraviśāradah: || śaivādvaitaikasāmrājyah: śrīmān appayyadīks
itah: | yatsabhāyām :
matam : svam
: svam : sthāpayantah: sthitās trayah: ||. For more details on this inscription, see Rao 2016: 49.
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: will one day appear as Kalkin, His last incarnation (avatāra).⁹ But Appaya’s
Vis
nu
Śivādvaita work did not attract only praise. Right from its inception, it was met
with fierce criticism from several quarters, including from Śaiva scholars who did
not agree with the non-realist implications of this new form of Śaiva non-dualism.
This criticism continued throughout the early modern period and to some extent
into the modern period.
Appaya was not the first Śaiva scholar to undertake a major exegetical project
backed by a Śaiva ruler. Two centuries earlier and in the same imperial setting—
the Vijayanagara empire—Sāyana : had authored no fewer than eighteen commen-
taries on different Vedic texts under the patronage of the early Vijayanagara
ruler Bukka I (1356–1377) and his successor Harihara II (Galewicz 2009: 34),
both from the San
gama dynasty. It has been shown that Sāyana’s : commentarial
work was unprecedented in scope and that the ‘image of grandeur’ attached to his
exegetical project was closely tied to the dynastical ambitions of the first
Vijayanagara rulers (ibid.: 22). There are significant parallels between Appaya’s
:
and Sāyana’s grand projects. Aside from the fact that they both authored
multiple works that were commissioned, and possibly encouraged, by a Śaiva
ruler, both wrote commentaries that could be characterized as both canonical and
scholarly. As Galewicz explains, Sāyana : wrote commentaries on canonical Vedic
texts with the clear intention that his own commentaries themselves be considered
‘canonical’ or authoritative. Furthermore, Sāyana : did so in ways that reached
beyond the ‘traditional idea of exegesis’, making skilful use of poetic literary
devices and manipulating the discourse of philosophical polemics with an imagined
opponent to convey his own personal views (ibid.: 20–1). Likewise, Appaya’s
Śivārkamanidīpikā
: styles itself the first sub-commentary written from a Śaiva
perspective on a canonical text of the Vedānta tradition, the Brahmasūtras. As we
shall see, Appaya too made use of various literary devices and textual strategies to
reinterpret Śrīkan: t:ha’s commentary in a way to convey his own idiosyncratic views
on hermeneutics, grammar, and theology, and make his own sub-commentary—
and, by extension, the school he sought to firmly establish—authoritative.
Like Sāyana,: Appaya also sought to make an impact on his immediate social
milieu with his commentarial project. The last decades of the Vijayanagara empire
witnessed dramatic changes in its social, political, and religious life. In the second
half of the sixteenth century, the Aravīdus,: the last dynasty of the empire (which
came to an end in 1565), abandoned the diverse patronage of Śaiva, Vais
nava, :

⁹ līdhālī
: :
dhapurā :
t:ambhasambhāvanāparyastaśrutisetubhi
nasūktiśakalāvas : h: katipayair nīte kalau
sāndratām | śrīkan: t:ho ’vatatāra yasya vapus
ā kalkyātmanevācyutah: śrīmān appayadīks
itah: sa jayati
śrīkan: t:havidyāguruh: ||—‘Victorious is the illustrious Appaya Dīks
ita, the teacher of Śrīkan: t:ha’s
doctrine, in whose body Śrīkan: t:ha [i.e., Śiva] descended—just as Vis
nu
: [will one day] descend in the
form of Kalkin—[at the time when this] Dark Age is made thicker by people who breached the dams of
scriptures out of their esteem for some little bits of Purānic : sayings licked and licked again’
(Nīlakan: t:havijayacampū 1.3). See Bronner 2016: 19 for more details on Nīlakan: t:ha’s praise of his
grand-uncle.
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Jaina, and Muslim institutions that had been practised earlier, and started to
aggressively commission Vais
nava : scholars and institutions. By the time of
Cinnabomma’s death in 1578, the Aravīdu : rulers had effectively taken control
of the capital, and replaced Virūpāks
a (a local form of Śiva that had been the
ensign of the first Vijayanagara rulers) with Vit:t:hala (a form of Vis
nu) : as the
empire’s tutelary deity (Rao 2016: 45). This shift in state policy in an empire that
used to be predominantly Śaiva arguably changed how Śaiva and Vais
nava :
scholars interacted with one another. Not only did it dramatically enhance
competition for royal patronage, influence, and prestige, but it also led to increas-
ing polemicism and intellectual rivalry, particularly among theologians espousing
different interpretations of Vedānta.¹⁰ At the time when Appaya started his career
under Cinnabomma, theologians of Vedānta included primarily: smārta brah-
mins, typically adherents of pure non-dualism (Advaita Vedānta) who had man-
aged the court temple of Virūpāks
a since the empire’s founding in the fourteenth
century; Śrīvais
nava
: theologians, who advocated a non-dualism of the qualified
(Viśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta) and whose influence on Vijayanagara royal agents had
been on the rise since the end of the San
gama dynasty in the late fifteenth century
(Rao 2011: 30); and Mādhva theologians, also of Vais
nava : affiliation, who
defended a realist and dualist view of reality (Dvaita Vedānta), and who achieved
wider prominence at the beginning of the sixteenth century under the leadership
of the scholar and religious leader Vyāsatīrtha. It is in this context of increasing
sectarian tensions between Śaivas and Vais
navas : and of polemical debates
between Vedānta theologians that Appaya composed his Śaiva oeuvre. One key
difference between Appaya and Sāyana, : however, is that the former’s intellectual
production was not so much a ‘project of empire’ as a project on the verge of it.
Patronized by a self-declared Śaiva ruler rather than by a patron of imperial
calibre, Appaya did not get involved with the Vijayanagara court. Nonetheless,
it is likely that his militant defence of Śaiva religion was tied to the rise of Vais
nava
:
religion in the imperial capital.¹¹

