Reconstructing tradition: Advaita Ācārya and Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism ath the cusp of the twentieth century

Reconstructing Tradition explores the devotional Hindu Krishnaite revival of the 15th and 16th centuries and its persistence into modern times through an examination of one of its principal figures, Advaita Acarya. He was the subject of several texts, and Manring considers all of them in terms of changing historical, social, and sectarian contexts.Rebecca Manring considers the role of hagiography in one school of Bengali Vaisnavism against the backdrop of regional religious history, examining the ways in which Advaita Acarya followers designed and used his life story for political and religious purposes. (January 2006)

Advaita Acarya was one of the leading figures in the genesis of the Bengali Vaisnava movement in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Though crucial to the movement's origins, Advaita's standing among subsequent generations of Bengali Vaisnavas began to fade, only to be reestablished once again during the nineteenth century. In her groundbreaking study, Rebecca Manring examines the ways in which Advaita's followers used his life story to define, preserve, and reconstruct a political and religious movement. Manring's illuminating and detailed readings of Middle Bengali and Sanskrit texts reveal the evolving hagiographical traditions concerning Advaita. Her work also presents new perspectives on theological issues within the Bengali Vaisnava tradition, the role of sacred biography, and the religious history of South Asia.

Advaita rose to prominence as the older teacher and right-hand man to Caitanya, the founder of the Vaisnava movement. As a Brahman, Advaita also helped the movement gain acceptance among the religious establishment. However, his school and its promotion of conservative brahman values began to lose adherents in the next generation as other, less tradition-bound groups came to the fore. In the late nineteenth century his followers reasserted their place in Bengali Vaisnavism by demonstrating, through their hagiographies, that they alone represented Caitanya's, and hence Advaita's, original vision and that they alone had kept it untainted despite the potential for contamination from external forces. Manring analyzes how members of Advaita's school used established imagery and techniques to sustain their claim for the religious superiority of an individual andrecreated themselves in light of the changing political and social contexts of nineteenth-century Bengal.

Advaita Acarya was one of the leading figures in the genesis of the Bengali Vaisnava movement in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Though crucial to the movement's origins, Advaita's standing among subsequent generations of Bengali Vaisnavas began to fade, only to be reestablished once again during the nineteenth century. In her groundbreaking study, Rebecca Manring examines the ways in which Advaita's followers used his life story to define, preserve, and reconstruct a political and religious movement. Manring's illuminating and detailed readings of Middle Bengali and Sanskrit texts reveal the evolving hagiographical traditions concerning Advaita. Her work also presents new perspectives on theological issues within the Bengali Vaisnava tradition, the role of sacred biography, and the religious history of South Asia.Advaita rose to prominence as the older teacher and right-hand man to Caitanya, the founder of the Vaisnava movement. As a Brahman, Advaita also helped the movement gain acceptance among the religious establishment. However, his school and its promotion of conservative brahman values began to lose adherents in the next generation as other, less tradition-bound groups came to the fore. In the late nineteenth century his followers reasserted their place in Bengali Vaisnavism by demonstrating, through their hagiographies, that they alone represented Caitanya's, and hence Advaita's, original vision and that they alone had kept it untainted despite the potential for contamination from external forces. Manring analyzes how members of Advaita's school used established imagery and techniques to sustain their claim for the religious superiority of an individual and recreated themselves in light of the changing political and social contexts of nineteenth-century Bengal. Fabricating Tradition explores the devotional Hindu Krishnaite revival of the 15th and 16th centuries and its persistence into modern times through an examination of one of its principal figures, Advaita Acharya. He was the subject of several texts, and Manring considers all of them in terms of changing historical, social, and sectarian contexts. The movement of which Advaita was a part advocated equal access to salvation by all, regardess of class; yet Advaita himself was a high-class Brahman. "Advaita" itself means "non-dual"; yet the movement was inherently dualistic. These conflicts are brought out in greater or lesser degrees in the various hagiographies and thus raise a number of issues for understanding this movement and Indian religion generally. A major revival of the tradition in the late nineteenth century was a response to polemical attacks by British rulers and Christian missionaries, and the book discusses how a tradition appropriates useful themes and images to recreate itself in a new socio-political climate. The postcolonial implications and changing social and historical contexts of the Advaita texts will make this work the text of choice for Hindu hagiography. "Advaita Acarya was one of the leading figures in the genesis of the Bengali Vaisnava movement in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this study, Rebecca Manring examines the ways in which Advaita's followers used his life story to define, preserve, and reconstruct a political and religious movement. Manring's detailed readings of Middle Bengali and Sanskrit texts reveal the evolving hagiographical traditions concerning Advaita. Her work also presents new perspectives on theological issues within the Bengali Vaisnava tradition, the role of sacred biography, and the religious history of South Asia."--BOOK JACKET frontcover......Page 1 Contents......Page 4 Acknowledgments......Page 5 Notes on Transliteration......Page 11 Introduction......Page 13 The Birth of an Image ......Page 29 Advaita Acarya: A New Imminence ......Page 56 Variant Messages: Non hagiographical Texts Treating Advaita Acarya ......Page 88 Revival and return......Page 115 Another "Black Forgery" or Mere Play?......Page 140 Advaita Prakasa......Page 173 Sita Devi: Gateway to the Future ......Page 213 Advaita Acarya Today ......Page 240 Conclusions......Page 252 Notes......Page 273 Bibliography......Page 304 Index......Page 317 backcover......Page 324