Madhavendra Puri

[mgansten at sbbs.se]

S. Vidyasankar wrote:

>Which makes it all the more curious that the Gaudiyas explicitly claim a
>connection with the Madhvas, and strenuously deny any links to an advaita
>tradition. Any contemporary advaita monk would be labelled a Vaishnava or
>a Saiva or a Sakta in Sankarite disguise. (---)
>
>That said, there have always been many southern Sankarite sannyasis who
>are steeped in Vaishnava bhakti. One example is Girvanendra Sarasvati
>(also known as Bhagavannama Bodhendra) of Kumbhakonam, who wrote advaita
>treatises  ...

But this is exactly where Gaudiyas differ, isn't it? Gaudiyas would not
generally consider someone who wrote Advaita treatises a genuine Vaishnava,
no matter how devout he might seem. Thus, the emphasis seems to be more on
siddhanta than on externals, including the line of sannyasa initiation. I
don't believe any Gaudiya would try to deny the fact that Caitanya had a
formal link to the Sankarite sampradaya -- as indeed did Madhva! It just
doesn't seem as important. (In our post-Gaudiya Math days, things are of
course different, since Siddhanta Saraswati established his own line of
sannyasa with rituals borrowed, I believe, from the Srisampradaya.)

Martin Gansten