¹⁰ In her monograph focused on the figure of the Mādhva theologian and religious leader
Vyāsatīrtha (1460–1539), Stoker highlights important linkages between patronage practices in
Vijayanagara, religious institutions and intra-sectarian scholarly debates on Vedānta. She argues that
the ‘Vijayanagara court was selective in its patronage of primarily Hindu religious institutions’ and that
the ‘opportunistic flexibility of Vijayanagara patronage, coupled with generosity, galvanized Hindu
sectarian leaders to pursue certain kinds of intellectual projects as well as to form different intersectar-
ian alliances and rivalries’ (Stoker 2016: 2). Unlike Vyāsatīrtha, however, Appaya was not patronized by
the main rulers in place. The life and intellectual production of Vyāsatīrtha have attracted recent
scholarly attention; see Williams 2014 and McCrea 2015b. Appaya knew Vyāsatīrtha’s work and
engaged with it; on this point, see Duquette 2016b.
¹¹ The relation between Vijayanagara governance and religion is still a matter of debate. As rightly
noted by Stoker, although there was no state religion under Vijayanagara rule (that is, no religion was
imposed on its citizens), the ‘pageantry of the Vijayanagara state—displays of its power in the
abstract—depended upon religious symbols to a significant extent’ (Stoker 2016: 136). The replacement
of Virūpāks
a with Vit:t:hala as the empire’s tutelary deity constitutes an example of how Vais
nava :
religious iconography was used by rulers to promote the state’s authority during the last decades of the
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Likewise, Appaya was not the first Śaiva scholar to try and reconcile Śaiva
doctrine with Vedāntic ideas. Before Śrīkan: t:ha, both Bhat:t:a Bhāskarācārya (sec-
ond half of the tenth century?) and Haradatta Śivācārya (twelfth to thirteenth
centuries) had argued for the identity between Śiva and Brahman. These two Śaiva
scholars most probably inspired Śrīkan: t:ha’s own views. Appaya himself draws
attention to affinities between Śrīkan: t:ha’s and Bhat:t:a’s Śaiva theologies in the
Śivārkamanidīpikā,
: and several textual and conceptual parallels have been noted
between Śrīkan: t:ha’s theology and Haradatta’s understanding of the relation
between Śiva/Brahman and the world (Sastri 1930). A number of pre-modern
Vīraśaiva works written in Sanskrit also show a clear imprint of Vedānta termi-
nology and ideas, and share the same intention of establishing Śiva as the non-
dual Brahman of the Vedāntic tradition. What sets Appaya apart from these
scholars, however, is that he is the first Śaiva scholar to develop a fully fledged
Śaiva Vedānta position (siddhānta) and elevate it to the status of a school (mata)
on a firm footing with the other prominent Vedānta schools of his time. The
boldness and ingenuity with which he accomplished this scholarly feat as well as
the scope of his commentarial project are unprecedented in the history of Śaivism
in South India, and therefore fully deserve our attention. What drove the talented
Appaya to ‘support the doctrine of the supreme Śiva’? What were his message and
rationale? How was his Śivādvaita work received among Sanskrit intellectuals in
early modern India? What does this tell us about Appaya as a scholar and social
agent, and the complex world in which he lived and wrote?
This study puts the Śaiva oeuvre of Appaya and its reception in early modern
India into context for the first time.¹² In Chapter 1, I offer new insights on

empire. Furthermore, there is clear evidence that Vijayanagara rulers commissioned the construction of
:
Vais
nava temples that did not include subsidiary Śaiva elements (Verghese 1995: 137). Rao has argued
that the desecration of temples during the battle of Tālikot:a in 1565, which marked the end of the
:
empire, was selective as mostly Vais
nava temples were affected. The fact that Śaiva temples remained
for the most part undamaged suggests that Śaivas in Vijayanagara ‘were responsible for the desecration
:
of Vais
nava temples, perhaps as a reaction to the dramatic loss of patronage under Sadāśivarāya and
Rāmarāya’ (Rao 2016: 45). In light of this evidence, it is reasonable to assume that Śaivas would have
been active ‘defending’ their religion in response to the significant religion-based changes in state policy
that were taking place in the imperial capital. While we have no direct evidence to this effect, it is
possible that religious tensions in the capital, though miles away from Appaya’s centre of activity, may
have impacted on his decision to ‘defend’ Śaiva religion contra Vais
nava
: theologians of Vedānta.

