Monday, March 3, 2008

acintya-bedha-abedha darshana of krshna chaitanya mahaprabhu

bengal vaishnavism is a direct offshoot of chaitanya cult of krishna worship. this school is known as achintya bedha-abedha darshana. the basic tenets of this school is that lord krishna who is superior to narayana, vishnu and others is the supreme entity.
this brahmam has its body as prakriti and jeevatmas who are nothing but the localised consciousness of the same brahmam. this is a sport of brahmam to see itself as different whereas the pure brahmam called krishna is the ultimate reality. "un imaginable difference cum non difference is observed"
if difference cum non difference exist in the same brahmam its tantamount to considering that the brahmam is divided and unified at the same time hence un imaginable.
this is a modified form of bedha-abedha of bhaskara wherein brahmam has a form and it enjoys bliss and plays with itself , deceiving itself. this school presumes that brahmam hides certain portion of itself to itself as a sport as a child hides its hands and watches itself in the mirror. who gets liberation is a big question whether krishna gets liberation or his hidden part differentiated as jeevas?
also this school places puranas above vedas and ithihasas which is generally not the case with the vedantic method of exploration. they reduce vaikunta to a small planet like kailasha and consider golokha vrindavana to be the ultimate summum-bonum, but this school depends heavily on bagavat Ramanujas arguments to counter mayins and mayaa-vadins. if shankara's concept of "anir-vachaneeya" mayaa is not tenable , so is this achintya {bedha-abedha}.
Ramanuja's system of ubaya vedanta strikes a perfect balance between dry logic and emotional bhakti. swaying on either direction leads to imbalance. Ramanuja does not accept achintya as an answer to a question. the answer should be found using pratyaksham, anumanam, sabdam in congruence. this shows the why vishishtadvaitha is considered to be the most dangerous challenge to shankara's advaitha, for this shreematham alone gives a coherent picture of vedanta following the rules of nyaya , tarka and vyakarana at the same time placing importance on devotion thus the end result is the nectar.