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Minkowski, "Nilakantha Caturdharaand the Genre of Mantrarahasyaprakas'ika,'in Proceedings of the Second International Vedic Workshop,ed. Y. Ikari (Kyoto, forthcoming), and
Minkowski, "Nilakantha's Cosmographical Comments in the
Bhismaparvan," Purdna, forthcoming. More bibliography is
given there, in addition to what is found in the following notes.
3 See the passages from Nilakantha's work cited in P. K.
Gode, "The Exact Date of the Advaitasudhaof LaksmanaPandita (A.D. 1663) and his Possible Identity with Laksmanarya,
the Vedanta Teacher of Nilakantha Caturdhara,the Commentator of the Mahabhdrata,"Poona Orientalist 10, 1-7. Repr.
in Studies in Indian Literary History, vol. 3 (Poona, 1956),
52-53.
4 See P. K. Gode, "The Exact Date of the Advaitasudha,"'
48-54.
329
330
No study has yet been made of Nilakantha's placement in the cultural, much less political, historical moment in which he lived. For that matter it is only
recently that the placement of Sanskrit literati of the
seventeenth century in their historical context has been
posed as a problem at all.6 In what senses can we say
that Nilakantha was a man of his time and place? The
question is theoretically far from a simple one to ask,
but that does not prevent us from assembling some
materials for consideration.
Aside from Nilakantha's composing a work commissioned by a temporal ruler, Anupasimha, there is also
a range of bhasa languages he resorted to as part of
his commentarial method. Printz has demonstratedthat,
in commenting on the Mahibhdrata, Nflakantha made
regular use in his glosses of Mardthi and Hindavi I
Hindustani, some loanwords of Dravidian, Persian, and
Arabic, and possibly some Bhojpuri.8 Nilakantha ex-
This reliance on bhasa languages reflects a development that is perhaps characteristic of intellectuals of
his day. Some philosophers in Sanskrit of the seventeenth century proposed to redefine the status of vernacular languages as communicative systems by proposing
that vernacular languages had the independent capacity
to express meaning, a capacity regularly denied them by
earlier philosophers in Sanskrit. Pollock has recently
argued that these proposals constituted an innovation
of the early modem period.'0Nilakanthaendorsed a version of this position when discussing vernacularmantras
(bhiisdmantra)in the introductionto his commentaryon
the Sivatandavatantra."
Another way in which we might speak of Nilakantha
as a man of his day can be found in the glosses that we
now judge to be anachronistic. For example, it is well
known that in the BhBhD Nilakanithasometimes glosses
terms like yantra in military passages of the epic as referring to guns or cannons.'2 In fact anachronism has
come to be a criticism of Nilakantha generally, who in
this sense is judged too much a man of his own day.'3
In this study I would like to consider an unknownwork
that Nilakantha wrote in an innovative genre, because,
as I shall argue, this work could afford us an insight into
how Nilakantha might have thought of himself as participating in the larger cultural, and possibly even the
political, work of his moment.
MINKOWSKI:
Nilakantha Caturdhara'sMantraks'ikhanda
GENRE
THE MANTRARAHASYAPRAKA?IKA
See Minkowski, "The Genre of Mantrarahasyapraka?ika."In that work I referred to the MR and MBh as relatively
obscure, which they are, relatively. However there are many
more MSS that are not listed in NCC, but available in the
Sarasvati Bhavan, RORI, and elsewhere. Additional MSS of
the MR not taken note of in my previous count: Poleman 4378
(= Harvard 1999) (Samvat 1883); Sarasvati Bhavan 14383;
15218 (Samvat 1895-96); 16230; RORI Jodhpur (IIA) 186
(Accn. No. 9987). Additional MSS of MBhg: Poleman 3332
(= Harvard 2000) (Samvat 1883, Saka 1745); Poleman 3333
(= UP 751) (Sam.vat 1842); Sarasvati Bhavan 3956; Sarasvati
Bhavan 15078 (Saka 1796, Sam.vat 1932); Sarasvati Bhavan
15512 (Samvat 1753); 14374; Bikaner 1250 (Samvat 1594);
Jodhpur 36309.