¹² A few studies were published on Appaya’s scholarly work and persona at the beginning of the
twentieth century, notably by the Indian scholar S.S. Suryanarayana Sastri. The last decade has
witnessed a renewal of interest in Appaya’s thought. Worth noting is a special issue on Appaya
published in the Journal of Indian Philosophy in 2016, with contributions by Christopher Minkowski
(editor), Lawrence McCrea, Ajay Rao, Yigal Bronner, Madhav Deshpande, and myself. Further
publications have followed since then. On Appaya’s life and intellectual biography, see Mahalinga
Sastri 1929, Joshi 1966, Ramesan 1972, and more recently Bronner 2015b, 2016 and Minkowski 2016;
on his devotional hymns, see Bronner 2007 and Rao 2016, and Bronner & Shulman 2009 for a
translation of Appaya’s Ātmārpanastuti;
: on his work on poetics, see Edwin Gerow’s edition and
translation of the Vr: ttivārttika (Gerow 2001) as well as Bronner 2002 and 2004; on his work on
:
Mīmāmsā, see Pollock 2004, McCrea 2008, Bronner 2015a, and Duquette 2016b; on his work on
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Appaya’s main source of exegesis, Śrīkan: t:ha’s Brahmamīmāmsābhās :
ya, and

reassess the current evidence about Śrīkan: t:ha’s lineage, influences, and date of
activity. Attention has recently been paid to the relationship between his Śaiva
Vedānta theology and the theology deployed in the work of Vīraśaiva scholars
writing in Sanskrit. Although there are significant linkages between these Śaiva
scholars, the extent to which they influenced each other’s theologies is not yet fully
understood. Among other things, my analysis will complicate the relationship
between Śrīkan: t:ha and Nīlakan: t:ha, a figure central to the Vīraśaiva Vedānta
tradition. In Chapter 2, I focus on Appaya’s ‘early’ Śaiva works. In these polemical
works, which I surmise to have been composed before the Śivārkamanidīpikā, :
Appaya emphasizes the greatness of Śiva and His superiority over Vis
nu- :
Nārāyana,: based principally on the exegesis of passages taken from the Purānas, :
Upanis
ads and epics. An overall understanding of Appaya’s early Śaiva works is
key to understanding his Śivādvaita Vedānta oeuvre. Aside from the fact that they
feature core theological concepts that prefigure the fully fledged theology of
Śivādvaita Vedānta, they also reveal that Appaya was engaged with Vais
nava :
opponents early on. In these works, we begin to see Appaya’s aversion for those
‘heretics’ and ‘evil-minded’ scholars who denigrate Śiva’s worship. I will argue that
these scholars were principally Śrīvais
nava
: adherents of Viśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta, the
:
dominant Vais
nava school of Vedānta theology in Appaya’s time and place.
One of the core arguments developed in this book is that Appaya’s Śivādvaita
project pursued the same ambition of defending Śaivism as in the early polemical
works, yet in a more systematic manner, that is, by shifting the debate to the
interpretation of the canonical Brahmasūtras. Prior to the sixteenth century,
Vedānta theology had essentially been the bastion of Vais
nava : scholars. In the
aftermath of Śan
kara’s Brahmasūtrabhās
ya, four major Vais
nava-leaning
: com-
mentaries on the Brahmasūtras were written, namely by Rāmānuja, Madhva,
Nimbarka, and Vallabhācārya, the first two of which led to the formation of
long-standing and systematic schools of thought—namely Viśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta
and Dvaita Vedānta—and generated an important amount of commentarial
literature. In comparison, the production of Vedānta material by the other
prominent religious group in medieval India, the Śaivas, had been rather limited.
In Appaya’s time, the Viśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta school dominated the theological
landscape in South India. Scholars still read and commented on the works of
Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri, and Ven
kat:anātha while continuing to actively write

