Nīlakaṇṭha-Caturdhara and Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa

By Shashi Kiran B N

Mahābhārata

The Mahābhārata is arguably the most sublime epic poem in the world, unexcelled in its expanse and influence, aesthetic ingenuity and philosophical profundity. Moral dilemmas, economic inequities, issues of love and lust, war and death come together here in a fashion that makes our heads reel. From ugly self-love to unselfconscious greatness, from unthinkable treachery to unflinching trust, from spine-chilling fear to bone-crushing fury, from unspeakable grief to unsurpassed glory — the epic has it all. It is an intensely human story that can only be described as divine. Across numberless episodes and characters, the Mahābhārata thrills, haunts and melts us to provide a raw, ultra-realistic perspective on life that is as humbling as enabling. A veritable mine of lore and legend, the epic has shaped and sustained our civilizational consciousness like nothing else.

In order to understand the aim and purpose of Nīlakaṇṭha-Caturdhara in authoring Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa, a commentary on the Mahābhārata, it is important to examine the epic on the metaphysical plane. We can do no better than read the insightful words of Dr. V S Sukthankar:

Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa is a comprehensive commentary on the Mahābhārata. As its name eloquently suggests, it is a lamp that illumines the inner essence of the epic by drawing on the unageing effulgence of Advaita.

Lineage

Nīlakaṇṭha-Caturdhara was a Marathi-speaking Sanskrit scholar who flourished in the second half of the seventeenth century ce. He belonged to the Gautama-gotra and Deśastha sect of Smārta-brāhmaṇas. Govinda-sūri and Phullāmbikā were his parents. He was the eldest of four sons; Śiva, Tryambaka and Kṛṣṇa were his brothers.

Nīlakaṇṭha's birthplace was a village named Karpūra located on the banks of the river Godāvarī, which was sanctified by the temples of Śukreśvara and Kaceśvara. Today the village goes by the name Kopargaon, situated in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Nīlakaṇṭha went from Maharashtra to Kashi to pursue higher learning, and it was in Kashi that he authored most of his works, including Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa.

Caturdhara, his surname, probably indicated proficiency in the four Vedas. Nīlakaṇṭha himself says it is emblematic of four lofty traits: dharma, jñāna, vairāgya and vaibhava — pure, righteous living leading to all-round sustenance, knowledge informed and tempered by wisdom, unattachment to the mundane world and overall prosperity. Interestingly, Caturdhara is the Sanskrit form of Chaudhari, a family name well known in Northern India today.

The works of Nīlakaṇṭha and some authored by Śiva, his grandson, refer to these details of his personal life:

Nīlakaṇṭha's Gurus

Nīlakaṇṭha was the worthy disciple of several eminent Gurus. He was initiated into Dakṣiṇāmūrti-upāsana by his father, Govinda and learnt the Veda along with its ancillary limbs from his paternal uncle, Śiva or Sāmbaśiva. Further, he learnt Vedānta from Lakṣmaṇa, Pūrva-mīmāṃsā from Nārāyaṇa-tīrtha, Tarka from Dhīreśa-miśra, Vyākaraṇa from Gaṅgādhara-pola and Śrauta from Cintāmaṇi. He was given an elevated perspective on all subjects by the deity Gopāla-Kṛṣṇa (or a teacher named Gopāla-deva):

Of these eminences, Nīlakaṇṭha mentions Lakṣmaṇa with reverence at the beginning and end of almost all of his works. He pays homage in resounding metaphysical terms and this indicates the special place that Guru Lakṣmaṇa had in his heart:

Lakṣmaṇa was a redoubtable scholar renowned for his wisdom in Kashi. He is best remembered for his commentaries on Rāghava-pāṇḍavīya, a poetic work that can be read at two levels, and on the first canto of Kālidāsa's Raghu-vaṃśa. He wrote independent works such as Yoga-candrikā, Siddhānta-sarvasva and Parama-haṃsa-saṃhitā on Āyurveda and Advaita. His commentary on Raghu-vaṃśa, fittingly titled Advaita-sudhā, gives a non-dualistic interpretation to every verse in the first canto of Raghu-vaṃśa. This work has influenced Nīlakaṇṭha a great deal, as we shall see.

Works

Nīlakaṇṭha was a prolific author of independent works and commentaries, covering a vast span from the Vedas to philosophy, Dharma-śāstra and Purāṇas. He invented a genre named Mantra-rahasya-prakāśa, 'The Illumination of Secrets of Vedic Mantras,' in which he wrote four works: Mantra-rāmāyaṇa, Mantra-bhāgavata, Mantra-kāśī-khaṇḍa and Mantra-śārīraka. These assemble selected mantras from Ṛgveda and comment on them in such a way that, regardless of their meaning in the original context, they reveal the essence of Rāmāyaṇa, Bhāgavata, Kāśī-khaṇḍa (of the Skānda-purāṇa) and Brahma-sūtras, respectively.