15 P. L. Vaidya, ed., The Harivamra (Poona: Bhandarkar
Oriental Research Institute, 1969). L. Vaidya dismisses these
efforts by Nilakantha as displays of his pedantry.
16
See Minkowski,"TheSuccess of Nilakantha'sCommentary."
331
332
insertion in the text. On the KKh there are comms. by Jayarama and Vefikatanardyana,but the commentaryof Rdmananda,
who is also known as Caitanya Vana (date uncertain but not
the same as the eponymous founder of the Rdmanandiorder),
is the most widespread in MSS and the most frequently published. There is a fifteenth-century translation in Telugu by
Srindtha, a sixteenth-century translation in Tamil by Ativirarama Pandya, an early nineteenth-centurytranslation in Kannada by Mummadi Krsnardja, and no doubt many others in
other languages. The interest in the text in Bengal is shown
simply by the publication history as found in Rocher. See
Rocher, Puranas, 232 n. 424, and NCC 4: 121-24.
22 For a listing of titles see NCC 4: 124, where selections /
summariessuch as the KaiLkhandakathdkeli
and the Kgs'ikhandakathasamgraha, as well as the index, Kds'ikhandinukramanikd,
and the KaiLkhandacampisare listed.
23 Agastya's departure for the south is in the foreground in
the opening six adhydyas. The attention to other sites begins
with Agastya's visit to Kolhapurin adhydya 5, and continues in
Agastya's survey of tirthas in adhydya 6, and throughout the
Sivagarma story in adhydyas 7-24.
24 In fact,
Agastya's exile is explicitly compared with Siva's
exile in 5.94.
25
Agastya begins to long for his lost K59i in adhydya 5
even before he has left, but since Agastya is the narratorof the
Sivagarma story (7-24) and is the principal audience for the
reminderof the text, his absence from and longing for Kas' are
reverted to everywhere.
26 The Agastya myth cycle is usually identified as the vehicle for mythologizing the spread of Brahminical culture to
the south. The KdSikhandabegins with the migration to the
south by Agastya, who remains the framing characterthroughout. Furthermore,the Brahmin Sivagarma,after his many travels through all the worlds, is given the boon that he will be
reborn as a king in Vidarbha (Nandivardhana) where he will
develop the merit to go to K591to die.
27 Nearly every description of a tirtha elsewhere is completed by an explanation of the analogue of that tirthain Kail,
and nearly every tirthain K59i is explained in terms of the coming of a deity into the city from elsewhere. In this the Divodasa myth is only the largest and most sustained example.
There is an extensive literature that takes up the KafiLkhanda's
theme of Banaras' place in Hindu cosmology. See, e.g., Eck,
"Banaras: Cosmos and Paradise in the Hindu Imagination,"
Contributors to Indian Sociology (CIS) (n.s.) 19 (1985): 4155; and J. P. Parry, "Death and Cosmogony in Kashi," CIS
(n.s.) 15 (1981): 337-65.
28 This claim is made in many passages throughout the text.
For example 35:13: vindpi tapasa skanda vind yogena sanmukha Ivind vratair vind ddnaih kaSydinmoksas tvayeritah ||
29
3.105; 7.79; 32.115-16; 42.57-58; 61.118; 64.99, etc.
30
The Mantraidriraka is mentioned on folio 9v, line 1, of
the Calcutta MS. The Mantrabhdgavata is mentioned on folio
13v, line 1.
MINKOWSKI:
Nilakantha Caturdhara'sMantrakaslkhanda
333
verses.36
CONTENTS
The rationale follows the ideas developed in the previous works of the mantrarahasyaprakdsikagenre about
what makes it legitimate for Nilakantha to read Vedic
texts in his novel way, as I have discussed elsewhere.38
The rationale section of this text is different from the
earlier ones in that it is mostly devoted to solving an
inherited problem concerning RV 10.102. This is the
Mudgala hymn, the difficult-to-interpret hymn about
Mudgala yoking a bull and a mallet to rhis chariot, and
having his wife drive in a chariot race.39Nllakantha has
chosen to begin the Mantrakaskhanda with all twelve
verses from this peculiar hymn. As a way of subordinating the verses to the mantrarahasyaproject, Nilakantha
turns, ratherunexpectedly, to a problem discussed in the
old ancillary literature,concerning which there is no uniform received opinion: who is the deity of this hymn?
