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The Ocean of Inquiry
 SOUTH ASIA RESEARCH
Series Editor
Martha Selby
A Publication Series of
The University of Texas South Asia Institute
and
Oxford University Press
THE EARLY UPANISADS
Annotated Text and Translation
Patrick Olivelle
INDIAN EPIGRAPHY
A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan
Languages
Richard Salomon
A DICTIONARY OF OLD MARATHI
S. G. Tulpule and Anne Feldhaus
DONORS, DEVOTEES, AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD
Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu
Leslie C. Orr
JIMUTAVAHANA’S DAYABHAGA
The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal
Edited and Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Ludo Rocher
A PORTRAIT OF THE HINDUS
Balthazar Solvyns and the European Image of India 1740–1824
Robert L. Hardgrave
MANU’S CODE OF LAW
A Critical Edition and Translation of the Manava-Dharmasastra
Patrick Olivelle
NECTAR GAZE AND POISON BREATH
An Analysis and Translation of the Rajasthani Oral Narrative of Devnarayan
Aditya Malik
BETWEEN THE EMPIRES
Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE
Patrick Olivelle
MANAGING MONKS
Administrators and Administrative Roles in Indian Buddhist Monasticism
Jonathan A. Silk
SIVA IN TROUBLE
Festivals and Rituals at the Pasupatinatha Temple of Deopatan
Axel Michaels
A PRIEST’S GUIDE FOR THE GREAT FESTIVAL
Aghorasiva’s Mahotsavavidhi
Richard H. Davis
DHARMA
Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative
Alf Hiltebeitel
POETRY OF KINGS
The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India
Allison Busch
THE RISE OF A FOLK GOD
Viṭṭhal of Pandharpur
Ramchandra Chintaman Dhere
Translated by Anne Feldhaus
WOMEN IN EARLY INDIAN BUDDHISM
Comparative Textual Studies
Edited by Alice Collett
THE RIGVEDA
The Earliest Religious Poetry of India
Edited and translated by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton
CITY OF MIRRORS
The Songs of Lālan Sā̃i
Translated by Carol Salomon
Edited by Saymon Zakaria and Keith E. Cantú
IN THE SHADE OF THE GOLDEN PALACE
Alaol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan
Thibaut d’Hubert
TO SAVOR THE MEANING
The Theology of Literary Emotions in Medieval Kashmir
James Reich
THE OCEAN OF INQUIRY
Niścaldās and the Premodern Origins of Modern
Hinduism
Michael S. Allen
 The Ocean of Inquiry
Niścaldās and the Premodern Origins of Modern
Hinduism
MICHAEL S. ALLEN
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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© Oxford University Press 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Allen, Michael S., 1980– author.
Title: The ocean of inquiry : Niścaldās and the premodern origins of
modern Hinduism / Michael S. Allen.
Description: 1. | New York : Oxford University Press, 2022. |
Series: South Asia research series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021061026 (print) | LCCN 2021061027 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197638958 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197638972 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Advaita. | Hinduism. | MESH: Niścaladāsa, –1863. Vicārasāgara. |
Niścaladāsa, –1863.—Criticism and interpretation.
Classification: LCC B132.A 3 N52325 2022 (print) | LCC B132.A 3 (ebook) |
DDC 181/.482—dc23/eng/20220110
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061026
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061027
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197638958.001.0001
Knowledge does not arise without inquiry.
—Aparokṣānubhūti, verse 11
 Contents

Preface
Abbreviations and Notes on Conventions

PART I: VERNACULAR VEDĀNTA

1. Introduction: The Unwritten History of Advaita Vedānta
The Ocean of Inquiry
Niścaldās and Greater Advaita Vedānta
Recovering the history of Advaita Vedānta
The argument of this book
2. The Life and Works of Niścaldās
Early years
Composing The Ocean of Inquiry
Niścaldās, disciple of Dādū
Guru to a king
3. Niścaldās and Hindi Vedānta
The significance of the vernacular
Beyond the Sanskrit/vernacular binary
Sources and models
Hindi Vedānta

