Philosopher
Appayya Dikshita
Overview
Appayya Dīkṣita (IAST: Appayya Dīkṣita; 1520–1593 CE) was a prominent South Indian philosopher and scholar associated with the school of Advaita Vedanta and a theologian of Shaivism. While he is widely remembered as an influential preceptor of the Advaita tradition, he was historically rooted in the Śivādvaita (Shaiva Advaita) school as its most prominent representative. A 1580 copper plate inscription attributed to Śivappa Nāyaka of Tañjāvūr describes him as the "sole emperor of Śaiva Advaita" (śaivādvaitaikasāmrājya). He was a highly prolific polymath whose works spanned dozens of treatises on Śaiva and Advaita metaphysics, Mīmāṃsā scriptural hermeneutics, and alaṅkāra poetic theory, while also composing numerous volumes of devotional poetry and a ritual manual for the daily worship of Shiva.
He is best known for his monumental treatise, the Śivārkamaṇi-dīpikā, a sub-commentary on the brahmamīmāṃsā-bhāṣya, itself a Śaiva Brahma Sūtra commentary authored by Śrīkaṇṭha Śivācārya (c. 14th century CE). Lawrence McCrea notes that Appayya retrieved the obscure commentary of Śrīkaṇṭha, which integrated Śaivism with Vedānta through a śiva-viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta framework, and introduced it to a broad scholarly audience while simultaneously reinterpreting it through his own theology of Śivādvaita. An inscription ascribed to Appayya himself on a wall of the Kālakaṇṭheśvara temple notes that, upon the publication and public teaching of this treatise, his royal patron Cinnabomma of Vellore bathed him in gold and established an endowment for 500 students to commit themselves to its study. In spite of his lifelong Śaiva leanings, he cultivated a scholarly persona independent of any particular school, drawing explicit inspiration from the Śrī Vaiṣṇava theologian Veṅkaṭanātha Vedānta Deśika (1268-1269 CE), whom Appayya admired as a sarvatantra-svatantra, i.e. a scholar capable of manipulating the tenets of any philosophical system to prove or disprove them at will.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Philosophers who discussed Appayya Dikshita
Ideas Appayya Dikshita discusses
- Avatar
- Dvaita Vedanta
- Vishishtadvaita
- Brahma Sutras
- Vishnu
- Mahabharata
- Brahman
- Shaivism
- Shiva
- Advaita Vedanta
- Mīmāṃsā
- Puranas
- Ramayana
- Common Era
- Vaishnavism
- Upanishads
- Sri Vaishnavism
Place in the tradition
Part of Mīmāṃsā.