The Rise of Wisdom Moon. Krishna mishra

the emanation of the phenomenal world through the agency of maya, creative illusion generating the world of appearance, while nivrtti is the dissolution that occurs when maya’s work is undone.

      Several of these strands of meaning are beautifully woven together in the introduction to the commentary on the “Bhagavad·gita” attributed to the renowned Advaita Vedanta philosopher Shankara (eighth century).16 While it is not certain the Krishna·mishra had precisely this text in mind when he composed “The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” he was no doubt thinking of closely similar materials. The philosopher’s words, therefore, will help to clarify some essential elements in the structure of the play:

      The Lord, having created this world, desired to make it endure. Having first produced the lords of creatures—the sun and the others—he caused them to maintain the law (dharma) whose characteristic is engagement (pravrtti), ________

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      introduction

      as taught in the Veda. Then, having given rise to others—Sanaka, Sanandana, etc.—he caused them to maintain the law whose characteristic is disengagement (nivrtti) and whose characteristic is knowledge and dispassion. For twofold is the law taught in the Veda—that having the characteristic of engagement and that having the characteristic of disengagement—and this is the cause for the world’s enduring. That which is the basis for the manifest well-being and beatitude of creatures, that law has been upheld for long ages by those who aspire for the good, brahmins and others, according to their caste (varna) and life-station (asrama).17

      As they are described here, pravrtti and nivrtti are complementary processes, that together are necessary so that the world is upheld overall. Krishna·mishra underscores this point at the very beginning of “The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” in proclaiming the need to balance the festivities of the king’s reinstallation with a work devoted to the “sentiment of peace,” and, more pointedly still, in writing that:

      The divine light is by nature pacific, so that, if for whatever reason it suffers modification, it abides as it is in its essence. [Thus Gopala] undertook to shore up on this earth the rule of the princes of the lunar line, when they were uprooted by the Chedis’ lord … [S]uch persons, ornaments of manliness, who are of a piece with Lord Narayana [Vishnu], descend to earth for the sake of beings and when they have completed their tasks attain peace once again. (1.16–18)

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      The oscillation between active engagement in the maintenance of the world and withdrawal from it is thus characteristic both of the divinity and of kings.

      For Krishna·mishra, in sum, the dichotomy of pravrtti and nivrtti functions on three basic levels: macrocosmically, it defines the order governing the universe as whole, and microcosmically, it describes individuals’ patterned engagement in and disengagement from mundane activity. But it also operates mesocosmically, in relation to the order of the monarchal state, wherein the righteous king must achieve that delicate balance whereby martial force is neither oppressive nor overextended, and peace is not confounded with pusillanimity. The equilibrium that must be achieved here is further accentuated by Krishna·mishra in the general structure of his work. For the first three acts, in which Magnus Nescience and his gang enjoy the upper hand, concern engagement in mundane activity in the life of the individual who is bound to samsara, while the final three acts are dedicated to nivrtti, here the soteriologically valued withdrawal from worldliness through which enlightenment may be won.

      Much has been made of the apparent synthesis of Advaita Vedanta philosophy with Vaishnava devotionalism, or bhakti, that characterizes “The Rise of Wisdom Moon.” My own belief is that this has been somewhat overblown, the result of reading the play through the lens of the later sectarian devotional movements that sometimes appropriated it. One author has even gone so far as to characterize Krishna· mishra’s religious attitude as a “fanatic zeal for Vaisnavism” (Bose 1956: 161), but this is surely misleading. For several ________

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      reasons, Krishna·mishra’s sectarian inclinations appear to me to be weaker than is generally assumed, and the Vaishnavism of his work, while by no means to be denied, may be explained without reference to strong sectarian bias.

      The Vaishnava current in “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” is underscored principally by these features: the heroine of the drama is the character Vishnu·bhakti, Hail Vishnu in our translation; at the conclusion of act four, Intuition undertakes a pilgrimage to the shrine of Vishnu in Varanasi (4.123); in act five, Thought is instructed in meditation upon Vishnu as an alternative to absorption in the absolute Brahman (5.103 [27]); and references to a number of Vishnu’s incarnations are found throughout the work. Taken together with arguments that have been most clearly presented by Paul Hacker, to the effect that early Advaita Vedanta, as represented above all by Shankara, was mildly Vaishnava in its leanings, it is undeniable that Krishna· mishra clearly expresses a similar partiality here, though “fanatic” is no doubt too strong a characterization of his leanings (Hacker 1965).

      The Vaishnava reading of the text is mitigated by a number of positive gestures to Shaivism, and indeed to other sectarian traditions, at various points in the play. This despite the wholesale rejection, in act three, of the transgressive Kapalika current of Shaivism as altogether heretical. Nevertheless, the second of the opening verses of benediction is dedicated to Shiva, with distinct allusions to systems of yoga that were often placed under that divinity’s patronage. (The first of the benedictions concerns the nondual Brahman, and therefore has no distinct sectarian orienta- ________

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      introduction

      tion, apart from its affirmation of Advaita Vedanta.) In act five (5.32), as Intuition’s armies advance, the Shaiva traditions, on an equal footing with the Vaishnava, are arrayed within the victorious ranks. And the ultimate equivalence of the three great Hindu divinities—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—is unambiguously asserted some lines later:

      The Light, at peace and limitless,

      without duality, unborn,

      By the admixture of qualities varies,

      and is praised as “Brahma,”

      “Vishnu,” or “Uma’s Lord.” (5.40 [9])

      Moreover, the play’s many references to Vishnu’s incarnations—including boar, dwarf, man-lion, Axman Rama, and Rama—all follow well-established conventions whereby these avatars were analogized to the figure of the King. For Vishnu as the preserver of the world is the member of the trinity who provides the best template for righteous kingship, upholding the order of the cosmos and granting peace and security to its creatures.

      These last observations allow us, I believe, to put Krishna· mishra’s Vaishnavism into its proper perspective. The rulers of the Chandella dynasty generally seem to have favored the worship of Shiva, but they were tolerant monarchs, who extended their patronage to the several major Brahmanical and Hindu traditions and to Jainism, and even countenanced a Buddhist presence within their domains as well.18 Vaishnavism was, however, a strong current within Chandella religion, and several of the monarchs appear to have regarded Vishnu as their personal tutelary divinity. ________

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