PART II: SCHOLASTIC VEDĀNTA

4. Why Epistemology Matters
Prelude: “The incrustation of scholasticism”
Knowledge and liberation
The puzzle of Tattvadṛṣṭi
Instrumental epistemology: The basic framework
Instrumental epistemology: The idealist framework
 Material epistemology
On epistemic conflict
Conclusions
5. The Path to Liberation
Qualifications for the study of Vedānta
Hearing, reflection, and contemplation
The meaning and method of inquiry
The role of meditation
Knowledge and liberation revisited
Scholasticism as a way of life?
6. Inquiry in Practice
Originality and the values of scholasticism
The need for a teacher
The form of inquiry: Debates and dialogues
Pedagogy in practice: The case of Tattvadṛṣṭi
The case of Adṛṣṭi
The puzzle of Tarkadṛṣṭi
Conclusions
7. Conclusion: The Premodern Origins of Modern Hinduism
The “construction of Hinduism” debate
The eighteen vidyā-sthānas
Scholastic precedents for Niścaldās’s views
From “Vedism” to “Hinduism”

Bibliography
Index
 Preface

I first came across Niścaldās’s work while studying Hindi at the

American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in Jaipur in 2004–2005.
At the time I thought of Advaita Vedānta primarily as a Sanskrit
tradition, but I happened to read in the introduction to Ramana
Maharshi’s Jewel Garland of Enquiry that the work was based on “a
rare book known as Vichara Sagaram written in Hindi by Sadhu
Nischaldas.”1 Looking for a way to improve my Hindi while furthering
my study of Vedānta, I sought out a copy of Niścaldās’s Ocean of
Inquiry. Only later did I learn that this “rare book” was once referred
to by Vivekananda as the most influential work of its day.
The present book has its origins in my doctoral dissertation, “The
Ocean of Inquiry: A Neglected Classic of Late Advaita Vedānta”
(2013). Portions of chapters 1 and 2 have been published previously
in a 2017 article, “Greater Advaita Vedānta: The Case of Niścaldās.” I
am grateful to the AIIS for funding during my year in Jaipur, as well
as for a summer research grant (2005) that allowed me to begin
research on the life of Niścaldās. I owe thanks to all my teachers at
AIIS, but especially to Vidhu Chaturvedi for reading carefully and
patiently through the first chapter of the text with me. I also wish to
thank Śrī Gopāldās-jī Mahārāj of the Dādū-dvārā in Naraina
(Rajasthan) for his hospitality, as well as Dvārikādās Śāstrī-jī of
Banaras for meeting with me and kindly providing me with a copy of
his edition of Niścaldās’s text.
In the summer of 2011 I received a grant from the South Asia
Institute at Harvard to attend the Braj Bhasha and Early Hindi
Retreat in Miercurea Ciuc, Romania. I am grateful to all the
participants for listening with enthusiasm as I discussed my project,
and especially to Imre Bangha and Monika Horstmann for their
expert advice. Thanks also to Jack Hawley for offering several
helpful leads early in my research, and for continuing to show
enthusiastic interest in the project over the years. I am also indebted
to Allison Busch, both for her scholarship and her personal guidance.
The field of Hindi literature will not be the same without her.
I had the rare good fortune to have not just one but three
outstanding guides in graduate school: Parimal Patil, Francis
Clooney, and Anne Monius. I am immensely grateful to each of
them, not only for their help with my work on Niścaldās, but for all
their support over the years, as well as for their personal example. I
only wish Anne Monius were alive so that I could thank her in
person; the path from dissertation to book would have been much
thornier and harder to find were it not for her advice. I owe a
boundless debt of gratitude to another mentor no longer with us:
James Cutsinger, who taught me how to think, and without whom I
would never have gone into religious studies.
I am grateful to Hampden-Sydney College and the University of
Virginia for summer funding (in 2015 and 2017) that allowed me to
work on my manuscript. My gratitude extends also to many
colleagues and friends whose conversations have left me enriched,
at Harvard, Hampden-Sydney, and the University of Virginia. I could
not ask for better colleagues than the ones I currently have. John
Nemec has been unfailing in his support, encouragement, and
guidance; I learn something new from Sonam Kachru every time we
have a conversation; and I am deeply grateful to Shankar Nair for
his friendship and advice on this project over the years.
I am thankful to Lawrence McCrea (my first Sanskrit teacher) and
Ajay Rao for inviting me to be a part of the “Age of Vedānta”
research project. My thinking about Vedānta has been greatly
enriched through reading sessions and conversations with members
of the project, including Manasicha Akepiyapornchai, Arun
Brahmbhatt, Yigal Bronner, Patrick Cummins, Elaine Fisher, Elisa
Freschi, Christopher Minkowski, Jonathan Peterson, Valerie Stoker,
Gary Tubb, and especially Anand Venkatkrishnan. I also wish to
thank the series editor, Martha Selby, for her work and her kind
support; the two anonymous reviewers of my manuscript, whose
comments were without exception learned and helpful; and the staff
at Oxford University Press for their professionalism and care.
The philosopher Michael Dummett once reflected in a preface on
the “conventional fatuity” of claiming responsibility for all errors in a
work. “Obviously,” he wrote, “only I can be held responsible for
these: but, if I could recognize the errors, I should have removed
them, and, since I cannot, I am not in the position to know whether
any of them can be traced back to the opinions of those who have
influenced me.”2 Fatuously or not, I do claim responsibility for all
errors in this work. May the reader approach them with Niścaldās’s
words in mind: dayā dharma-siratāja, “Compassion is the crown of
virtue.”
To my wife, Elizabeth, I owe a greater debt of gratitude than I
could ever hope to repay in a preface: for her boundless support,
her patience during difficult times, her friendship, and her love. To
her this work is earnestly dedicated.

