Quotation in Early Modern Vedanta

Abstract

A recent research project, ‘Sanskrit Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism’, led by Sheldon Pollock, Christopher Minkowski and other leading Sanskrit scholars, reveals that early modern India from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries witnessed one of the most productive periods in its intellectual history. While this project explores eight disciplines (vyakarana, mimamsa, nyaya, dharmasastra, alankarasastra, ayurveda, jyotis, prayoga), it unfortunately excludes Vedanta as a scope of study. However, the cultural productivity in the area of Vedanta continued and was alive in the early modern period. A good example of this can be observed in the works of Baladeva Vidyabhusana (c. 1700–1793), a Vedantin belonging to the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition. In this article, I analyse Baladeva’s commentary on Brahmasutras 2.1.21-25, paying attention to the ways in which Baladeva quotes the writings of Sankara and Madhva. The complex engagements with the earlier Vedantins in Baladeva’s writing shows, I believe, that the Vedantic discourse was a part of the flourishing Sanskrit culture in the early modern period.