Welcome to Eternal Path Musings, a weekly newsletter for the modern and curious Hindu, featuring highlights around: religious texts, practice, history, politics, people, and ways to better our engagement and personal progress.
This issue features highlights on: Hinduism on American campuses, an Odia philosopher, and an aesthetic!
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Video Highlight: Hindus on American Campuses
Person Highlight: Achyutananda Das
Achyutananda Das (Odia: ଅଚ୍ୟୁତାନନ୍ଦ ଦାସ ) was an Odia Vaishnavite poet and religious figure of the 16th century CE. He was part of a group of five friends, the pancha sakha, who were exponents of Utkaliya Vaishnavism, a sect of Vaishnavism primarily practiced in Odisha that “God” as shunya-purusha. This entails a “God” with no shape or form, whose abode is shunya (the “void”) but whose form is Lord Jagannath, of whom all avatars of Vishnu emanate from.
Achyutnanda and many other of the panchasakhas referred to themselves as sudra-muni, and were universalist in their conception of bhakti. Specifically Achyutananda is well-known in this vein for his translation of the text Harivamsa (a companion text to the Mahabharata) and for the Shunya-Samhita, a fundamental religious text that delves into the shunya-purusha philosophy. Example below:
Much like the devotional literature of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Sri Madhvacharya, there is no caste barrier to liberation in the philosophy of Achyutananda, who referred to himself proudly as a sudra. Interestingly, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Achyutananda Das actually met, and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu praised Achyutananda and the panchasakhas, even though at that time there were heated debates between Gaudiya (Bengali) and Utkaliya (Odia) Vaishnavas.
One anecdote into Achyutananda’s life is the defeat of the Brahmins of the Odia King. While debating the topic of Surya Yantra, he was challenged by the King to demonstrate how to worship shunya (the void). Achyuntananda muttered a mantra and began meditating, whereby he appeared to levitate before a crowd.
Here is a well-written essay in English outlining one devotee’s argument on Achyutananda’s work being the best way to understand the Vedas and Upanishads. A biography from the Odisha government is available here. Below is a link to a video series on Achyutananda Das in the Odia language.
Aesthetic: Pashupatinath Seal from Harappa