The Brhaddevatd states three possibilities: Sakatayana
says it is a narrativehymn; Yaska says the mallet is the
deity; Saunakasays the Visve Devas are.40The Sarvanukramaniproposes an option, either the mallet (drughana)
is the deity, or Indra is.41Nilakantha enumerates these
inherited solutions as six possibilities, and then interprets them in a way that he can turn to his own use. The
36
334
MINKOWSKI:
Nilakantha Caturdhara'sMantraks'lkhanda
335
In this famous verse, which reappears in the Rudraprasna of the Yajurveda, Nilakantha takes the term
grame to refer to Kas'.7 Hence, Nilakantha concludes,
the Rgveda itself specifies Kds'ias the center of Saiva
worship. In order to argue that the term grame refers to
K5s'i,Nilakantha constructs a series of textual homologies: this verse is equivalent to the first and second chapters of the Jabdlopanisad, where Avimukta or Vardnasi
is explicitly discussed.58In turn the Jabalopanisad, in
referring to Avimukta, is equivalent to the entire Rudraprasna of the Yajurveda,the great Vedic hymn that became a central feature of Saiva worship in Banaras and
elsewhere.59Going beyond the specific passage at hand,
Nilakanithaargues that the Rgveda as a whole constitutes
a mahatmya of Avimukta.60
KAS(MARANAN MUKTI
In fact the second half of the Mantrakasikhandaconsists of a discussion of two interrelated doctrines, the
doctrine of liberation by death in Kadi,61and the unique
properties of Kadi by comparison to any other place.
More than any other, this section of the work might
provide us with an insight into what was at stake for
Nilakanitha in writing the MKKh. Before discussing
Nilakantha's contribution, it will be useful to review
the intellectual context in which he wrote about these
two doctrines.
336
62
66
On Kuruksetra,see P. V. Kane, History of Dharmagdstra,
vol. 4: 680-86; on Prayaga, vol. 4: 596-617. There is a
Jgveda Khila verse about death at Praydga, appended to RV
10.75.5, which is cited by NC as MKKh 27. See also Scheftelowitz, Die Apokryphen des Rgveda (Breslau: Marcus, 1906),
171. But NC goes to some length in his explication of this
verse to show that death in K591is more conducive to spiritual
liberation than death in Prayaga.
67 No more than five pages of the text of 123 pages devoted
to Vdrdnaslin the Gaekwad Oriental Series edition collect passages about the maranaphalam. This despite the fact that
Vdrdnasltakes pride of place in the text, which fills 264 pages
as a whole. Ed. K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar, GOS 111 (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1942).
68 See n. 64. Three of the 33 pages of the K591chapter are
devoted to the maranaphala. The ligigarcana section fills 18
pages. Vdcaspati, who was from Mithila, devoted significantly
more space in the text to Purosottama(Purn)and related tirthas
in Orissa (135 pages), and to Gayd (60 pages).
69 See KKh 60.55, 57, 58, translated by Eck, City of Light,
331. See also S. Vijaya Kumar, "Kdgl: Its Meaning and
Significance in the Light of Advaita Vedanta and the Purdnas,"
Purdna 25 (1983): 114.
MINKOWSKI:
Nilakantha Caturdhara'sMantrakdsikhanda
evil, but also for animals, even insects, and in some versions, even plants.70
In Nilakantha's period, texts devoted to the philosophical problems of the maranamuktidoctrine grew so
important as to tend to displace general discussions of
Kais''svarious sites and legends. Ndrdyana Bhatta devoted significant space to the question in his Tristhalisetu, written in the mid-sixteenth century.71Nardyana
Bhatta summarized a wide range of views already current in his day on the question of whether sinners really
gain liberation by dying in Banaras;of what becomes of
animals who die there; of whether there are gradations
of salvation for the variously deserving people and animals who die there; of comparisons to other tirthas; of
the possibility of reconciling the claims of maranamukti
with the non-localized Veddntic teachings about liberation; and so on.
