Vijnanabhiksu

Vijñānabhikṣu (also spelled Vijnanabhikshu, fl. 1550-1600) was an Indian philosopher who lived in north India. He wrote commentaries on three different schools of Indian philosophy, Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga, and brought them together into a single theistic synthesis known as avibhagādvaita ("indistinguishable non-dualism"). Although his sub-commentary on the Yoga Sutras, the Yogavarttika, is now his most widely read work, his earliest works belonged to the school of Bhedābheda (Difference and Non-Difference) Vedanta. Like many medieval Vedāntins, he considers Shankara's school of Advaita Vedānta a school of Buddhism in disguise, and understands the phenomenal world as real instead of illusory. As Vijñānabhikṣu claims that all three of the schools he commented on were a unity, this leads him to make some controversial claims (for instance, that the originator of the Sāṃkhya philosophical system believed in the existence of God).

Little good work has been written in English on Vijñānabhikṣu, and most of the texts in his large corpus have yet to be edited and published in Sanskrit, let alone translated into English.

Major works

• Vijnanamritabhashya ("The Nectar of Knowledge Commentary", commentary on Badarayana's Brahma Sutras)
• Ishvaragitabhashya ("Commentary on the Ishvara Gita")
• Sankhyasara ("Quintessence of the Sankhya")
• Sankhyasutrabhashya ("Commentary on the Sankhya Sutras" of Kapila)
• Yogasarasamgraha ("Compendium on the Quintessence of Yoga")
• Yogabhashyavarttika ("Explanation of the Commentary on the Yoga Sutras" of Vyasa)

English translations

• José Pereira, Hindu Theology: A Reader, Garden City: Doubleday, 1976. Includes translated excerpts from Vijnanamritabhashya and Sankhyasutrabhashya.
• T.S. Rukmani, Yogavarttika of Vijnanabhiksu, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1981.
• Nandalal Sinha, The Samkhya Philosophy, New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1979. Contains a complete translation of Vijnanabhikshu's Sankhyasutrabhashya.
• Shiv Kumar, Samkhyasara of Vijnanabhiksu, Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1988.

References

• Daniel P. Sheridan, "Vijnanabhikshu", in Great Thinkers of the Eastern World, Ian McGready, ed., New York: Harper Collins, 1995, pp. 248–251.