The Narrative Shape of Orthopraxy: Storytelling,Dharma, and the Path to Liberation in Advaita Vedānta

Abstract

This article analyses how Vidyāraṇya, a fourteenth-century Advaita Vedāntin, reads and re-tells life stories of exemplary sages to determine and establish duty, or dharma, on the Advaita Vedāntic path to liberation. Drawing on his Jīvanmuktiviveka, I show how Vidyāraṇya’s extrapolative, exegetical approach to life stories is shaped by hermeneutical concerns of the Dharmaśāstra tradition, which entails a narrative theology sensitive to the details of canonical life stories. In particular, the article closely examines Vidyāraṇya’s interpretation of episodes in the life of Yājñavalkya from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad; Rāma, Śuka, Janaka, and Bhagīratha from the ‘Laghuyogavāsiṣṭha’; as well as the story of Nidāgha from the Viṣṇupurāṇa. I demonstrate how Vidyāraṇya’s reading of these narratives, including his diagnostic assessment of the soteriological status of the protagonists, engenders and authorises orthopraxy on the path to liberation. While setting out these issues, I pay particular attention to the way in which narrative accounts serve not only as theologically rich sources from which praxeological and theological positions are determined but also as examples in Vidyāraṇya’s argumentation.