Advaita Vedānta, see Sastri 1935/1937, Joshi 1966, Gotszorg 1993, and Duquette 2009; on his work
critically engaging Dvaita Vedānta, see Deshpande 2016, Okita 2016, and Duquette 2016b; on his work
on epics, see Bronner 2011 and Minkowski 2017; on his engagement with the Navya-Nyāya tradition,
see Duquette 2020b. Much less work has been done on Appaya’s Śaiva work. S.S. Suryanarayana Sastri
pioneered research on this subject in the 1930s with a translation of the Śivādvaitanirnaya
: (Sastri 1929)
and a comprehensive study of Śrīkan: t:ha’s theology (Sastri 1930). Recent studies in this area include
Duquette 2015a, Duquette 2016a, McCrea 2016, Fisher 2017a, and Duquette 2020a, 2020c. To this date,
no comprehensive study of Appaya’s Śaiva oeuvre has ever been written.
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new independent works in this tradition. The flowering of Śrīvais
nava: scholarship
on Vedānta in this period was increasingly stimulated as Śrīvais
nava
: scholars were
gaining the support of Vijayanagara rulers. During the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, several preceptors and advisors to the king belonged to the prestigious
Śrīvais
nava
: Tātācārya family. In Appaya’s time, both Kr: s
nadevarāya
: (ruled
c.1509–30) and Rāmarāya (c.1542–1565) were advised by Tātācārya preceptors
(rājaguru): the first by Ven
kat:a Tātācārya, and the second by Pañcamatabhañjana
Tātācārya, a scholar whom later hagiographical sources describe as an important
rival of Appaya. It is my view that Viśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta had gained enough
significance by Appaya’s time to inspire, for the first time, a parallel Śaiva
attempt—Śivādvaita Vedānta.
In Chapter 3, I turn to Appaya’s Śivādvaita Vedānta works per se. While these
works, composed later in Appaya’s Śaiva career, are also polemical to some degree,
they differ from the earlier Śaiva works in that their central concern is now the
correct interpretation of the Brahmasūtras in light of Śrīkan: t:ha’s commentary. It
is in these works that Appaya develops and promotes a fully consistent Śaiva
Vedānta position (siddhānta) in opposition to Viśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta. For this
purpose, he relies on various textual and hermeneutical strategies, ranging from
including Śrīkan: t:ha’s position alongside other schools of Vedānta in an unprece-
dented doxography of Vedānta schools, to reinterpreting some of Śrīkan: t:ha’s key
doctrines in line with the doctrine of pure non-dualism advocated in the Advaita
Vedānta tradition, a position that Śrīkan: t:ha did not himself fully acknowledge.
Appaya’s lifelong endorsement of Advaita Vedānta is well known. Not only
did he write substantial works in this tradition, but he also remained a great
admirer of Śan
kara (the bhagavatpāda, as he often refers to him) and of his
Brahmasūtrabhās
ya throughout his entire career. We shall see that this commit-
ment not only influenced his reading of Śrīkan: t:ha’s commentary, but also—in
stark contrast with his Śaiva co-religionists in South India—how he interpreted
Śaiva scriptures and their validity vis-à-vis the Vedas.
In Chapter 4, I pursue my analysis of Appaya’s Śivādvaita works with a special
focus on the modalities of his engagement with the Śrīvais
nava : tradition of
Vedānta. I examine a number of arguments Appaya employs to criticize
Rāmānuja’s theology and his reading of the Brahmasūtras, and thereby establish
Śrīkan: t:ha’s theology as the superior system. One of the core doctrines against
which Appaya argues—developed to a large extent by Sudarśanasūri, a late-
thirteenth-century scholar who may well have been Appaya’s nemesis—is that
the two Mīmāmsās, : namely Pūrvamīmāmsā : and Vedānta, form a single unified
corpus. I also pay attention in this chapter to a little-studied work of Śivādvaita
Vedānta, the Ratnatrayaparīks
ā, a short devotional hymn with self-authored
commentary in which Appaya encapsulates his original vision of Śrīkan: t:ha’s
‘esoteric’ theology. I conclude this chapter with an examination of Appaya’s
critical take on Pāñcarātra, a key source of Śrīvais
nava
: theology.
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The book concludes (Chapter 5) with an analysis of the reception of Appaya’s

Śaiva work in early modern India. Vais
nava
: theologians of Vedānta from various
schools were quick to respond to Appaya’s bold theses; we will pay attention to
critical responses by Vijayīndra (Dvaita Vedānta), Purus
ottama (Śuddhādvaita
Vedānta) and Śrīvais
nava
: theologians such as Mahācārya, Ran
garāmānuja and
Varadācārya. If the Śaiva response was generally more favourable, some Śaiva
scholars also took a critical stance on Appaya’s work and developed their own
position on Vedānta. This is most notably the case of Vīraśaiva scholars of
Vedānta, who promulgated their own distinctive position on Vedānta in the
wake of Appaya—Śaktiviśis
t:ādvaita Vedānta.
By uncovering this intellectual history, I wish to demonstrate that Appaya
Dīks
ita played a key role in the history of Śaivism in South India in being the
first Śaiva scholar to ever take up the challenge posed by Śrīvais
nava
: theologians of
Vedānta in the medieval period. His comprehensive work based on Śrīkan: t:ha’s
commentary was not meant as a mere contribution to Vedānta scholarship; it was
a grand exegetical project designed to respond in particular to the Śrīvais
navas’
:
interpretation of Vedānta material. Thus this study aims to provide a more
nuanced portrait of Appaya Dīks
ita, the scholar and the religious figure. It will
present him not only as the prolific and bold intellectual we already know him to
be, but also as a social agent sensitive to the polemical conflicts that set Śaivas and
:
Vais
navas apart in his time and place. In doing so, I hope that this book will open
up new possibilities for our understanding of the challenges of Indian theism, and
also shed light on the religious landscape of early modern India as seen through
the lenses of the most important scholar of the sixteenth century.
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1
Śrīkan
tha

