Sankaradeva’s Religion: Where Knowledge and Devotion Goes Hand in Hand

The primary impression in the popular mind of the word “devotee” is a highly sentimental one. It is no doubt of someone who has surrendered all his powers of intellect—discriminative etc.—at the feet of his Lord and has given primacy to the feelings of his heart. If not of total surrender, the picture is one of a definite subordination of the intellect.

It is pretty interesting to observe how the Eka Sarana religion of Sankaradeva demolishes this stereotype. It may be argued that every religion of love and devotion has some knowledge component built into it but, perhaps in no other religion is the entire apparatus of devotion designed to sharpen discrimination and foster an understanding of the nature of entities as in the Eka Sarana faith of Sankaradeva. This is without doubt because of its base in the Bhagavata which has a conception of pure devotion that demands not the subordination of one’s intellect but, rather, the purification of it. The bhakti that is recommended here is not blind faith but a kind of Vedantic bhakti that is not only rooted in a solid understanding of the tattvas, the ontological categories, but also one that continually reaffirms and reinforces this knowledge by incorporating chunks of this philosophy into the literature of devotion.

Due to this plan of the Bhagavatic authors, the various songs and prayers, verses and translations[H1]  which form the huge corpus of the literature of Sankaradeva’s religion, all incorporate passages that are philosophical in character and which surely call for application of mind on the part of the devotee and the utilization of his intellectual powers—thinking hard, reasoning, etc. Bhakti here becomes also a (congenial) atmosphere for reflection and pondering on knotty problems. For beginners, it provides new knowledge.

The epistemic ideal of the religion of Sankaradeva is the supremely conscious personality—Krsna, who is the supreme object of all knowledge. Therefore understanding his nature and also the nature of the entities subservient to him must necessarily be an integral part of the experience of devotion.

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 [H1]the various means through which bhakti is operationalized have knowledge elements fed into them.

Determination of the Supreme Brahman the Especial Contribution of Sankaradeva

The especial contribution of Sankaradeva was the determination of the supreme brahman. Mankind’s search for the ultimate fount of consciousness has been an illusory one. Dark matter and dark energy, despite all their massive, overwhelming nature, falls in the category of dead substance. There is one word in the philosophy of Sankaradeva which captures within itself all the implications of dead substance; it is thus extremely profound in its meaning. This word is “jada” which could stand for unconscious, unfeeling, non-sentient, substance.

Sankaradeva had said that the gods and goddesses fall in the category of “jada;” they are unfeeling, non-perceiving (material) “personalities;” they appear to be conscious only due to the conscious influence of the supreme spiritual personality (the supreme brahman). They cannot talk, do, feel, etc. They cannot do any of these things but appear to do these only because they are animated by the conscious power of the supreme brahman. In other words, their consciousness is only of a procedural nature; it is not true, subjective consciousness.

The Objective of the Purana: Awakening Discrimination of Supreme Purusa

The microcosm operates through a harmonious working of the three entities of kala (time) [Siva], manas (brain) [Brahma] and purusa (spiritual personality) [Visnu]. But, for such harmony to occur out of such disparate-natured entities, there must be some master-mind to ‘string together the trinity,’ as Madhavadeva says in the Nama Ghosa. That master-entity, the lord of all the controlling entities (devas), is the supreme purusa, Lord Krsna himself.
It is to arouse discrimination of supreme purusa alone that the (anatomical) narrative of the Puranas is formulated in the first place. The entire Purana—its every chapter and verse—is designed with this ultimate objective of awakening discrimination in the mind of the (intelligent) reader.
The Puranic narrative is thus a strategy to make the reader realize the sole entity of worship, the sole object of refuge. The intelligent reader will not fail to observe that, among all the entities, it is only Hari that is emerging as supreme; and he will understand that this only is the most powerful entity, worthy of sole-refuge. It is this conclusion that is directly expressed by Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva, in their own works, in the form of upadesas and in chapters such as “The Determination of the Supreme Entity Worthy of Adoration” (Bhakti Ratnakara).
The objective of the author of the Bhagavata—and this ought also to be the objective of the inquisitive and critical reader—is to determine the supreme entity among all the entities, who alone is eligible for worship. In the Bhagavata, the reader has to know this entity by reading intelligently through the passages and piercing the dialogic strategy with the power of his intellect. But in Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva, this meaning is directly expressed.