A South Indian philosophical synthesis: the aikasastrya

Venkatanatha (also known with the honorific title Vedanta Desika, traditional dates 1269 1370), possibly the most prominent author of the South Indian philosophical and religious school of Visistadvaita Vedanta, attempted a philosophical synthesis that reached beyond the Visistadvaita Vedanta school, the lineage of which he was active in. This project investigates the synthesis, its range and its theoretical foundations. In this way, it also attempts to reframe the usual understanding of Venkatanathas impact on Visistadvaita Vedanta, shifting him from the position of a learned successor of the scholar the tradition acknowledged as the founder of the school, Ramanuja (9171037), to that of a builder of a new system with a different scope (ranging well beyond Visistadvaita Vedanta and incorporating much more into it) and possibly with a different basis. What was this basis? Preliminary work has shown that it was probably constituted by Venkatanathas work on the more ancient school of Purva Mimamsa (a philosophical school based on the exegesis of the prescriptive portion of the Indian Sacred Texts, the Vedas). The Purva Mimamsa had a history of long and complicated relations with the Vedanta (also called Uttara Mimamsa), a school which focused on the exegesis of a different portion of the Vedas and out of which the Visistadvaita Vedanta developed. Some of the Vedanta authors had explicitly refuted the necessity to study Purva Mimamsa and had claimed that their Vedanta was completely self-sufficient. By contrast, Ramanuja had allowed for a space for Purva Mimamsa in Visistadvaita Vedanta, although only as a preliminary for the study of Vedanta. Venkatanatha used the same strategy as a way to incorporate new elements into a reconfigured Visistadvaita Vedanta. Thus, the core of the system for Venkatanatha is no longer (Visistadvaita) Vedanta (as in Ramanuja) but the new unitary teaching of Purva and Uttara Mimamsa, their aikasastrya. Since the axis of Venkatanathas synthesising attempt seems to lie in his reframing Mimamsa into a more inclusive category, the project will use Venkatanathas main work on Mimamsa, his Sesvaramimamsa, as its key textual foundation. Of this text, no single critical edition has ever been produced and only the first two books have been edited and published. The applicant has, however, acquired some new manuscripts which could deepen our understanding of Venkatanathas enterprise and of its Mimamsa foundation, especially if the additional portions they contain could be proved to be part of the original Sesvaramimamsa.

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