Narayana Bhatta mentions in particular an independent work called the Muktiprakiisikaor Mrtimuktiprakasa.72This text is now attributedto Sures'varacarya,the
disciple of Safikara(eighth century), though internalevidence shows that the work must have been written much
closer to Ndrdyania'sday.73The work is wholly devoted
70 MatsyaP 181.19-21; PadmaP 3.33.18-20; KirmaP 31.3 133. Also Rdm(ottar)atapini Upanisad 4.
71 Twenty-seven densely argued pages of the 244 pages devoted to K591in the Anandagramaedition (ed. Ganega gastrl
Gokhale) (Poona, 1915) are taken up with this discussion.
72 Cited as MuktiprakdSikaon p. 295 and Mrtimuktipraka~a
on p. 305.
73 The text, as edited by Pt. Sflrya NdrdyanaSukla (Banaras:
Sampurianand, 1997), includes references to the Samksepa?ariraka (eleventh cent.), the Kdgikhanda (fourteenth cent.),
and the Wisisthardmdyana (probably thirteenth-fourteenth
cent.) among other later works. The Sitasamhita and Sanatkumarasamhitdare also cited. The date of these texts is arguable, since the same name is applied to texts of widely ranging
date. It is possible that the versions cited in KMMP are as late
as the fourteenth century (Bakker, Skanda Purdna, 19). I would
suggest that it dates to the period just preceding Ndrdyana
Bhatta's. NB never identifies Suresvara as the author of the
Mrtimoksaprakdga.Suresvara is variously referredto as Suregvaracarya and V rttikacarya,but the passage attributedto him
(295,
is prtha-dakddauyan maranam tad apy atyantaguddhik~rt
305), a passage not found in the KMMP.In fact it is a variant
of a verse from the Brhadiiranyakopanisadviirttika-4.4.1061:
tathi ca maranam smrtau / Sruiyatemukp!rthuidakdditirthesu
taye saksan na bhayam sydd ato mrteh || In vs. 1058d appears
337
to the theoretical problems associated with the maranamukticlaim. Bhattoji Diksita returnedto the same problem in his synopsis of Ndrdyana'swork, the Tristhalisetusirasamgraha in the early seventeenth century.The
also
section of Mitramis'ra's
VWramitrodaya,
Tfrthaprakasia
written in the early seventeenth century, is a contemporary general work that devotes space to the maranamukti
problem.74Ngoji Bhatta took up the topic in his Tirthendusekhara, written in the early eighteenth century.
And there is a great deal more literatureon the topic from
this period, in both compendia on pilgrimage and in independent works, that is as yet unpublished.75
The authors of these works discuss a variety of approaches to resolving the implicit problem. On the one
hand there is the desire to maintain the legitimacy of
the claims of dharma and of all the rigorous philosophical, spiritual, and ethical requirementsfor the pursuit of enlightenment. On the other hand there is the
desire to claim for Kds'ian extraordinarystatus as a liberative zone where Siva himself teaches salvific knowledge to the dying. How can sinners who die in Banaras,
or insects for that matter, deserve liberation more than
well-behaved, learned ascetics who die elsewhere? Most
authors allow for the possibility of bhairavi yAtand, a
were effectively gruti in terms of the level of authority it carries. On the other hand NB does not entirely accept the position
of the KMMP concerning the fourfold nature of salvation for
those who die in Banaras-paramamukti, sdmipya, sriirpya,
and salokya. In fact the attribution to Suresvara might be an
artifact of its citation in the Tristhalisetu, for NB cites both
Suresvaraand the MMP in the same passage (295) of his highly
influential work.
74 Ed. Vishnu Prasad Sharma, Chokhamba Sanskrit Series
30, vol. 7 (Banaras, 1913). Seventeen of the 184 pages in the
Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series edition of the text: the Kdgimaranamihdtmya (166-74), the Kdfimuktitdratamya(179-81),
and the Maranamuktivicira (313-18). The discussions found
here in fact comprise the only 95straic passages in the whole
K59! section of the work, the rest comprising excerpts of purniic passages.
