A Response to Our Critics

Greetings.

The Dvaita Home Page was started in June 1995 by a few unqualified people who noticed that there was no representation of the sterling philosophical tradition of Âchârya Madhva on the World Wide Web or other forms of the Internet.   The effort was not smooth -- finding materials for the articles &c. was difficult; the resources for a website and ancillary facilities were expensive in terms of time and money and unavailable at the time; and all the skills had to be newly learned.   There was no guidance from learned elders, so maintaining fidelity to the tradition and avoiding misrepresentations was a very challenging constraint also.   There were those who suggested that a website for Dvaita was itself contrary to shâstra because it was sacrilege to expose Âchârya Madhva's works and philosophy to the world at large rather than keeping them to the qualified few.

There were some mishaps along the way -- for instance, most of the website was destroyed by a catastrophic server outage in March/April 1996.   Still, the effort held on, if only barely.   Other resources were added by and by, the most notable being the Dvaita mailing list (Cyber Mâdhva Sangha) in January 1996, and the companion website Dvaita Text Resources in 2000.   Other attempts to add resources failed -- the creation of a moderated list of scholars failed because of lack of support from the scholarly community, and the creation of a Dvaita newsgroup failed because of lack of support from the lay online community (chiefly, the CMS membership at the time).

The website has survived and has done well, to the point where most interested Mâdhvas who have access to the Internet have seen it.   Hundreds of complimentary messages about the website are received every year; so many, in fact, that we cannot even respond to each individually lest we end up spending more time on this than on development of new resources!   At this time, our main objectives are twofold -- to help spread the understanding of Mâdhva philosophy and literature, especially among those who have little or no other access; and to help clarify certain matters of contemporary interest.   It is the latter point that is most important in this context.

There is a widespread misunderstanding in re the relation -- or, more accurately, the lack thereof -- of our tradition to ISKCON.   This is primarily due to ISKCON's doublespeak on the question of their alleged allegiance to the Mâdhva tradition -- they claim it for propaganda purposes and to claim approval of their system, but they do not in fact follow Mâdhva texts and principles.   They say our tradition is one of the four ``authorized'' ones based on a spurious verse attributed to the Padma Purâna, and then proceed to reject, without refutation, most of the core tenets of our tradition such as paJNcha-bheda, tAratamya, svagata-bheda-vivarjitatva of Vishnu, jIvottamattva of Vâyu, etc.   They further claim that there is nothing unique about Madhva's doctrine, as those of Râmânuja, Vishnuswâmi, and Nimbârka all will lead to moksha as well.   No attempt is made to seriously analyze the drastic differences in philosophical positions (such as differing conceptions of moksha itself!) between these four schools.   In all, ISKCON can hardly claim status as a serious school of thought, no matter that its adherents shout its praises.   No sane person would take their claim of affinity with Madhva's system seriously after careful study, either.   It is merely a fig leaf for hiding the complete lack of traditional authenticity in the Gaudiya school itself.

However, even with all that, there would not be much cause for any serious concern, were it not the case that so many of our own people are seriously misled in respect of ISKCON -- and this includes, as we have seen, even leaders of our tradition.   In this day and age, neo-Vedanta &c., the schools like ISKCON which claim to offer something for nothing, are a more serious threat to our society than any traditional counter-doctrine.   We have come across or heard of many who, though born into Mâdhva families, adopt ISKCON as their philosophy of choice, but have never come across or heard of any contemporary Mâdhva who was swayed by reading Srî Shankara's commentaries and became an Advaitin.   As such, it would seem to be fair to say that our community as a whole needs to re-train its efforts in preserving the sanctity and purity of Srî Madhva's philosophy, rather than merely be content with the classical approach, which focuses almost entirely on refutation of other standard doctrines, and which is not as relevant to today's circumstances as it once was.

All efforts to have a meaningful discussion on the differences between the two traditions have been futile -- ours originated in the 13th century from Âchârya Madhva, with great contributions from such Saint-scholars as Jayatîrtha, Vyasatîrtha, Vâdirâja, Râghavendra Tîrtha, etc., and has withstood the onslaught of well-established and numerous rivals over the centuries; on the other hand, the Gaudiya school of Bengal Vaishnavism (which eventually led to ISKCON) originated in the 16th century, and does not have such a literary and scholastic tradition of dialectics; its allegiance to Madhva is disputed by many belonging to that tradition itself.   The present posture of ISKCON (which has gained prominence due the efforts of Prabhupada in the USA) is that while it claims allegiance to the lineage of Madhva, it does not accept the tenets of Tattvavâda on many basic and important issues.   But the publicity that has been created effectively has given the false impression that it virtually belongs to the Mâdhva school.

That, we believe, is the only justification there could possibly be, for allowing discussions on this subject on our website.   It would perhaps be smoother for us to simply ignore the issue completely, but that would still leave doubts in people's minds.   It is also clearly stated by Âchârya Madhva himself in his bhAshhya on verse 9, et seq., of the Îshâvâsya Upanishad that it is not sufficient for one to have the correct understanding; one must also clearly criticize incorrect understanding.   The fate of one who fails to criticize incorrectness, in spite of being able to, is far worse than that of the one who is merely incorrect.   Thus, we simply refuse to acquiesce in literature that says things like:

One night, as Madhva lay sleeping, Lord Gauranga appeared to him in a dream. The Lord told Madhva, "It is well known to everyone that you are My eternal servitor. When I appear here in Navadwipa, I will accept your sampradaya. Travel everywhere and carefully uproot all the false scriptures of the mayavadis and reveal the glories of worshipping the personal form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Later, when I appear, I will personally broadcast your pure teachings." The Lord then disappeared.

