Engaging with Śrīvaiṣṇavas

This chapter pursues the analysis of Appaya’s Śivādvaita works with a special focus on his engagement with the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. It examines a number of arguments and strategies Appaya employs to criticize Rāmānuja’s theology and his reading of the Brahmasūtras, and thereby establish Śrīkaṇṭha’s theology as the superior system. It sums up the content of two key works of Śivādvaita Vedānta—the Ānandalaharī and the Śivādvaitanirṇaya—and also pays attention to a little-studied work of Śivādvaita Vedānta, the Ratnatrayaparīkṣā, a short devotional hymn with self-authored commentary in which Appaya encapsulates his original vision of Śrīkaṇṭha’s ‘esoteric’ theology. It features a detailed analysis of Appaya’s response to the doctrine of aikaśāstrya, one of the core doctrines developed by Sudarśanasūri, a late thirteenth-century scholar who may well have been Appaya’s nemesis. The chapter concludes with an examination of Appaya’s critical take on Pāñcarātra, a key source of Śrīvaiṣṇava theology.

Early Śaiva Works

This chapter is a thorough study of Appaya’s ‘early’ Śaiva works, and lays the groundwork for the discussion of Appaya’s Śivādvaita Vedānta works in the following chapters. The chapter discusses four key works, all of which are polemical in style: the Śivatattvaviveka, the Śivakarṇāmṛta, the Brahmatarkastava and the Bhāratasārasaṃgrahastotra. It offers a detailed account of their respective content, genre, intellectual register and presumed audience. The chapter draws attention to two key points: (1) the fact that these early works feature core theological concepts that prefigure the fully fledged theology of Śivādvaita Vedānta; and (2) the fact that they reveal that Appaya was engaged with Vaiṣṇava opponents early on in his career.

Reading Śrīkaṇṭha’s Commentary

This chapter introduces Appaya’s Śivādvaita Vedānta works, paying special attention to its most important piece, the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā. The chapter first discusses Appaya’s doxography of Vedānta schools, the Caturmatasārasaṃgraha, and highlights how it might have been used to introduce Śrīkaṇṭha’s teachings to a wider scholarly audience and lend them authority in the process. It then discusses how Appaya creatively reads Śrīkaṇṭha’s commentary, with special reference to Śrīkaṇṭha’s theory of transformation (pariṇāmavāda), with a view to aligning its teachings with the doctrine of apparent transformation (vivartavāda) held by tenants of pure non-dualism (Advaita Vedānta). Finally, it investigates Appaya’s interpretation of the pāśupatādhikaraṇa (BS 2.2.35–38) in his Śivārkamaṇidīpikā, and shows how his commitment to Advaita Vedānta impacts his broad understanding of Śaiva scriptures and makes him read passages from those scriptures rather differently than his Śaiva co-religionists.

Reception of Appaya’s Śaiva Works

This chapter investigates the reception of Appaya’s Śaiva work in early modern India. It begins with a study of its critical reception among Vaiṣṇava scholars of Vedānta, including Vijayīndra (Dvaita Vedānta), Puruṣottama (Śuddhādvaita Vedānta) and Śrīvaiṣṇava theologians such as Mahācārya, Raṅgarāmānuja, and Varadācārya. After a brief excursus on the ambivalent response to Appaya’s work among Advaitins in early modern Banaras, the chapter moves on to discuss the reception of his work among Śaiva scholars, with special reference to the Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta promulgated by early modern Vīraśaiva scholars of Vedānta.

Śrīkaṇṭha and the Brahmamīmāṃsābhāṣya

This chapter focuses on Appaya’s main source of exegesis, Śrīkaṇṭha’s Brahmamīmāṃsābhāṣya, and assesses the current evidence about Śrīkaṇṭha’s date of activity. It explores Śrīkaṇṭha’s intellectual background and influences, and draws attention in particular to conceptual and linguistic affinities between Śrīkaṇṭha’s work and Rāmānuja’s theology. It also provides a detailed analysis of the relationship between Śrīkaṇṭha’s theology and the theology deployed in the work of Vīraśaiva scholars writing in Sanskrit. The chapter also complicates the relationship between Śrīkaṇṭha and Nīlakaṇṭha, a figure central to the Vīraśaiva Vedānta tradition.

Conclusion In Defence of Śiva

The conclusion tackles the key question of what it meant for Appaya to ‘defend’ Śaiva religion in his time and place. It addresses in particular the tension between his Śivādvaita Vedānta work, centred on Śiva as a personified deity, and his work on Śaṅkara’s Vedānta tradition of pure non-dualism. It argues that Appaya remained an Advaitin at heart throughout his career, albeit in a unique way: strong in his belief that all deities are manifestations of the same absolute reality, he condemned attempts to denigrate the worship of Śiva and encouraged religious tolerance.

Introduction

This chapter situates Appaya’s Śaiva works within his broader intellectual oeuvre and career. It introduces Appaya’s central work of Śivādvaita Vedānta, the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā, and explains how its composition established him as a great advocate of Śaiva religion in early modern India. It contextualizes Appaya’s work within the intellectual and religious milieu of the Vijayanagara empire, drawing attention to polemical debates between theologians of Vedānta and the rise in power of Śrīvaiṣṇava religion in Appaya’s time and place. This chapter offers a brief description of the five chapters of the book, and introduces its core argument, namely that Appaya’s Śivādvaita Vedānta work aimed to challenge, for the first time, the interpretation of Vedānta held by tenants of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, the dominant Vaiṣṇava school of philosophical theology in Appaya’s time.