75 Tirthakamalikara or Sarvatirthavidhi by Kamalkara
Bhatta (grandson of Nirdyana Bhatta) mid seventeenth century; Kdgimuktiprakdganaby Laksmipati; Kdgimoksa by Vigvesvaracarya;Kii'imoksanirnaya by Visvanathacarya;Kdgimimamsi by RaghundthaNavdthe. The last of these authors, for
example, Raghundtha Navdthe (1650-1713), served at the
Mardthacourt in Tanjore.Not a few of the works listed above
were written in response to royal request. Compare Bayly,
"Death Rituals," 164-67.
338
76
MINKOWSKI:
Mantrakaikhanda
NilakanthaCaturdhara's
339
Nardyana Bhatta does not, that the punishment experiences can be brought about in an instantaneous,illusory
way.88In none of these views does Nilakanthastate viewpoints that others of his period do not also assert.
What Nilakantha adds that is new is the Vedicizing
of the discussion. That is, Nilakantha'sclaim is that it is
not simply Purdnic texts and the Jabalopanisad and
other (late) Upanisads that assert Kai's special status.
Nilakantha wishes to show that this special status is announced in the more canonically authoritative literature, i.e., in the Rudrapras'naof the Yajurveda,in the
?gveda'sverses, indeed by the RV as a whole.89 Going
furtherhe generalizes his argumentto include Vedic literatureas a whole.90
As for the Vedantic problem, Nilakantha follows the
position of some other Advaitan fastris of his day in arguing that the referent of terms such as Kds'i,Avimukta,
and Vdrdnasiis the earthly place.91When he argues that
this holds true for such terms as they appearin the Yajurveda and Rgveda Samhitis, he is innovating.
If this is what is at stake for Nilakantha, it means that
the Vedas are coming in for a very different sort of treatment. As I have argued elsewhere the principle of vedopab~rmhana,or amplification of the Veda, has been
subjected to an inversion, or perhaps subversion. It is no
longer for Nilakanthathat the Purdnassupportthe Vedas
by supplementing an understandingof them as primary
texts, but rather the reverse.92For while in the Jdbdlopanisad the secret truth of a tirtha, Avimukta or Banaras, is really to be found in a Vedantic understanding,in
a location within the self, in Nilakantha'stext the secret
truth of the Rgveda is really to be found in a paurdnika
understanding, in the glorification of a tirtha, Kail. In
saying this, Nflakanthais conscious that he departsfrom
340
MINKOWSKI:Nilakantha Caturdhara'sMantrakaiIkhanda
341
101
See S. Pollock, "Sanskrit Cosmopolis," in Ideology and
Status of Sanskrit, ed. Jan E. M. Houben (Leiden: Brill, 1996),
197-247.
102
Pollock, "Sanskrit Intellectuals."
103
S. Pollock, "The Cosmopolitan Vernacular,"Journal of
Asian Studies 57 (1998): 16-37; "Sanskrit Intellectuals."
104
Altekar, History of Benares, 45-49.
105 Cited by P. V. Kane, History of Dharmas'dstra, vol. 4:
633 n. 1448. TS p. 208. atra yadyapi visve~varalingam kim cid
apaniyate 'nyad dniyate ca kalavakatpurusais tathapi tatsthanasthite yasmin kasmim cit pijijdi karyam I... yadapi mlecchadidustarajavas'at tasmin sthane kim cid api lingam kada
342
trine, was a "site" for Banarsi fastris to work out an understandingof their own involvement in the life of their
city, a city which was a point of intersection for many
different religious, spiritual, and secular cartographies,
at a time when the political control of the city changed
hands repeatedly, and the demolished Vis'vanathatemple in the city was rebuilt and demolished again. Further reading of Nilakantha's Mantrakafikhanda in its
context could reveal to us how we might understand
Nilakantha and what he was trying to accomplish in
writing his idiosyncratic works.
APPENDIX A
ing for an excursus in the latter half of the text, and only
some of the verses discussed in the excursus are picked
up in the index. Again the internal numbering has separate numberingfor the mantroddharasection at the end,
while the index treats these last verses integrally, and
adds an additional one. Other verses in the latter part of
the text are not numberedby either counting.
