Paradoks (acintyatva) w filozofii Dźiwy Goswamina [Paradox (acintyatva) in Jiva Goswami’s philosophy]
Paradoks (acintyatva) w filozofii Dźiwy Goswamina [Paradox (acintyatva) in Jiva Goswami’s philosophy]

Author(s): Dagmara Wasilewska
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Indian philosophy; paradox; Bengali Vishnuism; Jīva Gosvāmī
Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the role of the paradox in the philosophical thought and mysticism of Jiva Goswami. This sixteenth-century Vaishnava theologian placed his system within the Vedanta school, in which the relation of the Absolute to the phenomenal world and to the man functions as the main criterion underlying the distinction into various Vedantic sub-traditions. These range from strict monism, which assumes total unity of the world and the Absolute, to a strict dualism, where they always constitute separate entities. Jiva Goswami’s system, whose full exposition can be found in the Sanskrit treatise Sat Sandarbhas, is based on the innovative concept of acintya-bhedābheda – the paradoxical simultaneous identity and separateness of God and creation. Although the term acintya (“incomprehensible”, “paradoxical”) seems merely a specification of the ontological relation referred to by earlier thinkers and theologians as dvaitādvaita (“unity in diversity”), the consequences of its application are enormous both for philosophy in general and for the model of mysticism as well as the concept of liberation postulated in the Bengali school of Vishnuism, which Goswami represents.

• Details
• Contents