Dvaita literature in 20 th century

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Dear Vaishnavas,

 

The 20 th century has possibly been a period of great strides in literature

connected with the Dvaita system in Kannada. Before the advent of 20 th century

,whatever literature was pertaining to the dvaita system was mostly in the form

of songs or poetry (eg. Harikathamritasara).With the impetus given by the great

'pratah smaraniya' Sri Satyadhyana tirtha, there was a large volume of

literature produced by dvaita scholars which trend continued through out the

last century. An attempt is made here to highlight some of the contributions

with the intention of creating an interest in our rs and also

youngsters for the study of this vast amount of literature.

 

The trend setter for expounding Dvaita philosophy in lucid prose came from

Sri satyadhyanatirtha himself. His discussions with several scholars in Mysore

formed the subject matter for his most popular work 'Sabhasara sangraha'. This

book makes a very interesting reading as the swamiji has established all the

tenets of Madhva philosophy after answering the cross questions (purvapakshas)

by profound scholars of other systems as well as the younger generation of his

day(collage students). He has also written a book giving the word to word

meaning and summary of each sloka of the Bhagavadgita. Another well known work

of the Swamiji is 'Civil suit' which has a novelty of its own. It is in the form

of a court proceedings where the plaintiff is a dvaita scholar and the

respondent is an Afdvaita scohlar with their own lawyers arguing the case before

a judge who is called 'Dharmaraya'! Copies of these books are not available

today. The second reprint of 'Civil suit' was done some years back and contained

several printing mistakes. If these are reprinted and published ,they will be a

great asset to posterity.

 

Swamiji made another great contribution was in the form of several sishyas who

became scholars of a very high order. The foremost of them was Sri Jalahalli

Keshavacharya . His translation of Sri Jayatirtha's Srman Nyayasudha is

considered a magnum opus of dvaita philosophy and is very authentic. He had

some other works also to his credit.

 

One of the most popular book which adorned every Madhva family was Sri Belur

Keshavadasa's 'Bhakta Vijaya'. It was read and reread by every member of Madhva

families .Sri Keshavadas toured the whole of old Mysore and parts of the then

Bombay state and collected books and manuscripts containing many songs of the

Haridasas. He has also a few other works to his credit. he first biography of

Sri Raghavendra Swami in Kannada was possibly from his pen. It was only after

the Bhakta Vijaya came out that many people including university professors

realised the great contributions of our Haridasas and started delving into this

large ocean and collect the gems.

 

To be continued...

 

With best wishes,

 

Bannur.R

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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