Sacred Narratives of Vedāntadeśika

Abstract

The article "Sacred Narratives of Vedāntadeśika" by Steven P. Hopkins investigates the complex interplay between poetry, theology, and sacred biography in the works and legends surrounding the life of the 13th-century Śrī Vaiṣṇava theologian Vedāntadeśika. Hopkins explores how Vedāntadeśika’s narrative persona is constructed through both his own compositions—particularly the Yatirāja Saptati and Hamsa Sandesha—and later hagiographical traditions that present him as scholar-poet, philosopher-devotee, and spiritual warrior. Paying close attention to genre and voice, the article highlights Vedāntadeśika’s dual role as a transmitter of Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and as an innovator of Tamil-Sanskrit devotional poetics. Hopkins also situates Vedāntadeśika’s sacred narratives within the broader context of South Indian hagiography, noting intertextual resonances with Āḻvār poetry, Purāṇic mythology, and courtly literary aesthetics. The article ultimately suggests that Vedāntadeśika’s life story becomes a performative map for enacting bhakti, erudition, and orthodoxy in an increasingly contested religious landscape.