Diksha in the Chaitanya Tradition: Authority and Lineage — Part 3
Padma-purāṇa
The concept of the “Four Sampradāyas” is touched upon in another 16th-century source, the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā by Kavikarṇapūra, a poet, playwright and follower of Caitanya. The date of composition of the work is 1576. The Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā is older than the earliest writings of Rāmānanda’s followers that mention the concept of the “Four Sampradāyas”: the Bhaktamāl of Nābhadās and the Pīpā-parchaī of Anantadās.
Kavikarṇapūra was born in 1524, ten years before Caitanya’s death. Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā consists of 220 stanzas (depending on the manuscript). Most of the stanzas (śloka) are quite short in size. Sometimes there are long ones, and some are quotations from other works. The concept of the “Four Sampradāyas” is mentioned in stanza 21. More specifically, the stanza quotes the existence of four Vaiṣṇava-Sampradāyas, allegedly from the Padma-purāṇa:
“In the age of Kali the four sampradāyas — Śrī, Brahmā, Rudra, and Sanaka — will appear, so says the Padma-purāṇa. ‘In Kali, four founders will appear: the Śrī, Brahmā, Rudra, and Sanaka — the Vaiṣṇavas who purīfy the earth.’”
A similar passage, also attributed to the Padma-purāṇa, is quoted by Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa (18th century) in the Prameya-ratnāvalī 1.4:
“Mantras [received] outside the sampradāya are fruitless, so in kali-yuga the founders of the four sampradāyas will appear — Śrī, Brahmā, Rudra, and Sanaka, the Vaiṣṇavas who purīfy the earth. In the kali-yuga they will appear in Puruṣottama’s Utkal (Orissa). Śrī has chosen Rāmānuja, Brahmā has chosen Madhvācārya, Rudra has chosen Viṣṇuswāmī, and four [Kumāras] has chosen Nimbāditya.”
What is wrong with the quotations?
1. The quotations are different from each other. They have only one sentence in common: ataḥ kalau bhaviṣyanti catvāraḥ sampradāyinaḥ śrī-brahma-rudra-sanakā vaiṣṇavāḥ kṣitipāvanāḥ. (“In the age of Kali the four sampradāyas will appear. Śrī, Brahmā, Rudra and Sanaka — the Vaiṣṇavas who purīfy the earth”).
Neither the mantras, nor the founders, nor the places of origin of the traditions are mentioned in the quotation from the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā.
2. The quotations are missing in all known editions of the Padma-purāṇa. But compared to other flaws, the lack of excerpts in the editions we know of is not a big problem. After all, some śāstras disappear over time.
3. The very idea of the truth of all the teachings at once seems strange. In the Tattvavāda school, the quotations and the concept of the “Four Sampradāyas” is considered a fabrication and fantasy. The quotations make it sound as if the different schools of Vedānta, debating from its inception to this day about the correct interpretation of śruti, are equally true and authoritative despite fundamental disagreements. It smacks of the New Age idea that all paths lead to the same thing. An idea actually quite contrary to the Vaiṣṇavism of Caitanya and Madhva.
4. In the quotation from the Prameya-ratnāvalī, Orissa (hyutkale puruṣottamāt) is given as the place of origin of the traditions. In the Maṇi-mañjarī, Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍitācārya states that Madhva’s guru-paramparā has its roots in the succession of Sanakādins. In those days, the Sanakādins were persecuted by the followers of the then dominant Śaṃkara doctrine and school. Because of the persecution, the Sanakādins had to migrate many times. From North India, their path lay through many kingdoms, realms, through Orissa, Andhra etc. to Karnataka, where they settled in the Udupi area. The path to Udupi passes through many lands and villages. Orissa is just one of the intermediate points. Madhvācārya was born at Tulunadu, on the opposite coast of India from Orissa, near Udupi. As far as the place of origin of the Madhva-Sampradāya and the Madhva teachings are concerned, they certainly did not originate in Orissa. Madhva had not even been to Orissa, let alone formed and proclaimed his teachings there.
5. The designation “Brahma-Sampradāya” as applied to the Madhva school is not found in the works of Madhva himself and his followers, as well as their opponents. Everything indicates that the designation “Brahma-Sampradāya” appeared together with the concept of “Four Sampradāyas” in the 16th century in the north of India. Madhva also did not favour Brahmā so that they can be at least formally linked to each other.
6. The above “quotations” claim that Brahmā’s sons, led by Sanaka (sanakādi), are considered to be the founders of the Nimbārka-Sampradāya, called Sanaka-Sampradāya in North India. However, in the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā, Kavikarṇapūra presents Brahmā’s sons as the four Purī companions of Caitanya: Kāśīnātha, Lokanātha, Śrīnātha and Rāmanātha, and does not associate them with the founding of the Nimbārka-Sampradāya, contrary to North Indian tradition.
