[Advaita-l] Gudharthadipika of Madhusudana Sarasvati

[V Subrahmanian]

Sri Saha had sent this query to the Bharatiya Vidwat Parishad group
recently and I had replied thus:

This could be of help in determining:

योगास्त्रयो मया प्रोक्ता नॄणां श्रेयोविधित्सया । *
ज्ञानं कर्म च भक्तिश्च*  नान्योपायोऽस्ति कर्हिचित॥ (११.२०.६)

Three yogas have been instructed by Me for the emancipation of men.  They
are Jnana, karma and bhakti.  There is no other means apart from these
three.

This appears in the Uddhavagita portion of the SrimadbhAgavatam)

Also in the Bhagavatdgita 4th chapter beginning itself the Lord has said:

इमं विवस्वते योगं प्रोक्तवानहमव्ययम् ।
विवस्वान् मनवे प्राह मनुरिक्ष्वाकवेऽब्रवीत् ॥

स कालेनेह महता योगो नष्टः परन्तप ।

And सर्वे वेदा यत्पदमामनन्ति....in the Bh.Gita itself.

>From all this we can say that the Veda itself has the three-fold upAya
consisting of karma, bhakti and jnanam for moksha.  All these are to be
taken as One and not each as a separate upAya for moksha.

So, I think the three-fold division is already there, as approved by
Bhagavan, and that is the tradition all the Acharyas follow, including
Madhusudana.

Regards
subrahmanian.v


On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 2:39 PM, <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Madhusudana says that he gets the idea of dividing Gita in to three parts
>  from the Vedas. So, it is fair to say that it is based on tripartite Vedas.
>
> It is also in line with the advaita tradition. Debatable but Sankara also
> treats bhakti as a separate path bordering on karma at sadhana stage and
> jnana at the sadhya stage. Both Sankara and Madhusudana treat bhakti as the
> prime mover for performing karma and acquiring jnana. You may want to look
> at Sridhara's position also in this regard. He had a big influence on all
> though Madhusudana maintained his originality.
>
> The gaudiya vaishnavas were inspired by Madhusudana's idea as it gave
> bhakti a central position. Both Visvanath and Baladev follow this scheme.
> Baladev even verbatim uses Madhusudana differing only on specifics.
>
> Do Ramanuja and Madhwa use tripartite division of Gita? I thought they mix
> all three in to one integrated process.
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: saha niranjan <sahaniranjan at yahoo.co.in>
> Sender: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:35:24
> To: <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Reply-To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
>         <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Subject: [Advaita-l] Gudharthadipika of Madhusudana Sarasvati
>
>
>
> Dear Scholars,
>
> Namaskaram! Could any one get me clarified the following.
>
> In the introductory verse  4 of the Gudharthadipika, Madhusudana has
> termed the Vedas tripartite having karma, upasana, and jnana kandas
> respectively and mentioned the Gita too as having three kandas in 18
> chapters
> accordingly. It is said that Sayanacarya in his Vedabhasya has also
> divided the
> Vedas into three parts , though the division into karma and jnana kands may
> seem to be explicit and bhakti or upasana kanda may be the corollary of the
> jnana kanda there. And it has been a tradition to consider the Vedas as
> having
> three parts even before the advent of Sankara.
>
> Yamuna, Ramanuja, Keshavakashmiribhatta (1510 CE. Like Sankara, he
> describes
> the Gita as the essence of the entire Vedic lore), Nilakantha (16th
> century CE)
> etc. too have divided the Gita into three parts, though none of them have
> mentioned that the tripartite Gita coressponds to the tripartite Vedas.
>
>
>
> So, can it be said that Madhusudana has borrowed the idea of tripartite
> Vedas
> from the tradition or from Sayana in order to make the Gita tripartite?
> or, it
> is Madhusudana's noble approach to the Gita?
>
>
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Niranjan Saha
>
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