These apart, he wrote —

• Compendiums of philosophy such as Ṣaṭ-tantrī-sāra and Vedānta-kataka.
• Discursive works on Dharma-śāstra and Purāṇas such as Vidhurādhāna-vicāra and Saura-paurāṇika-mata-samarthana.
• Commentaries on Vedic passages, stotras and philosophical works such as Veda-stuti-ṭīkā, Rudra-mīmāṃsā, Śiva-tāṇḍava-tantra-ṭīkā and Gaṇeśa-gītā-ṭīkā.

However, he is widely celebrated for his commentary on the Mahābhārata, Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa, including the Hari-vaṃśa.

Commentarial Tradition

Before examining Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa, it would be instructive to situate this work in the line of commentaries on the Mahābhārata.

Commentaries on the epics began to surface by the eleventh century ce, in what is generally known as 'The Age of Consolidation' in Sanskrit literature. The earliest commentary on the Mahābhārata emerged in the same period: it was authored by Deva-bodha, a scholar from Kashmir. This was followed by the works of Sarvajña-Nārāyaṇa, Vimala-bodha (13^th cen. ce) and Arjuna-miśra (16^th cen. ce). All these were in the form of localized glosses and endeavoured to annotate some thorny verses of the epic, traditionally known as kūṭa-ślokas. Theological readings of the epic from the Dvaita standpoint were attempted by Madhvācārya (13^th cen. ce) and Vādirāja-tīrtha (15^th–16^th cen. ce). These sectarian interpretations typically focused on specific portions such as Bhagavad-gītā, Sanatsujātīya and Viṣṇu-sahasranāma. In the sixteenth century ce, the polymath Appayya-dīkṣita wrote a short work to condense the essence of the Mahābhārata.

Nīlakaṇṭha was inspired by Madhusūdana-sarasvatī, a scholar-monk who had blazed through Kashi a century earlier to defend Advaita from the charges levelled by theologians. Further, he was influenced by Adhyātma-rāmāyaṇa (16^th cen. ce), a Sanskrit retelling of the Rāmāyaṇa based on a non-dualist viewpoint.

The epic itself was held in the highest reverence and was referenced by scholars writing on disciplines as varied as Pūrva-mīmāṃsā (Kumārila-bhaṭṭa) to Kāvya-mīmāṃsā (Ānanda-vardhana).

Nonetheless, between the epics, Rāmāyaṇa had received better attention at the hands of commentators than the Mahābhārata. In this backdrop, Nīlakaṇṭha attempted to do to the Mahābhārata from the philosophical standpoint of Advaita, what theologians such as Govinda-rāja had done to the Rāmāyaṇa from the viewpoint of Viśiṣṭādvaita. While his work does not strictly toe the line of what is expected of a commentary, it is widely read for the philosophical nuances it unravels. Besides, the surface meaning of the Mahābhārata is clear enough, and "does not present difficulties of the sort that would occasion a word-by-word treatment."

Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa

Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa is an important text for several reasons. First, it is the only Sanskrit commentary on the whole of the Mahābhārata that is available in its entirety in print. Second, Nīlakaṇṭha was the first scholar to collate manuscripts from different parts of India to comment on the text. (His edition is known as the 'Vulgate Text' to the editors of the acclaimed Critical Edition.) Third, the commentator's avowed objective was to highlight Advaita as the philosophical undercurrent of the Mahābhārata. Among other things, "the Dīpa is used as a guide to difficult-to-read words and sentences. It serves as a trove of realia, of variant readings, of references to other commentators, of data about vernacular languages, or of other archival features."²

At the beginning of the commentary, Nīlakaṇṭha himself explains his method and spells out the purpose he wishes to accomplish:

The Mahābhārata is regarded as a one-point reference to all questions that relate to the cardinal values of human life: dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa.³ And for this reason, it is considered a śāstra-kāvya.⁴ Nīlakaṇṭha upheld this hallowed status of the epic and explained the anubandha-catuṣṭaya or 'topical tetrad' consisting of the topic (viṣaya), purpose (prayojana), the connection between the topic and purpose (sambandha) and the person competent to study the text (adhikārī):

Approach

In order to suit his scheme of interpreting the text from a non-dualist viewpoint, at several places Nīlakaṇṭha takes characters and episodes as metaphorical or allegorical rather than literal. After establishing the metaphor, he goes to the etymological roots of important names and interprets them in philosophical terms using his prowess of grammar. This method is highly reminiscent of his Guru Lakṣmaṇa's approach to the first canto of Kālidāsa's Raghu-vamśa.

Nīlakaṇṭha relies on earlier commentators such as Deva-bodha and Arjuna-miśra, and to support his non-dualistic explanations, cites authorities such as Bhagavatpāda Śaṅkarācārya, Sureśvara, Vācaspati-miśra, Vidyāraṇya, Sadānanda and Sarvajñātmā.

