2020-06-08
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Vallabhacharya, the founder of the Shuddhadvaita School of Vedanta, had two sons, Gopinathji and Vithalanathaji. The eldest son had one son; Purushottamaji and two daughters, who died without any issue. The second son, Vitthalanathaji had six sons and four daughters by his first wife, and one son by his second wife, He gave the different forms of Lord Krishna to these seven sons for the purpose of worship and this tradition is maintained even in modern times by the descendants of these seven sons. Out of the seven sons, Gokulanathaji, the fourth son, happened to be a man of exceptional powers and commanded great respect from the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, and other person, with the result that the other six brothers were more or less thrown in the background Gokulanathaji found a very good following that included even the scholars of that type of Kalyana Bhatta, the author of Rasikaranjani, an unpublished commentary in Sanskrit on the Gita, The followers of Gokulanathaji tried their best to imbibe the spirit of the teachings of Gokulanathaji who himself was most loyal to the doctrines or his grand-father, Vallabhacharya. The result was that the followers of the other six sons of Vitthalanathji differed in thought and action from those of Gokulanathaji, thus giving rise to two sections in the School with different traditions. The followers of Gokulanathaji are. of the opinion that the Vallabhacharya was born in Vikrama Samvat 1521 (= 1473 A.D.) while those of the other six sons hold the view that the Acharya was born in Vikrama Samvat 1535 (= 1479 AD,). It is very interesting to examine the available literature and to see which of the two views is probable.
There are several works, in Sanskrit, Vraja and Gujarati, giving information about the life of Vallabhacharya. Some of them are silent with regard to the birth-date of the Acharya, while the others differ in recording the birth-date, These works may be linguistically arranged as under:
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(A) Sanskrit works
1. Sampradaya-Pradipa of Gadidhara Dviveda who flourished in the 16th century of the Christian era.
2. Vallabhacharya-Charita of Muralidharadasa of the 16th century.
3. Kallola of Kalyana Bhatta of the 16th century.
4. Charitra-Chintamani assigned, without any justification, to Devakinandana who flourished in the last quarter of the 16th century,
5. Vaishnava-Vartamali of Snnatha Devesa of the latter half of the 18th century.
6, Mula-Purusha of Dvarikesaji of the early part of the 19h century.
7. Vallabha-Digvijaya, an apparently recent work, but wrongly attributed to Yadunathaji of the sixteenth century, 8, Vallabha-Digvijaya of Kanaiyalal Shastri of the twentieth century, 9, The horoscope of Vallabhacharya, which is anonymous.
(B) Yraja works
1. Nija-Varta, traditionally attributed to Gokulanathji of the 16th century.
2, Gharu-Varta – as above.
3, The Kirtana literature of the different periods
(C) Gujarati works
1, Vallabhakhyana of Gopaladasa of Rupal who flourished in the sixteenth century, 2, Prakatya-Siddhanta of Gopaladasa of Vyara of the 17th century.
3. Vallabha-Vela or Keshavadasa ofl6th century.
4. Mula-Purusha of Dvarikesaji of the early part of the 19th century.