and the Brahmamīmāmsābhā

sya

The Brahmamīmāmsābhā

(hereafter ‘BMB’) of Śrīkan
tha

sya
Śivācārya is the
commentary on the Brahmasūtras (hereafter ‘BS’) upon which Appaya Dīksita

based his Śivādvaita Vedānta corpus. Although this commentary on the BS
may well be the first ever written from a Śaiva perspective, its author remained
more or less unheard of until Appaya decided to take over his commentary in
order to establish a Vedānta for Śaivas: Śivādvaita Vedānta. Appaya himself
does not reveal much about Śrīkan
tha’s
persona, lineage, scholarly affiliations,
and influences. Modern scholarship has not shed much light on this scholar
either, if only to suggest that Śrīkan
tha

was a Śaiva scholar active in South India
between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, and that he authored a single work,
the commentary in question. In this chapter, I investigate the current evidence
about Śrīkan
tha’s

lineage, influences, and date of activity, and also provide further
details on the relationship between Śrīkan
tha’s
theology and the Vīraśaiva
tradition.

1.1 Śrīkan
tha’s

Date, Lineage, and Influences

In the BMB, Śrīkan
tha

does not say much about his own lineage and teachers. In
the fourth introductory verse, he refers to a certain Śveta as his guru. We are told
that Śveta authored scriptures (āgama) on various subjects and that he was a
dispenser of liberation for his illustrious disciples.¹ He mentions him only once
more in the concluding verse of the BMB as the inspiration for writing his

¹ namah
śvetābhidhānāya nānāgamavidhāyine | kaivalyakalpatarave kalyānagurave
namah
||—

‘Obeisance to the one named Śveta, who authored various scriptures, the teacher of the auspicious
ones, who is [for them] like a wish-fulfilling tree of liberation’ (v. 4, ŚAMD1: 5). It has been suggested
(Filliozat 2001: 50) that the compound kalyānaguru
in this verse could refer to another teacher of
Śrīkan
tha.

However, I have not been able to locate any source linking Śrīkan
tha
to a figure of this name.
Partly against this interpretation is the fact that Śrīkan
tha

uses the adjective kalyāna
in other places in
his commentary merely in the sense of ‘auspicious’ or ‘excellent’, as in the compound kalyānagu
na:


daharākāśas tu svābhāvikātirohitatattatkalyānagu

. . . —‘But the space in the cavity [of the heart] has
na
various excellent qualities that are natural and fully manifest . . . ’ (ŚAMD1: 443). Thus, kalyānaguru

could refer simply to Śveta and the fact that he was an excellent teacher. Note, however, that Appaya
allows for the possibility of interpreting this compound as a reference to another guru, namely
Śrīkan
tha’s

āśramaguru, but ultimately favors the interpretation according to which the kalyānas

refer to those who bestow the fruit of prosperity (abhyudaya, i.e., enjoyment in this world and the
other) on those who desire welfare (kalyāna);
here, kalyā naguru

refers to Śveta. See Appendix 2 for a
translation of Śrīkan
tha’s

opening verses.

́
Defending God in Sixteenth-Century India: The Saiva Oeuvre of Appaya Dı ̄ksita.

Jonathan Duquette,
Oxford University Press (2021). © Jonathan Duquette. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198870616.003.0002
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commentary.² The historicity of Śveta as a Śaiva teacher is problematic. The name

‘Śveta’ does appear in the Vāyusamhitā
and Liṅ gapurāna,

but refers there to the
first of twenty-eight yogācāryas, mythical incarnations of Śiva who taught a Vedic
form of Pāśupata Śaivism (Sastri 1930: 19). Appaya accepts this interpretation in
his Śivārkamanidīpikā

(hereafter ‘ŚAMD’), though he also points out the possi-
bility that Śveta may refer to Śrīkan
tha’s

vidyāguru, on whom he gives no details.³
Interestingly, Appaya claims that yogācāryas were teachers in the Mahāpāśupata
tradition.⁴ The Mahāpāśupatas have been identified with the Kālāmukhas, the
‘black-faced’ ascetics, also known as the Lākulas, one of the major subdivisions
within Atimārga Śaivism (Sanderson 1993: 34). The association between the
Kālāmukhas and Pāśupatas in early medieval times is well documented. Several
South Indian inscriptions attest the importance of Lakulīśa—the Pāśupata teacher
to whom are traditionally attributed the Pāśupatasūtras—to the Kālāmukhas.
According to Lorenzen, one Śrīkan
tha,
possibly of Kālāmukha lineage, was active
in the Kedāreśvara temple at Belagāve in the Shimoga Distict (modern-day
Karnataka) around the eleventh century. A Kedāreśvara grant dated to 1103
praises this Śrīkan
tha

as Kedāraśakti’s chief disciple and an expert in logic.
Another grant, dated to 1113, describes the same Śrīkan
tha
as fully conversant
with the Paramātmāgama, a skillful orator as well as a lord among yogins
(Lorenzen 1991: 106–7). None of these inscriptions, however, mention that the
Śrīkan
tha