7. In his commentary on the Bhāgavata-purāṇa 4.22.4, Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda states that the four Kumāras are the spiritual masters of one of the Vaiṣṇava-Sampradāyas: “The four Kumāras are paramparā spiritual masters of the Vaiṣṇava sampradāya. Out of the four sampradāyas, namely Brahma sampradāya, Śrī sampradāya, Kumāra sampradāya and Rudra sampradāya, the disciplic succession of spiritual master to disciple known as the Kumāra sampradāya is coming down from the four Kumāras.” Prabhupāda separates the Brahma-Sampradāya and the Kumāra-Sampradāya, i.e., Sanaka-Sampradāya. Unlike the Madhva school, which claims to derive its sampradāya from the Kumāras.
The fact that Brahmā chose Madhva as the founder of the Madhva-Sampradāya, as the “quotations” suggests, is not known in the Madhva-Sampradāya, nor is there any legends about it.
In 2014-2015, I interviewed the paṇḍitas of the Madhva-Sampradāya, including the leading ācārya of that school, Bannanje Govindācārya. All of them unanimously said that the designation “Brahma-Sampradāya” has nothing to do with the Madhva-Sampradāya and is not found in the works of the ācāryas of this tradition.
In addition to the concept of the “Four Sampradāyas”, there is a fragment (22) that consist of ten stanzas in the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā (the numbering is essentially unimportant) describing the disciplic succession (guru-paramparā) of Caitanya school, of which Madhva and his followers are the links. The fragment about the paramparā clearly does not fit into the narrative of the entire work, which projects the transcendental Vraj onto the earthly city of Purī. For Kavikarṇapūra, Purī is a reflection of the heavenly Vṛndāvana, and Caitanya’s Purī environment is an analogue of Kṛṣṇa’s environment.
Purī Vaiṣṇavas are superior to all others (mahattarāḥ, 16). However, in the stanzas on paramparā, Vṛndāvana is not represented as the divine place of Kṛṣṇa’s eternal līlā, but as a real North Indian city, due to which the connection between Kṛṣṇa’s heavenly abode and its reflection, the city of Purī, is lost. The fragment on paramparā, unlike the narrative of the entire work, emphasises the importance of earthly Vṛndāvana, to which Kavikarṇapūra did not attach much importance. And this crucial nuance also gives reason to doubt that the ten stanzas describing the Gauḍīya-Paramparā are an original part of the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā and that their author is Kavikarṇapūra.
The structural features of the Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā also point to the interpolation of the fragment about paramparā. If the “quotations” from the Padma-purāṇa and the ten stanzas on paramparā are removed from the text, the logic of the narrative is not disturbed at all. The text remains absolutely coherent and harmonious.
Strophe 20 describes the appearance of Kṛṣṇa, then Kavikarṇapūra proceeds to describe the appearance of Rādhā. Next, as if trying to unite Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, strophe 28 describes the appearance of Caitanya. By omitting the interpolated fragments (the stanza on the four sampradāyas and the ten stanzas on the paramparā, the thematic sequence of context and text is restored).
In one of the stanzas of the paramparā fragment it is said that Madhva received kṛṣṇa-dīkṣā from Vyāsa: vyāsāl labdha-kṛṣṇa-dīkṣo madhvācāryo mahā-yaśaḥ. In none of his works does Madhva speak of this. Nor do his followers assert it. The Madhva tradition is śīkṣā- and sannyāsa-paramparā. In the Madhva-Sampradāya, dīkṣā is an element of individual sādhanā or arcana, not a principle of continuation of or connection with the sampradāya, as claimed by the North Indian religious movements that have elevated dīkṣā to an immutable principle of continuation of the tradition.
The idea that there are four true Vaiṣṇava traditions is absurd to say the least. The traditions differ from each other in doctrine. Each has its own concept of God. If we assume that these schools are equally true, then we assume the existence of several Viṣṇus and, as a consequence, several realities in which each of these Viṣṇus is the one and only Supreme.
No traces of the existence of the concept of “Four Sampradāyas” have been found before the 16th century. In the works of Rāmānuja, Madhva and their followers the concept of “Four Sampradāyas” does not appear. Nor is it found in the books of Rūpa, Sanātana and Jīva Gosvāmī. In the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, Sanātana does not quote from the Padma-purāṇa, although the first two vilāsas are devoted to the mutual relations of guru and disciple, dīkṣā and dīkṣā-mantras of the Gauḍīya tradition.
