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Book Review
Research papers in philosophy
MY LATEST FOUR RESEARCH PAPERS: Dr. B.N.K. Sharma; published by the author, 4/2, Shah Building, Bhagat Road, Mumbai-400016. Rs. 50.
THE AUTHOR of the book under review, a Madhwa scholar, has published four of his recent research articles, which have a two-fold method of presenting Dwaita philosophy and criticising the untenability of rival schools of thought.
In his view, "Madhwa's mission in life was .... primarily connected with setting right the anomalies of the Vaidikadarsanas and restoring Vedantadarsana to its rightful place as a robust Theistic Philosophy...."
Hence it is quite natural that all the four articles are centred around in highlighting the theistic trends in the Vedanta tradition by setting aside absolutistic, nihilistic and idealistic perspectives of Vedanta philosophy in general.
Dwaita philosophy arose as a sequel to Advaita Vedanta and to further emphasise and promote the path of devotion based on philosophical elucidations. The dualistic trend has been consistently maintained throughout the interpretation of the Prasthana Traya as well as the original writings of Sri Madhwacharya.
While establishing the dualistic philosophy, he was necessitated to counter the non-dualisitc philosophy of Sankara. Even the latest writings on the Dwaita Vedanta echo this trend and the author unexceptionally proceeds to present the doctrines of the Dwaita system in the same way.
The first article deals with the unknown source books of Madhwa. The author answers Prof. Mesquita's contention that Brahma Tarka was a bogus work authored by Madhwa himself and passed off as an ancient authority. The entire article centres around the response to this attack.
But it is unfair on the part of the author to use abbreviations without giving the expansions for them either in brackets or in a list separately. For instance, the abbreviations such as Mbh, TN, B.T., up. Kh., B, A. V.,V.T.N., B.S.B., B.S., S, P.R. Literature, G.T., M, R, M. Vin. Tg, and A. Siddhi are used frequently and this will certainly confuse the readers who are not familiar with them. This usage reduces the tempo of the arguments launched by the author.
The second article is concerned with the validity of memory. Here too the author rebuts the contention of Prof. Zydenbos, who maintains that the Dwaita view of the validity of memory is largely indebted to the Jain theory. As Purvapaksha view, he repudiates this idea and as Siddhanta, he tries to establish the validity of memory from the Dwaita point of view.
The third article is devoted to the interpretation of the Vedanta Sutras in the context of the Arsha tradition of Madhwa, which "provides the key to integrating the seeming polytheism of the Pantheon with an overall conception of one Sarvanamavan."
Frequently the author emphasises this view. Since Sankara's commentaries were in the line of historical personages confining to the Upanishads alone, the forgotten Arsha tradition was revived by Madhwa.
The fourth article is an approbation of Madhwa's writings for maintaining decorum and discipline in the use of controversial language against the style of writing by Madhusudana and Brahmananda who, according to the author, freely indulge in invective rhetoric, discourtesy, derision and abusive language.
This book suffers from the absence of an index. Ironically the author himself laments that the edition of Maheswaran Nair's Nyayamrta suffers from want of a perspective index.
But except giving a list of his own books, the author has not provided a subject index to this small book. As an appendix, the discussion on the date of Madhwa has been included. Scholars of Vedantic schools may further ponder over the contents of this book.
R. GOPALAKRISHNAN
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