When Madhva awoke, he was astonished and as he remembered the Lord he began to cry in separation, saying, "Will I ever see that beautiful golden form again?" A celestial voice from the sky replied, "Worship Me secretly and you will come to Me."

There are also other instances of equally fanciful stories, which misrepresent the Tattvavâda doctrine completely, such as Chaitanya visiting Udupi and ``defeating'' the Tattvavâdî scholars in debate, etc. -- this at a time when stalwarts like Srî Vyasarâja and Srî Vâdirâja were the leaders of the Mâdhva tradition!   Appendix XII from the 3d. edition (2000) of the `History of the Dvaita School of Vedanta' by Mm. B.N.K. Sharma (in particular, pages 621 and 622) makes interesting reading on the issue of the Gaudiya claims.   We quote only the last paragraph:

``Is it not high time therefore that the Gaudiya Vaisnavas should take steps to rescind all such baseless, mendacious misrepresentations of the doctrines of M. to be found in some of the biographical accounts of Caitanya, cease purveying them and thus cleanse their stables and set their house in order? Otherwise, the retention of such misrepresentations in the biographies of Caitanya would only expose him to rank ignorance of the original works and doctrines of R[âmânuja] and M[adhva], which would hardly redound to his credit.''

There are several character certificates issued for ISKCON by some Swamiji-s in Udupi, which incidentally condemn our efforts at obtaining clear answers to our doubts as being against Hari, Vâyu, Guru, etc.   We do not need to comment on the parody of the great descendents of Acharya Madhva's own ordained disciples -- who have perhaps not even read the Position Paper and may not have the required command of the English language to do so -- rushing to print, thus lending their august support to such a dubious enterprise as the condemnation of a verifiably correct and authentic Mâdhva document by entities who espouse concepts hostile to Mâdhva doctrine.

Sri Sri Pejavara Swamiji seems to mock the carefully crafted Position Paper that was created by the scholars of his own institution under the learned guidance of the late Sri Sri Vidyâmânya Tîrtha of the Palimar Matha, and promises another statement in its stead to restore ``harmonious relations.''   We fail to understand his concern -- was Tattvavâda propagated by Srîmad Ânanda Tîrtha to achieve ``harmonious relations'' with other schools, or was it simply the Truth?   Did the Âchârya ever write to achieve ``harmonious relations'' rather than to espouse Hari-sarvottamattva?   Be that as it may, we will wait for him to come forth with his further thoughts.   In the meantime, we will continue to press this issue vigorously at all levels, and will ensure that any changes suggested are only based on valid pramâna-s, even in the unlikely circumstance that any changes are sought in the position of Tattvavâda as enunciated in the Position Paper.

We believe sincerely that our first and abiding loyalty is to Âchârya Madhva, who is immanent in all of us as Mukhya Prâna.   We are really sorry that we are being subjected to this test by him and hope that neither we nor the Swamiji-s will be found wanting in devotion or understanding.   We pray to Srî Hari and to Madhva himself that they may guide their dwindling flock of devotees through sundry temptations and pressures and continue to guide us to perform actions which are right, according to the only shâstra which will lead to salvation.   In this path, it appears that there may be obstacles placed even from unexpected quarters and even by those whom we thought were there to remove them.

We will rebut any specific charges made against us from time to time, as needed.   But for the time being we would like to request our gentle readers to indicate their approval of the course of action we have taken by expressing their opinion in suitable terms against all the dilatory and retaliatory measures being attempted against our efforts.   Most of all, we ask that all genuine followers of Srîmad Ânanda Tîrtha rise up and actively participate in the creation and improvement of resources that benefit students of his teachings -- an awakened and active community is the best safeguard there is against enemies within and without.

Sincerely yours,

Arvind Acharya
Nataraj Banihatti
Madhusudan Bheemasenarao
Krishna Kadiri
Janardhan Krishnarao
P.R. Mukund
Murthy Navarathna
Ramadas
N.A.P.S. Rao
Shrisha Rao
Anand Ravipati
G.V. Srinivasan
Shobha Srinivasan
Hunsur Sriprasad
Keshava Tadipatri
Meera Tadipatri
Manish Tandon
Madhvesh Upadhya

(The dvaita.org team.)

Postscript

• H.H. Pejavara Swamiji's message to the followers of ISKCON asking that bogus claims be withdrawn.   New!
  
• Udupi Asta Matha Letters -- facsimiles of approving letters from Udupi saints given to a website denouncing Tattvavâda.
  
• Position Paper on ISKCON crafted by the Poornaprajna Vidyapeetha.   In the footsteps of Srî Jayatîrtha, ``We say nothing more of it than that it is true.''
• A review of Prabhupada's `Bhagavad Gita As-It-Is.   Unfortunately, it doesn't follow the "disciplic succession" claimed, and hence, there is no link between Krishna and Prabhupada as stated.

This page was created on June 02, 2001, and was last modified on June 25, 2004.