Shree Madhvacharyya

Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur
(Harmonist, No. 7, 1929)

THE point in the system of Shreeman Madhva­charyya that led Ma­haprabhu Shree Krishna Chaitanya to pre­fer it to the other Vaishnava schools is that Shree Mad­hva holds that the in­di­vid­ual soul is cate­gori­cally and eter­nally dis­tinct from God­head. If there is any­thing which Shree Madhva­charyya dis­ap­proves with all the strength of his pure the­is­tic na­ture it is the open and cov­ert at­tempt to in­sinu­ate the equal­ity and simi­lar­ity of the jeeva with Krishna. The dis­tinc­tion be­tween them is fi­nal and un­bridge­able notwithstanding the fact that the jeeva is cer­tainly part and par­cel of God­head in the sense that noth­ing can ex­ist out­side God­head.

The logic of Shree Mad­hva is at once search­ing and de­ci­sive re­gard­ing the point at is­sue. If, he rightly con­tends, there is dis­tinc­tion and non-dis­tinc­tion be­tween any two en­ti­ties the dis­tinc­tion is the real na­ture of their sub­stan­tive re­la­tion­ship with one an­other.

Ac­cord­ing to Mad­hva the jeeva is a con­stitu­ent part of Krishna. It is not ad­mit­ted in this ex­act form by the Gaudiya School. The jeeva, ac­cord­ing to the Gaudiya view, is a mani­fes­ta­tion of an in­fini­tesi­mally small par­ti­cle of the Mar­ginal Po­tency of God­head. The na­ture of the jeeva is thus of the same kind as the Mar­ginal Po­tency of Godhead. The jeeva is not akin to the Pos­ses­sor of Po­tency, this dis­tinc­tion is not ex­plic­itly ad­mit­ted by Shree Madhva­charyya. But it does not make the two sys­tems dif­fer vi­tally in ac­tual prac­tice.

Unless the dis­tinc­tion be­tween jeeva and God­head is ad­mit­ted to be real and cate­gori­cal the re­la­tion­ship of ser­vice stands on a very shaky ba­sis, in­deed. The po­si­tion taken up by Shree Ra­manuja is mid­way be­tween these of Shankara, who is an ex­clu­sive mo­nist, and Mad­hva who is a rigid dual­ist. Mad­hva thinks that Ra­manuja en­dan­gers his logi­cal po­si­tion un­nec­es­sar­ily by what he re­gards as a con­ces­sion to the Mo­nis­tic view.

The jeeva is the eter­nal ser­vant of Krishna. He is never the mas­ter ex­cept when he may be dele­gated au­thor­ity for the pur­pose of ser­vice. The mas­ter­ship of jeeva is no less ser­vice than any other more pal­pa­bly rec­og­niz­able serv­ing func­tion. The es­sence is the same al­ways. If he is re­al­ized as power the point is clearly and ab­so­lutely de­fined.

The con­tro­versy is thereby shifted to the more in­tel­li­gi­ble ground of the na­ture of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Power and the Pos­ses­sor of Power. Is Power to be con­sid­ered iden­ti­cal with the Pos­ses­sor of Power? The two should be dis­tin­guish­able in prac­tice. I pos­sess the power of vi­sion but I am not iden­ti­cal with the func­tion of see­ing. My na­ture as sub­ject is no doubt ex­pressed in the act of see­ing. I can also make my ex­is­tence ef­fec­tive only through my ac­tivi­ties. But I am al­ways free to ex­press my­self in any way I like. I am not sub­ject to the ex­pres­sion. It is my ac­tiv­ity that is the de­rived cate­gory. The ex­pres­sion may stand sepa­rately on its own legs with­out in­ter­fer­ing with my free­dom to dis­own the same if I like. This logi­cal sub­ser­vi­ency of the ex­pres­sion to the will in­di­cates the na­ture of the true re­la­tion­ship be­tween them.

Logi­cally speak­ing the Power of the Ab­so­lute is also nec­es­sar­ily Ab­so­lute. The Power of the Ab­so­lute should ex­press only the Ab­so­lute. Are we, there­fore, to ad­mit two Ab­so­lute En­ti­ties? How also can the Ab­so­lute be the sub­ser­vi­ent to Him­self? But the rela­tive also can­not be sub­ser­vi­ent to the Ab­so­lute by the same logic. The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two is re­al­iz­able as one of ac­tual sub­ser­vi­ency. The forms of the em­piri­cal logic can­not rec­on­cile the ap­par­ent in­com­pati­bil­ity. But the fact need not be dis­owned by un­due def­er­ence to an ad­mit­tedly faulty Sci­ence which is lim­ited to cer­tain cut and dry forms of pro­ce­dure. The Power of the Ab­so­lute is Ab­so­lute in the sense that it is unlim­ited as re­gards its scope and form of op­era­tion. The Ab­so­lute Power is ca­pa­ble of op­er­at­ing in all con­ceiv­able and non-con­ceiv­able ways. That does not mean that it is not sub­ser­vi­ent to the Ab­so­lute Pos­ses­sor of Power. One of the in­con­ceiv­able ways in which the Ab­so­lute Power is found to op­er­ate is that it can pro­duce the mani­fes­ta­tions of the Lim­it­ing Prin­ci­ple which are in­com­pati­ble with its own sub­jec­tive na­ture.