in question composed a commentary on the BS, nor does our Śrīkan
tha

refer to Kedāraśakti as his guru in the BMB.
Clark (2006: 210), on the other hand, identifies our Śrīkan
tha
with a
Śrīkan
thanātha

mentioned in an inscription ascribed to Bhoganātha, the youngest
brother of the famous scholars Mādhava-Vidyāranya
and Sāyana.
The inscription,
dated to 1356, narrates the grant of a village named Bitragu
n
ta

by the king
Saṅ gama II to Śrīkan
thanātha;

it refers to the latter as having expounded a new
Śaiva doctrine. Another inscription by Bhoganātha reported by Clark, not dated
but possibly from the same period, mentions this same Śrīkan
thanātha
as a great
poet and the guru of Sāyana.
Clark identifies this Śrīka n


tha with the Śrīka n
tha


mentioned in the Kedāreśvara inscription, but does not provide any reason for

² śvetācāryapadadvandvaśuśrūsādyotitādhvanā

| krtam

etan mayā bhāsya

m
kevalam

bhaktimā-
tratah
||—‘My path illuminated by serving the two feet of Śvetācārya, I composed this single commen-
tary purely out of devotion [to him]’ (ŚAMD2: 506).
³ Appaya reads the fourth opening verse of Śrīkan
tha’s


In the first way
commentary as a pun (ślesa).
of reading the verse, Śveta refers to Śrīkan
tha’s

vidyāguru, in which case nānāgamavidhāyin means that
this teacher taught that Upanisads

have Śiva as their main object. In the second way of reading the
verse, Śveta denotes the incarnation of Śiva, namely the first of the twenty-eight yogācāryas, in which
case nānāgamavidhāyin means that this incarnation composed the āgamas of the Pāśupatas and others
(nānāvidhapāśupatādyāgamanirmātr).
See ŚAMD1: 6.
⁴ mahāpāśupatajñānasampradāyapravartakān | amśāvatārān
īśasya yogācāryān upāsmahe ||—‘I
pay homage to the Yogācāryas, partial incarnations of the Lord, who expounded the traditional
doctrine of Mahāpāśupatas’ (third opening verse of the ŚAMD, ŚAMD1: 1). See Appendix 2 for a
translation of Appaya’s opening verses in the ŚAMD.
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this, nor does he explain on which basis he identifies this Śrīkan
tha

with ‘the śaiva
advaitin who lived in the early twelfth century’ (Clark 2006: 210). Indeed, neither of
these inscriptions mention the fact—which, if true, would arguably be significant—
that Śrīkan
thanātha

composed a Śaiva commentary on the BS. Śrīkan
tha’s

date and
identity thus remain unclear as far as the epigraphical record goes.
A close textual analysis of the BMB strongly suggests that Śrīkan
tha

was active
after Rāmānuja (eleventh to twelfth century).⁵ Several of its passages are parallel to
passages from the Vedāntasāra, an abridgement of the Śrībhāsya
traditionally
attributed to Rāmānuja.⁶ Chintamani (1927: 71–4) highlights a number of such
passages and concludes that Śrīkan
tha
was more likely to be the borrower. Sastri
also leans towards the view that Śrīkan
tha
followed Rāmānuja based on his
analysis of Rāmānuja’s and Śrīkan
tha’s
commentaries ad BS 3.3.27–30, where
Śrīkan
tha’s

criticism of views on post-mortem karman strongly suggests that he
knew Rāmānuja’s Śrībhāsya
and responded to it (Sastri 1930: 60–4). Śrīkan
tha


himself implies a certain parallelism between his views and those of scholars who,
like Rāmānuja and his followers, hold a non-dualism of the qualified
(viśis
tādvaita):

he designates his own doctrine as viśis
taśivādvaita

ad BS
2.1.14—a term most likely modelled on the Viśis
tādvaita

Vedānta tradition⁷—
and says, ad BS 2.1.22, that his own views are closer to those of the adherents of
this tradition than to those who hold the view of difference (bhedavādin) or pure
non-difference (atyantābhedavādin).⁸
Although several of the concepts foundational to Śrīkan
tha’s
theology—cic-
chakti, cidākāśa, paramākāśa, etc.—are distinctively Śaiva, his terminology often
parallels that of Rāmānuja’s Viśis
tādvaita

