Ravi M. Gupta - Caitanya Vaisnava Philosophy: Tradition, Reason and Devotion

CAITANYA VAIAVA PHILOSOPHY

In the sixteenth century, the saint and scholar r Caitanya set in motion a wave of devotion to Krishna that began in eastern India and has now found its way around the world. Caitanya taught that the highest aim of life is to develop selfless love for God Krishna, the blue-hued cowherd boy who spoke the Bhagavad Gita. Although only a handful of poetry is attributed to Caitanya, his devotional theology was expounded and systematized by his followers in a vast array of poetical, philosophical, and ritual literature.

This book provides a thematic study of Caitanya Vaiava philosophy, introducing key thinkers and ideas in the early tradition, using Sanskrit and Bengali sources that have seldom been studied in English. The book addresses major areas of the tradition, including epistemology, ontology, aesthetics, ethics, and history, and every chapter includes relevant readings from primary sources.

In loving memory

Prof. Mudumby Narasimhachary
(19392013)

Prof. Joseph T. OConnell
(19402012)

Tradition, Reason and Devotion

RAVI M. GUPTA
Utah State University, USA

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright Ravi M. Gupta 2014

Ravi M. Gupta has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Caitanya Vaiava Philosophy: Tradition, Reason and Devotion /

edited by Ravi M. Gupta.

pages cm

Includes index.

1. Chaitanya (Sect) 2. Chaitanya, 14861534. 3. Jiva Gosvami Philosophy. 4. Hindu philosophy. I. Gupta, Ravi M. (Ravi Mohan), 1982

BL1285.342.C35 2014

294.5512dc23

2013026726

ISBN 9780754661771 (hbk)
ISBN 9781315570723 (ebk-PDF)
ISBN 9781317170167 (ebk-ePUB)

Kenneth R. Valpey

Translated by Kenneth R. Valpey

Ravi M. Gupta

Translated by Kiyokazu Okita

Kiyokazu Okita

Translated by Ravi M. Gupta

Joseph T. OConnell

Graham M. Schweig

Rembert Lutjeharms

Translated by Rembert Lutjeharms

Ravi M. Gupta holds the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies at Utah State University. He is the author of The Caitanya Vaiava Vednta of Jva Gosvm: When Knowledge Meets Devotion (Routledge, 2007) and co-editor, with Kenneth Valpey, of The Bhgavata Pura: Sacred Text and Living Tradition (Columbia University Press, 2013). Ravi completed his doctorate in Hindu Studies at Oxford University and subsequently taught at the University of Florida, Centre College, and the College of William and Mary. He has received three teaching awards, as well as research fellowships at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Linacre College, Oxford. Ravi recently wrote the article on Gauya Vaiavism for Oxford Bibliographies Online and he is currently working with Valpey on an annotated translation of selected passages from the Bhgavata Pura.

Rembert Lutjeharms is a research fellow and librarian at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. His main area of research is the early history of the Caitanya Vaiava tradition, and the sixteenth-century Bengali Vaiava poet Kavikarapra, who was the subject of his D.Phil. dissertation at the University of Oxford (Splendour of Speech: The Theology of Kavikarapras Poetics, 2010). He is also an editor of the Journal of Hindu Studies.

Joseph T. OConnell (19402012), a noted scholar of world religions, was educated at Holy Cross College and Harvard University, where he specialized in the religions of South Asia, completing his Ph.D. thesis on Caitanya Vaisnavism. Joseph taught at St. Michaels College and the Centre for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto, from 1968 to 2000, and made regular research visits to India and Bangladesh. His distinguished academic career includes teaching appointments at Oxford University, Visva-Bharati University, India, and more recently at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he was instrumental in the establishment of the Department of World Religions and Culture.

Kiyokazu Okita is currently an assistant professor at the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University. He obtained his D.Phil. from the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. His doctoral research, on Vaiava Vednta in Early Modern North India, is the basis for a forthcoming monograph, tentatively titled Hindu Theology on Trial. Upon completing his D.Phil. he taught at the University of Florida, after which he was a JSPS post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Indological Studies, Kyoto University, as well as a visiting research fellow in the Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, University of Hamburg. Deriving from his expertise on medieval Hinduism, he has published articles and book reviews in numerous scholarly journals, as well as chapters in edited volumes, including Bhakti beyond Forest (ed. Imre Bangha) and Public Hinduisms (ed. John Zavos et al.). His current research examines the tension between ethic and aesthetic in the Ka devotional tradition, focusing on the works of Rpa Gosvm and Jva Gosvm in the sixteenth century.

Graham M. Schweig is a scholar of comparative religion who focuses on the religions of India. He is a specialist in love mysticism, yoga philosophy, and bhakti traditions. He did his graduate studies at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, and received his doctorate in Comparative Religion from Harvard. Schweig is a regularly invited lecturer at the Smithsonian Institution, and he is currently Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Director of the Asian Studies Program at Christopher Newport University. Among his publications are his book Dance of Divine Love: The Rasa Lila of Krishna from the Bhagavata Purana (Princeton University Press, 2005) and Bhagavad Gita: The Beloved Lords Secret Love Song (HarperCollins, 2007).

Kenneth R. Valpey (Ph.D. 2004, University of Oxford, Faculty of Theology) is a research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (Oxford University) and has also been a regular visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies Professorship in Indian Religions. His studies in Caitanya Vaiavism have led to the publication of