The jeeva is a prod­uct of Power. He is an eter­nal self-ex­ist­ing mani­fes­ta­tion of Power. These are not con­tra­dic­tory when we bear in mind that the ex­pres­sion may ex­ist in­de­pend­ently and eter­nally by the Will of the Pos­ses­sor of Ab­so­lute Power. In this sense the Bib­li­cal dic­tum that ‘man is made af­ter the im­age of God’, and not ex­actly as God, may be ad­mit­ted with all nec­es­sary res­er­va­tions to pre­vent any mis­con­cep­tions of the na­ture to which ex­clu­sive Mo­nists are found to be prone.

Shree Mad­hva did not ana­lyze the re­la­tion­ship to the point of pre­ci­sion that it at­tained in the hands of the Gaudiya Achary­yas. But his sane the­is­tic in­stinct un­err­ingly fas­tened upon the su­preme im­por­tance of em­pha­siz­ing the ab­so­lute na­ture of the dis­tinc­tion be­tween the jeeva and God­head as re­gards their re­spec­tive na­tures and func­tions.

The jeeva is not only the prod­uct of Power, he is a spiri­tual agent who is de­tach­able from sub­ser­vi­ency to the Ab­so­lute Spiri­tual Po­tency eter­nally obey­ing Her Ab­so­lute Mas­ter. The jeeva is, there­fore, in the po­si­tion of the un­der ser­vant whose proper func­tion is to obey the Mas­ter un­der the guid­ance of the Ple­nary Spiri­tual Po­tency.

The jeeva is ca­pa­ble of be­ing led astray if he does not al­low him­self to be guided by the Ple­nary Spiri­tual Po­tency. It is, how­ever, le­giti­mate and prac­ti­ca­ble to dis­tin­guish be­tween the re­la­tion­ship of the jeeva to the Ple­nary Po­tency and that with the Pos­ses­sor of the Po­tency. The ple­nary Po­tency is not the Mas­ter but the only Ser­vant of the Mas­ter. The jeeva can never di­rectly serve the Mas­ter. There is al­ways one of two in­ter­ven­ing Agents be­tween the jeeva and God­head. One of these Agents is called in the Scrip­tures the Ple­nary spiri­tual Po­tency to whom ref­er­ence has al­ready been made. The other Agent is the De­lud­ing Po­tency. This Lat­ter gets hold of the jeeva who does not want to be guided by the Spiri­tual Po­tency but wants to be his own guide. Be­ing him­self of the na­ture of Po­tency it is not wholly un­in­tel­li­gi­ble why he might de­sire to avoid the ser­vice of an­other whom he is to re­gard as his fel­low-ser­vant.

In other words the Ple­nary Po­tency is dis­tin­guish­able from God­head as the Obey­ing Prin­ci­ple in the Ab­so­lute. She is ca­pa­ble of be­ing des­ig­nated as the Counter Whole of the Ab­so­lute. That which car­ries out the Will of the Ab­so­lute is, there­fore, the eter­nally as­so­ci­ated Pre­domi­nated Moi­ety of the Ab­so­lute In­te­ger. It would be a grave er­ror to re­gard the Ple­nary Spiri­tual Po­tency as an en­tity that is sepa­ra­ble from the Ab­so­lute. The op­era­tion of the Ple­nary Po­tency is the only mo­dus op­er­endi of the Ab­so­lute.

The jeeva is placed in a lower grade of agents. The Ple­nary Po­tency may or may not al­low him to serve God­head. The As­pect of the Ple­nary Po­tency that is pre­sented to the jeeva whom She wants to de­prive of the ser­vice of God­head is termed in the Scrip­tures ‘Maya’ or the Lim­it­ing Po­tency. The jeeva is pro­vided by the Lim­it­ing Po­tency with lim­ited fac­ul­ties and func­tions in a cor­re­spond­ing world on the scale of his tiny mag­ni­tude in or­der to al­low him to in­dulge his dis­loyal at­ti­tude to­wards Her­self. If the jeeva wants to serve God­head ac­cord­ing to his own judg­ment his in­cli­na­tion is noth­ing less than a form of un­will­ing­ness to serve at all. Be­cause he must know very well that the guid­ance of the Ple­nary Po­tency is iden­ti­cal with that of God­head Him­self. It is, there­fore, impera­tively nec­es­sary to pre­vent any pos­si­ble mis­con­cep­tion of the dif­fer­ence that sepa­rates the jeeva from God­head and His Proper Agent in Her Be­nign Un­de­lud­ing As­pect. The jeeva is no ser­vant of God­head ex­cept by per­mis­sion which has to be earned by a dis­po­si­tion of ac­tive loy­alty in obey­ing un­con­di­tion­ally the Guid­ance of the Spiri­tual Po­tency.