Vedānta tradition. Śrīkan
tha’s

use of
expressions such as cidacitprapañcaviśis
ta,

cidacidvastuśarīraka, kāranāvasthā/

⁵ Śrīkan
tha

has sometimes been depicted as a contemporary of Śaṅ kara. The Śaṅ karavijaya, the
well-known hagiography of Śaṅ kara ascribed to Mādhava, claims that a certain Nīlakan
tha,
author of a
Śaivabhāsya
on the BS, debated with Śaṅ kara and was eventually won over; see verses 33 to 72, canto
15, for the narration of this story. All evidence suggests that this story is spurious. It has been shown
that the Śaṅ karavijaya is a late hagiography (dated between 1650 and 1800 in recent studies; see Bader
2000: 5) with a strong bias for Advaita Vedānta. In addition, the claim that Śrīkan
tha
was a contem-
porary of Śaṅ kara is unfounded since Śrīkan
tha
cites a sentence from the Bhāmatī (Vācaspati Miśra’s
commentary on Śaṅ kara’s Brahmasūtrabhāsya)
in his commentary (Chintamani 1927: 69).
⁶ However, the authorship of the Vedāntasāra by Rāmānuja was contested by van Buitenen in his
edition of the Vedārthasamgraha:

‘If the text was at all composed during Rāmānuja’s life-time, it will at
most have been an authorized epitome by one of his pupils’ (van Buitenen 1956: 31–2).
⁷ The compound viśis
tādvaita

as a descriptive term for Rāmānuja’s theology does not appear in
Rāmānuja’s work but in the works of later Śrīvais
nava
exegetes, the earliest of whom is probably
Sudarśanasūri (late thirteenth century). If Śrīkan
tha
indeed borrowed this term from Rāmānuja’s
tradition, it would entail that he was active after the late thirteenth century.
⁸ These three doctrines (vāda) of Vedānta differ essentially in the way they envision the relation
between Brahman, the world and the self. The viśis
tādvaitavādins

hold that Brahman is the non-dual
(advaita) reality of everything, and that Brahman is qualified (viśis
ta)
by the insentient worldly entities
and sentient selves, which constitute as such the ‘body’ (śarīra) of Brahman. bhedavādins hold that
these three ontological principles represent entirely distinct realities, while the atyantābhedavādins, on
the contrary, hold that there is ultimately no difference whatsoever between Brahman, world, and self.
Śrīkan
tha,

as we will discuss later, leans toward the first view.
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kāryāvasthā and several others clearly echoes the non-dualist theology of

Viśis
tādvaita

Vedānta. This applies also to his description of Brahman as cause
and effect of the world. Compare, for instance, the definition of Brahman as the
cause of the world given by Śrīkan
tha
ad BS 1.4.27 with the definition given in
the Vedāntadīpa⁹ on the same sūtra: in both passages, Brahman, in its causal
state (kāranāvasthā),

is said to have as its body sentient and insentient entities
that are subtle and devoid of a differentiation in terms of names, forms, etc.
(nāmarūpādivibhāgarahitasūksmacidacidvastuśarīraka

in Śrīkan
tha’s

commen-
tary, avibhaktanāmarūpasūksmacidacidvastuśarīraka

in the Vedāntadīpa).
Śrīkan
tha

also shares distinctive philosophical views with adherents of
Viśis
tādvaita

Vedānta. Like them, he rejects the ‘difference and non-difference’
(bhedābheda) interpretation of the BS (see also Appendix 4, Section A4.2) and
holds that the Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāmsās
form a single śāstra—a position not
adopted by Śaṅ kara, for instance, and which Appaya himself refutes in his later
work (see Chapter 4, Section 4.3). It is worth noting that the early modern scholar
of Śuddhādvaita Vedānta, Purusottama
(1657/1668–1725; see Smith 2005: 425),
believed that Śrīkan
tha’s

views on the unity of both Mīmāmsās
were taken from
Rāmānuja. Purusottama

even goes to the extent of describing Śrīkan
tha

as a
‘stealer’ (caura) of Rāmānuja’s school for having appropriated the teachings of
Rāmānuja and lent them authority by using Śaiva rather than Vais
nava
scriptures.
The same view was held in more recent times by Nārāyanācārya,
a commentator
on Veṅ katanātha’s

Paramatabhaṅ g a, who refers to Śrīka ntha


as a ‘stealer from
[Rāmānuja’s] Śrībhāsya’
(śrībhā syacora).¹⁰

In light of all this, it is safe to conclude
that Śrīkan
tha

was heavily influenced by Rāmānuja’s tradition, and that he must
consequently have been active after the twelfth century.

⁹ The attribution of the Vedāntadīpa to Rāmānuja is also contested, but it is surely a work
belonging to the Viśis
tādvaita

Vedānta tradition.
¹⁰ In his Bhāsyaprakāśa

(a commentary on Vallabhācārya’s Anubhā
sya)

ad BS 1.1.1, Purusottama


paraphrases the views of Śrīkan
tha

(whom he refers to simply as a ‘Śaiva’ in this context) and says that
he borrowed the teachings of Rāmānuja’s tradition on the unity of both Mīmāmsās:
yat tu śaivo
rāmānujamataikadeśam ādāya ārādhanārādhyabhūtadharmabrahmapratipādakayor mīmāmsāśās-

trayoh
phalaikyād aikyam [ . . . ]—‘As for the Śaiva [i.e., Śrīkan
tha],

[he defended the view that] the
[two] Mīmāmsā
śāstras, which teach dharma and brahman as worship and what ought to be
worshipped, form a unity based on the fact that they have the same fruit, by taking a portion of [the
teachings of] Rāmānuja’s school’ (Anubhā

sya:

89). Later, ad BS 1.1.4, Purusottama

is more explicit and
says that the Śaiva (Śrīkan
tha

is again understood here), stealing at times from Rāmānuja’s and also
Madhva’s teachings, distinguishes his position from theirs by quoting from Śaiva scriptures that
contradict their views: śaivas tu rāmānujamatasyaiva cauro madhvamatasya ca kvacit kvacit
tadviruddhām
śaivaśrutim udāharan bhinnam
prasthānam abhimanyate (Anubhā
sya:

247). The
same claim was made later by another important Śuddhādvaita theologian, namely Giridhara (fl.
1850–1900). In verse 63 of his Śuddhādvaitamārtan
da,
Giridhara describes the Śaiva[advaitin] as a
‘stealer’ (cora) of Rāmānuja’s tradition: śaivo ’py etena vidhvasto yatas taccora eva hi. A commentator
on this work, Rāmakr
s
nabha


glosses taccora as rāmānujamatacora, and adds that the Śaivādvaitin
t
ta,
also stole at times from Mādhvas (madhvamata) (Śuddhādvaitamārtan
da:
37). See Chapter 5,
Section 5.1.2 for Purusottama’s

engagement with Appaya’s work. For Nārāyanācārya’s

reference to
Śrīkan
tha

as śrībhāsyacora,

see Paramatabhaṅ ga: 87.
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Another influence on Śrīkan
tha
was most likely Haradatta Śivācārya, also
known as Sudarśanācārya, a prominent Śaiva scholar who may have been
active in the twelfth or thirteenth century (Kane 1930: 351, Sastri 1930: 42).
Appaya quotes one verse (v. 42) from Haradatta’s Śrutisūktimālā (also
known as Caturvedatātparyasamgraha
or simply Tātparyasamgraha)

in the
Śivādvaitanirnaya,

and points out there that Śrīka ntha


‘follows’ (anuvartin)
him.¹¹ Nowhere does Śrīkan
tha
mention Haradatta in his commentary, and we
might therefore understand Appaya’s remark as highlighting intellectual affinities
rather than a historical relationship (such as Śrīkan
tha

being an actual follower or
student of Haradatta) between the two scholars. Sastri adopts this view and notes
several doctrinal affinities—such as the Viśis
tādvaita-modelled

view that Śiva/
Brahman relates to the world as an embodied person relates to his/her body, or the
view that the Mahānārāyana
Upanisad
praises Śiva—and the use of a shared
vocabulary between the works of both scholars (Sastri 1930: 319–20). Another
important commonality between the scholars is their preference, among the
several methods of contemplation (brahmavidyā) taught in Upanisads,
for
the daharavidyā which teaches the contemplation of the deity in the cavity of the
heart. Sastri holds that these affinities suggest that Haradatta and Śrīkan
tha
were
near contemporaries. Moreover, since Haradatta and Rāmānuja were contempor-
aries in his view, and since Śrīkan
tha

and Rāmānuja share a similar conceptual
vocabulary, he also holds that Śrīkan
tha
was a contemporary of Rāmānuja,
making all three scholars near contemporaries, with Śrīkan
tha
being the latest
(Sastri 1930: 42). However, such affinities need not be taken as direct evidence for
these scholars’ contemporaneity, as they may merely reflect the fact that Śrīkan
tha

was influenced by the writings of Haradatta and Rāmānuja.
Another probable South Indian influence on Śrīkan
tha
was Bhat
ta

Bhāskarācārya (second half of the tenth century?), the well-known author of
extensive commentaries on the Taittirīya Samhitā,
Taittirīya Āranyaka

and the
Rudrapraśna. In the ŚAMD (ad BS 1.4.27), Appaya himself makes a rapproche-
ment between Śrīkan
tha’s

views on the identity between Śiva and Brahman and
the transformation of Śiva’s cicchakti into the world (see Chapter 3, Section 3.2.1),
on the one hand, and Bhat
ta
Bhāskarācārya’s commentary on the Taittirīya
Āranyaka

on the other. Sastri also reports a number of parallel verbal descriptions
between the two works (Sastri 1930: 72).

¹¹ sudarśanācāryair api tātparyasamgrahe
garudaikyabhāvanād

r
s
tānta

evopāttah
[ . . . ] iti
tadanuvartinām
śrīkan
thācāryā

nām

api tathaiva matam—‘The very same example of the contempla-
tion [in a state of] unity with Garuda
occurs also in Sudarśanācārya’s Tātparyasamgraha.

The position
of Śrīkan
thācārya,

who follows him, is also exactly the same’ (Sastri 1929: 21). Appaya refers to
Haradatta’s work as the Tātparyasamgraha,

which is an alternative title Haradatta himself gives to
his own work (see v. 2 in the Śrutisūktimālā). See Chapter 2, Section 2.2 for more details on Appaya’s
quotation of Haradatta in his Śaiva work.
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