Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
| Madhusūdana Sarasvatī | |
|---|---|
| Religion | Hinduism |
| Philosophy | Advaita Vedanta |
| Personal | |
| Born | 1540 CE Bengal, India |
| Died | 1640 CE Bengal, India |
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (c.1540–1640) was an Indian philosopher in the Advaita Vedānta tradition. He was the disciple of Viśveśvara Sarasvatī and Mādhava Sarasvatī, and is the most celebrated name in the annals of the great dvaita-advaita debate. His Advaitasiddhi is a somewhat classic work, and most Advaita teachers maintain that all the logical issues raised by the dvaita school of Ananda Tīrtha are sufficiently answered by Madhusūdana.
Madhusūdana was born in Bengal, and originally called Kamalanayana. He was educated in the Navya-Nyāya tradition, but became an Advaita sannyāsi, and moved to Varanasi in order to study Advaita.
According to a story, Madhusūdana SarasvatI is said to have really gone to Navadvipa to meet Chaitanya, the great devotee of Krishna. But the Mahāprabhu refused to meet Madhusūdana. So Madhusūdana turned his attention to studying Nyaya in the flourishing Navya Nyaya school. He studied works of Udayana such as the laxaNAvalI, the Tattva-cintāmaṇi of Gangesha and its commentaries. Soon Madhusūdana was recognized as a foremost scholar in Nyaya. He was also said to have been influenced by the wave of bhakti sweeping across Bengal due to Chaitanya. One story mentions that Madhusūdana had, at that time, accepted the bheda-vāda, the doctrine of difference. The realism of Nyaya seemed to provide a logical basis to bheda. He soon became keen on "disproving" advaita using all his skills in logic. But at the time, since he had not done an in-depth study of Advaita with the intention of learning the details of Advaita Vedanta in order to disprove them, he proceeded to the sacred city of Varanasi. There, he studied Vedanta under Rāma Tīrtha. But as Madhusūdana studied Advaita more and more, he became convinced of the validity of Advaita. He later confessed to his Guru, Rāma-tīrtha, that he had originally come to defeat Advaita in order to refute it and whether there was there any Prāyaścitta for him. Rāma-tīrtha is said to have asked Madhusūdana to accept sannyāsa as the Prāyaścitta.
...
Wikipedia