In what follows I provide my own numbering along
the left-hand side, followed by the citation (from Rgveda
unless otherwise specified), and then the pratika provided in the index. I have distinguished the verses that
have the full treatmentfrom those that are presented in
some lesser way. The latter are not independently numbered. Those among the latter that are without padapatha or tripathi format but otherwise fully handled are
marked with an asterisk. Those that are given much
more rudimentary treatment have no asterisk. On the
right-hand side I have provided the internal numbering
of the text, as reflected in all three MSS. I have only
included in this list the forty-seven verses that appearin
the index. There are others that are not noticed in the
index or in the internal numbering, but none of these is
fully treated in the text in the fashion described above.
MINKOWSKI:
343
Nilakantha Caturdhara'sMantrakdilkhanda
1)
10.102.1
2)
10.102.2
[1]
||
[2]
3)
4)
5)
.3
.4
.5
[3]
[4]
[5]
6)
.6
[6]
7)
8)
9)
.7
.8
.9
10)
.10
.11
11)
.12
12)
13) 8.78.9
14) 8.78.10
15) 7.104.8
16) 3.30.5
17) 3.30.14
18) 5.34.1
19) 5.34.2
20) 1.122.1
21) 1.122.14
22) 7.18.18
23) 7.18.19
?|
[7]
[8]
[9]
10]
are agha ko nv i ? ||
parivrktevapatividyam anat 0
tvam visvasya jagatah ? ||
tvam id yavayur mama ?|
taved indrdhamasasa 0
yo ma plkena manasa carantam ? ||
utdbhayepuruhiuya? ||
*16A) 3.30.4 tvam hi sma cya-vaya0
mahijyotir nihitam vaksandsu ? II
ajdtasatrumajara svarvat?0
d yah somena jatharam apiprata 0 II
pra vah pdnta ragha[u]manyavo'[n]dhah 0
hiranyakarna[m]manigrivam arnah 0 II
?asvanto hi ?atravo rdradhus te 0 ||
avad indra yamund trtsava.' ca 0 ||
asti saptatim bharato dauhsantir 0
*23A) AiB 8.23 / 39.9 = SB 13.5.4.11
0
sapta me sapta S'dkina ||
idam udakampibatety abravitana 0 II
tad asya priyam abhi pdtho asydm ?0I
24)
25)
26)
5.52.17
1.161.8
1.154.5
27)
#?VKhila 10.75.5
sitasite
28)
1.114.1
[30A)
30B)
30C)
30D)
30E)
10.55.7d
*28A)
*28B)
*28C)
*28D)
*28E)
*28F)
28G)
29)
30)
2.33.12
1.164.16
0 11108
||
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[26](sic)
[28]
[29]
[30]119
[-3-]
[-3-]
[-11-]
[-12-]
[31]
[32]
[33]
[34]
[36]
[37]
I]
[manikarnikamantroddharah]
31)
32)
33)
108
10.75.4
10.75.5
8.6.28
[1]
[2]
||
This vs. is found in only some RV MSS. See I. Scheftelowitz, Apokryphen des Rgveda (Breslau, 1906), 171.
109 HarvardMS-31,
ASB MS-29.
344
APPENDIX B
Verses in RV order, followed by their numberin my enumerationabove. An asterisk notes the verses that also appear
in the Mantrardmdyanaand Mantrabhdgavata.
(1.1.1)
1.114.1
1.122.1
1.122.14
1.154.5
1.161.8
1.164.16
2.33.12
(3.30.4)
3.30.5
3.30.14
5.34.1
5.34.2
5.52.17
7.18.18
(28E)
(28)
*(20)
*(21)
(26)
(25)
*(30)
(29)
(16A)
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)
(24)
(22)
(MR 145)
(MR 146)
(MBhg 66)
(MBhg 96)
7.18.19
7.104.8
(8.6.28)
8.78.9
8.78.10
(10.75.4)
(10.75.5)
10.102.1-12
(#VKhila 5.1.5)
RVKhila 10.75.5
(TS 4.5.10 vs. 2)
(TS 4.5.1 vs. 3)
(TS 4.5.2 vs. 7)
(TS 4.5.2 vs. 7)
(TA2. 12 .1)
(23)
(15)
(33)
(13)
(14)
(31)
(32)
(1-12)
(28F)
(27)
(28B)
(28A)
(28C)
(28C)
(28G)