The fading light of Advaita Ācārya : three hagiographies / Rebecca J. Manring.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Manring, Rebecca J. (Rebecca Jane)

Series:

AAR religion in translation

Language:

Bengali

English

Sanskrit

Subjects (All):

Advaita Ācārya.

Vaishnavites--Biography.

Vaishnavites.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xix, 284 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, [2011]

Language Note:

Includes translations from Bengali and from Sanskrit.

Summary:

Rebecca J. Manring offers an illuminating study and translation of three hagiographies of Advaita Acarya, a crucial figure in the early years of the devotional Vaisnavism which originated in Bengal in the fifteenth century. Advaita Acarya was about fifty years older than the movement's putative founder, Caitanya, and is believed to have caused Caitanya's advent by ceaselessly storming heaven, calling of the divine presence to come to earth. Advaita was a scholar and highly respected pillar of society, whose status lent respectability and credibility to the new movement.

A significant body of hagiographical and related literature about Advaita Acarya has developed since his death, some as late as the early twentieth century. The three hagiographic texts included in The Fading Light of Advaita Acarya examine the years of Advaita's life that did not overlap with Caitanya's lifetime, and each paints a different picture of its protagonist. Each composition clearly advocates the view that Advaita was himself divine in some way, ana1 a few go so far as to suggest that Advaita reflected even greater divinity than Caitanya, through miraculous stories that can be found nowhere else in Bengali Vaisnava literature. Manring provides a detailed introduction to these texts, as well as remarkably faithful translations of Haricarana Dasa's Advaita Mangala, Laudiya Krsnadasa's Balya-lila-sutra, and Isana Nagara's Advaita Prakasa. Book jacket.

Contents:

A Case Study in Hagiography 3

Haricarana Dasa's Advaita Mangala 54

Laudiya Krsnadasa's Balya-Lila-Sutra 134

Isana Nagaras Advaita Prakasa 155.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contains:

Haricaraṇa Dāsa. Advaita maṅgala. English.

Lāuḍīya Kr̥ṣṇadāsa. Bālyalīlasūtra. English.

Īśāna Nāgara, 1865-1954. Advaita prakāśa. English.

ISBN:

9780199736461

0199736464

9780199736478

0199736472

OCLC:

671237323