A good example of this approach is Nīlakaṇṭha's explanation of the famed Manu-naukā episode. The bare story — as it is narrated in the Mahābhārata — goes like this: A fish appears before Manu and warns him of an impending deluge. It instructs him to build a boat and board it with the seven sages and a collection of seeds. Manu follows its advice and when the flood comes, he floats on the waters in the boat. The fish then appears to help Manu and tows the boat, enabling everyone to navigate high seas and endure tempestuous winds. The boat eventually reaches dry land on the peaks of the Himalaya. At the end the fish is revealed to be the Supreme Deity. (Mahābhārata, 3.185)

Nīlakaṇṭha sees in this story the highest ideal of Vedānta — the state of jīvanmukti. According to him, Manu is the sense of self that prides on its identity (ahaṅkāra); the fish is the embodied being (jīva), a form of the Ultimate Being (para-brahma); the boat Manu builds is his last human body; tying the boat to the mountain signifies the ending of primal ignorance (avidyā); the embodied being vanishes with the fish, because the sense of self is dissolved. The purport of the whole episode is this: life (saṃsāra), the effect, can go on for a while after primal ignorance, its cause, has ceased to exist, just as a spinning wheel continues to turn on its own momentum.⁵

Nīlakaṇṭha gives metaphorical explanations to other elements in the story as well: the seven sages are the life-breaths and sense-powers; the seeds that Manu brings along are the karmas; the waters constitute the cycle of birth and death.⁶

At several places in the Ādi-parva, Nīlakaṇṭha writes extensively on the ill-consequences of relying on sectarian interpretations. As a fierce champion of Advaita, he lambasts all attempts to pit one deity against another and sow the seeds of discord among the devotees of various divinities, particularly Śiva and Viṣṇu.

Although he appears as a conservative scholar, Nīlakaṇṭha makes bold to unequivocally express his critical opinions on some social and political issues. For instance, while commenting on the rāja-dharma section of the Śānti-parva, he asserts that these observations hold good to all those who are in power, who secure the welfare of people, whether or not they are kṣattriyas by birth.⁷

These apart, Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa has some peculiar aspects that have received flak from modern scholars. Nīlakaṇṭha sometimes takes the verses from the epic away from their native coordinates and interprets them in terms of the cultural setting of his own day. For instance, he identifies some weapons with military arms that were emerging in his time. Further, he uses words from Arabic and Persian to describe weaponry. (Mahābhārata, 1.19.17, 1.199.32–33; 1.207.34; 1.227.25).

Closing Remarks

We know Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa was received well in its day, as manuscripts of this elaborate work are found in greater numbers than those of other glosses. The work has even attracted the efforts of redactors such as Maṇi-rāma who summarized the essence of Nīlakaṇṭha's commentary on the fourth and fifth parvas of the Mahābhārata (Virāṭa-parva-sāroddhara and Udyoga-parva-sāroddhāra). Sadānanda, the author of Mahābhārata-tātparya-prakāśa, reproduces several passages of Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa verbatim in his work. Clearly, Nīlakaṇṭha's work was a success. It has been continuously in print since the nineteenth century and continues to be studied extensively.

We learn that Nīlakaṇṭha wrote one of his works at the behest of Anūpa-siṃha, the Maharaja of Bikaner, a vassal of Aurangzeb. Indeed, it is possible that Nīlakaṇṭha was in Kashi when the Viśvanātha-mandira was demolished by Aurangzeb in 1669 ce!

All in all, Bhārata-bhāva-dīpa remains the most comprehensive commentary on the most sublime poetic creation of India and is widely read and respected for that reason.

References

1. On the Meaning of the Mahābhārata. Sukthankar, V S. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass, 2016
2. Kāśī kī Pāṇḍitya-paramparā (Hindi). Upadhyaya, Baladeva. Varanasi: Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, 2016
3. 'Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara, the Commentator of the Mahābhārata — His Genealogy and Descendants.' Gode, P K. Studies in Indian Literary History (Vol. 2). Bombay: Singhi Jain Shastra Shikshapith, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954, pp. 476–90
4. 'Some Contemporary Manuscripts of the Works of Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara, the Commentator of the Mahābhārata — Between A.D. 1687 and 1695.' Gode, P K. Studies in Indian Literary History (Vol. 2). Bombay: Singhi Jain Shastra Shikshapith, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954, pp. 491–98
5. 'Nīlakantha's Instruments of War: Modern, Vernacular, Barbarous.' Minkowski, Christopher. The Indian Economic and Social History Review (Vol. 41), 2005, pp. 365–85
6. 'On the Success of Nīlakaṇṭha's Mahābhārata Commentary.' Minkowski, Christopher. Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia (Ed. Squarcini, F). Florence: Firenze University Press, 2005, pp. 225–52
7. 'Nīlakaṇṭha's Mahābhārata.' Minkowski, Christopher. The Enduring Epic: A Symposium on Some Concerns Raised in the Mahābhārata. April 2010
8. 'Nīlakaṇṭha's Teachers and Gurus, Part 1: Lakṣmaṇa Pāṇḍita.' Minkowski, Christopher. Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies, 2013–14, Vol. 55, pp. 33–76
9. Mahābhārata with the Commentary of Nīlakaṇṭha (Ed. Kinjawadekar, Ramachandra Shastri). Pune: Chitrashala Press, 1929–36
10. Kṣemendra-laghu-kāvya-saṅgrahaḥ (Ed. Varakhedi, Shrinivasa; Sharma, Srinivasa; Supryaprakash, K V). Hyderabad: Sanskrit Academy, Osmania University, 2009