MAHAPURUSISM - ITS REAL SIGNIFICANCE

Mahapurusism (Mahapurusiya Dharma) is not the name of a religion like Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity or Muhammadanism, commemorative of its propounder, as many people wrongly hold. Neither was the epithet Mahapurusa earlier applied to Sankardew, the founder, still less to his great disciple, Madhawdew. It is only in comparatively recent times that the epithet came to be secondarily applied to them although there is still no authentic record when this practice came first to be in vogue. Mahapurusism is a term, like Mazdaism, used for the faith of devotion to Mahapurusa (God) which term, not unusually, must have bcome transferred to the first devotees of Mahapurusa in course of time.
 

The term Mahapurusa, applied to God, is at once a challenge to Prakrti-Purusism of the Samkhya system of Hindu philosophy and immediately stamps the originality of the philosophy of the religion founded by Sankardew. The epithet Mahapurusa cannot be compared with the common epithets like Mahaprabhu or Mahatma that are applied, may be aptly, to men. Even the term purusa is almost invariably used in the vast Asamiya Vaisnavite literature in a restricted sense to jiwa (Life) and is seldom applied to men in the ordinary sense. One need not strain one's imagination for any visible proof in this regard, and we presently find a direct refutation of Samkhya in so many verses of the holy Namghosa by Madhawdew, the great disciple and successor of Sankardew:

"Prakrti Purusa / duito kari para / duihano nija karan:
Param Iswar / namak dharia / acha tate Narayan." 173.

'Apart both from Prakrti (Matter) and Purusa (Mind), ( but ) primal cause of both: whence Narayana assumes the name of the Great Lord.'

"Prakrti Purusa duiro / niyanta Madhawa :
Samastare atma Hari / param bandhawa." 405.

'Madhawa (God) is the Ordainer of both Prakrti (Matter) and Purusa (Mind). Hari (God) is the (supreme) soul and great Benefactor of all.'
Even according to the Vedanta philosophy the highest cosmos is Brahma (Ego), and there is none beyond: "Etat param Brahma veda, natah param astiti" (Prasan Upanisad, VI, 7). But Sankardew pushes boldly beyond:

"Ksara pade ito / dehak bolay/ aksar sabade Brahma :
Duito kari Hari / uttama nimitte/ prakhyat Purusottama." 171

Ksara refers to this body; aksara to Brahma (Ego); Hari (God) being superior to both is well known as Purusa Uttama (Supereme Soul)'.

Sabad Brahmar / par bhaila yito/Krsnat bhakati nai:
Tar sastrasram / sram matra fal / yena rakhe baji gai." 290.

'One who has gone beyond the Word called Brahma (Ego), (but) has no love of Krsna (God), has only toil, (and), the toil is the fruit, like one keeping a barren cow'.

"Purusa Uttama/Param Purusa/Param Ananda Swami:
Tayu pada-padma /makaranda ase/saran pasilo ami." 186.

'Thou the best Purusa, the Supreme Purusa and Master of Supreme Joy. I seek refuge in thee for the nectarine juice of thy lotus feet.'

Thus we find that Sankardew not only brings in the best Purusa or Supreme Purusa in brighter relief against the bare Purusa of the Samkhya philosophy, but superiority is claimed for the best Purusa or Supreme Purusa to Brahma (Ego) Itself, which is reduced to something like the Aristotelian God, Primum mobile immotum (Prime mover unmoved), who is "a….. do-nothing king that reigns but does not rule." For is it not said by Madhawdew for him:

"Brahma pade suddha/Jiwaka buliya/Iswar Param Brahma." 194.

'Brahma is Life pure. The Supreme Brahma is God.'

Yamunacarya, a great predecessor of Ramanuja, is said to have compiled one Mahapurusa-Nirnaya, now lost. It is not known for certain what he wrote, but it may probably be presumed that he described certain aspects of Godhead as Mahapurusa. Besides the applications and interpretations of the terms Purusottama, Param Purusa etc. already shown, we find in the holy Namghosa the very exact epithet Mahapurusa very significantly used of God:

"Suka nigadati Pariksita / yadi ami nirgunata sthita,
Tathapi uttama slokara mahima gune:
Karileka vasya mora citta / Bhagawata grantha biparita,
Parama anande padhilo mai apune. 646.
Tomaka kahibo sehi sastra / tumi taka sunibara patra,
Mahapurusara sewaka tumi samprati:
Isastrata sraddha matrakata / Mukundara pada-pankajata,
Ati sighre tara howe jana sati mati." 647.

'Suka says, O Pariksita, although I stand for nirguna I have been so impressed by the glory of the excellent verses that I have myself gone through the wonderful scripture named Bhagawata with great joy. I am going to read that scripture to you, for you are worthy of hearing it being now a servant of Mahapurusa. One's intellect presently becomes chaste in the lotus feet of Mahapurusa (God) once one acquires reverence for this scripture.'

So there exists not a shadow of doubt that the religion preached by Sankardew stresses on unqualified devotion to God in all the aspects of the term Mahapurusa, and it is the reason why it is rightly called Mahapurusiya Dharama (Mahapurusism). It is monothesim to be sure, and it is so even in a severe sense. Mahapurusism of Sankardew had no reason to have any mutation, still less any affiliation, with Absolute Monism of Sankaracarya or with Qualified Monism of Ramanujacarya, not to speak of the faiths of their followers. If there could be any question of mutation or affiliation still, it could have been with the Gita and the Bhagawat direct which Sankardew read and interpreted in his own way, at once original and new.

In order, therefore, to read Sankardew and to study the religion preached by him, one's mind must first be purged of all superstitions connecting him with any sectarian faith by puerile scholarship. There is no genius, still less any prophet worth the name that does not create and that has not his own message for mankind as a whole. The same Vedanta philosophy that nourished earlier a galaxy of philosophers, each so original, also produced Sankardew in later days of neo-Vaisnavism to interpret the development of the Vedanta philosophy to the progressive human mind. ###