Although today Appayya Dīkṣīta enjoys a reputation as the preeminent Śaiva polemicist of the sixteenth century, it must be remembered that he also wrote works from a distinctively Vaiṣṇava perspective, in which Viṣṇu is extolled as the paramount god rather than Śiva. This paper examines one of those works, the Varadarājastava and its autocommentary. It places special emphasis on how the poem is patterned on the Varadarājapañcāśat of the fourteenth-century Śrīvaiṣṇava poet and philosopher, Vedānta Deśika, with close attention to the (...) Varadarājastava’s use of the Vaiṣṇava imagery of the dahara-vidyā or meditation on brahman as the small space within the lotus-shaped heart. While this meditation was the central devotional practice for Appayya Dīkṣita and for his Śaiva predecessor Śrīkaṇṭha, in the Varadarājastava, Appayya is able to develop a more overtly Advaita dahara-vidyā, unfettered by hermeneutic fidelity to Śrīkaṇṭha’s Śaiva approach. The paper also considers the anomaly of Appayya writing as a Vaiṣṇava in the context of the institutional conflicts that took place between Śaivas and Vaiṣṇavas at sites close to where Appayya received patronage. (shrink)

Moving beyond poetry’s affective and semantic powers, south Indian rubrics of poetic analysis often examined poetry’s metaphysical dimensions. The poeticians of the Telugu country developed an especially rich body of work in this field, elaborating an analysis of auspiciousness in poetry and classifying minor genres of praise poetry called cāṭuprabandha wherein auspiciousness was particularly important. This article focuses on one witness to that tradition, the Lakṣaṇadīpikā of Gaurana. Previous scholars have cited the Lakṣaṇadīpikā as exemplifying this particular strand of thinking (...) in poetics in Andhra and contiguous regions. This paper concentrates on the metaphysical evaluation of poetry offered in the Lakṣaṇadīpikā as a way of detailing its sources and its place in the history of Sanskrit poetics more generally. Gaurana’s work is shown here to constitute an attempt at revising and reinforcing this analytical method by linking it to wider Sanskritic traditions of scholarship and ritual, specifically tantra and astrology. Ultimately, the paper argues that Gaurana’s project was meant to support a larger social argument for brahmanical prerogatives in the domain of poetic work. (shrink)

This article examines Appaya Dīkṣita’s intellectual affiliation to Śivādvaita Vedānta in light of his well-known commitment to Advaita Vedānta. Attention will be given to his Śivādvaitanirṇaya, a short work expounding the nature of the Śivādvaita doctrine taught by Śrīkaṇṭha in his Śaiva-leaning commentary on the Brahmasūtra. It will be shown how Appaya strategically interprets Śrīkaṇṭha’s views on the relationship between Śiva, its power of consciousness and the individual self, along the lines of pure non-dualism. In this context, the hermeneutical role (...) of the daharavidyā doctrine will be considered with reference to Appaya’s Śivādvaita magnum opus, the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā. (shrink)

This essay is a first attempt to trace the evolution of biographical accounts of Appayya Dīkṣita from the sixteenth century onward, with special attention to their continuities and changes. It explores what these rich materials teach us about Appayya Dīkṣita and his times, and what lessons they offer about the changing historical sensibilities in South India during the transition to the colonial and postcolonial eras. I tentatively identify two important junctures in the development of these materials: one that took place (...) in the first generation to be born after his death, when the idea of him as an avatar of Śiva was introduced, and another at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, when many new stories about his encounters with his colleagues and students surfaced. The essay follows a set of themes and tensions that pertain to Appayya Dīkṣita’s social and political affiliations, his sectarian agendas, and the geographic sphere of his activities. These themes and tensions are closely related and prove to be surprisingly resilient, despite the many changes that occurred during the five centuries of recollection that this essay sketches. This overall coherence, I argue, is integral to Appayya Dīkṣita’s sociopolitical context and self-chosen identity. (shrink)