Reconstructing Tradition: Advaita Acārya and Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism at the Cusp of the Twentieth Century (review)

This book, more than a decade in the making, is a tour de force on the relatively little known fifteenth to sixteenth century Bengali teacher Advaita Acārya. Advaita could be claimed, in some sense, as the “father of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism,” the devotional movement focused on the Hindu god Kṛṣṇa, which is best known through the sixteenth century Bengali figure Caitanya, understood by many to be an incarnation of Lord Kṛṣṇa himself (or the joint embodiment of Kṛṣṇa and his favorite consort Radhā). To set the book’s context: Advaita, originally from the Sylhet region now in Bangladesh, moved to Shantipura (north of Kolkata), and was reputed to be an excellent Sanskrit scholar, teaching many young Brahmin men, including Caitanya. Advaita eventually deferred to the ecstatic bhakti of his student, becoming one of Caitanya’s leading disciples. Caitanya’s hagiographies emphasize Advaita as the instrumental cause of Kṛṣṇa’s birth as Caitanya in Kali Yuga. To Advaita’s followers however, he was himself a divine incarnation, and set high moral standards still followed only by them.

One of the main interests, and values, of this book is its exploration of the nature of hagiography. Manring describes what this type of text reveals about an author, subject, and cultural context from a modern academic perspective. She discusses hagiography as a literary genre (in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, South Asia and beyond), and points out that status enhancement is more a goal than historical accuracy (though the latter may be present). She demonstrates how texts describing Advaita fit this model: he shows miraculous abilities from birth on, defeats and converts all opponents, undertakes astonishing journeys, is extremely long-lived, and, particularly true in South Asia hagiography, is himself divine (in his case, a partial incarnation of Kṛṣṇa, and, interestingly, of Śiva). She points out the important fact that often hagiographical records of religious figures are often the only ones that exist.

Manring then looks at different hagiographies of Advaita. The first on his life beyond in relation to Caitanya is the Advaita Maṇgala, probably written in the seventeenth century by one Haricaraṇa. Manring gives an extended discussion of the text’s structure and content. Advaita is revealed as an orthodox performer of great austerities and devotion, as pure Brahmin and guru, and as husband and father (of six sons). Interestingly, his name, Advaita, suggests non-dualism and his (primary) wife’s name is the dharmically conventional and respectable Sītā, though both are seen as partial manifestations of the supreme erotic couple, Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā.

It seems that after Caitanya’s death there was some tension due to both theological and political issues between those following Advaita, who emphasized brahmanic rule-abiding purity, and the iconoclastic egalitarianism of the followers of Nityānanda, another major disciple of Caitanya. (Manring does, however, also examine some of the less orthodox texts on Advaita, some sahajiyā influenced, which show him as teaching and practicing meditation or ritual helping Kṛṣṇa devotees (mañjarī) aid the lord in erotic mādhurya bhāva.) Given ongoing sectarianism, eventually Advaita’s lineage fragmented and while he remained a broadly honored figure, his disciples became a small school within Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism.

The book illustrates well how cultural change will turn background into foreground. There was a revival of Advaita’s fame and importance in the nineteenth century. Manring argues this was in part due to a desire to recover lost national heritage and prestige during a time of rising nationalism in Bengal in the face of British and Christian influence as seen in missionary schools and organizations like the Brahmo Samaj and the Asiatic Society. Advaita’s caste purity and devotional propriety legitimated and lent respectability to Bengali identity, particularly among the Brahmin elite. Manring gives a good sense...