Michael S. Allen
Charlottesville, Virginia

1
Maharshi (1984), “Introduction to the Original Tamil Version.”
2 Dummett (1981), p. xii.
 Abbreviations and Notes on Conventions

VS Vicār-sāgar
VP Vṛtti-prabhākar
YP Yukti-prakāś

All other titles are spelled out. Note that my citations of the VS
follow Niścaldās 2003 (the Khemraj Shrikrishnadass edition). The
numbering of the verses in chapter 6 of this edition starts anew after
the commentary on verse 12. In my citations, I therefore specify
either 6A (the first twelve verses) or 6B (the remaining verses). For
example, “VS 6B.8 comm., p. 210” would refer to the commentary
on the eighth verse from the second part of chapter 6, which
appears on p. 210 of the Khemraj Shrikrishnadass edition.
For considerations of space, I have supplied the original Hindi in
notes when citing verses from the VS (which are sometimes open to
more than one interpretation) but not when citing prose passages
(which are typically unambiguous), except when the wording is
important to the discussion. Readers wishing to consult the text for
themselves can find scanned copies of the VS and VP on the
Internet Archive (archive.org) by searching for “Vichar Sagar” and
“Vritti Prabhakar.”
I follow the standard International Alphabet of Sanskrit
Transliteration, though I have not used diacritical marks for place
names (e.g., Rajasthan) or for words I treat as naturalized (e.g.,
pandit). My practice is to hyphenate compounds (e.g., Brahma-sūtra-
bhāṣya) as an aid to reading, except in footnotes reproducing
original text. For Hindi transliteration, I preserve the final, inherent -
a when reproducing metrical passages. I do the same when citing
individual words (except for names and titles of works), since in the
context of Advaita Vedānta the Sanskrit forms are likely more
familiar to most readers. When reproducing prose passages, by
contrast, I have generally omitted the final -a, following standard
practice.
All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
 PART I
VERNACULAR VEDĀNTA
 1
Introduction
The Unwritten History of Advaita Vedānta

The Ocean of Inquiry

Advaita Vedānta is not only one of the most influential traditions
within Hinduism, it is one of the most studied: more has been
written about it than perhaps any other school of Hindu thought.
Nevertheless, much of the history of Advaita Vedānta—a history
closely interwoven with that of medieval and modern Hinduism—
remains surprisingly unexplored. The present book focuses on a
single remarkable work and its place within this history: The Ocean
of Inquiry, the magnum opus of the North Indian monk Niścaldās
(ca. 1791–1863).
One may be forgiven for never having heard of The Ocean of
Inquiry. It is not discussed in any surveys of Hinduism and is seldom
mentioned even in works on Advaita Vedānta, the school to which
Niścaldās belonged.1 One might understandably be skeptical of the
claim that this little-known work, by a little-known author—no more
than a footnote in S. Dasgupta’s classic, five-volume History of
Indian Philosophy—was once the most influential book of its day. Yet
that is precisely how Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) described it
in 1894, a little over a year after his appearance at the Parliament of
Religions in Chicago. Vivekananda refers to “the great Nischaladāsa,
the celebrated author of Vichāra Sāgara, which book has more
influence in India than any that has been written in any language
within the last three centuries.”2
 The Ocean of Inquiry, or the Vicār-sāgar as it is known in Hindi, is
a vernacular compendium of Advaita Vedānta, the school of thought
founded by the philosopher-theologian Śaṅkara in around the eighth
century CE. Advaita Vedānta has played an especially important role
in modern Indian thought; it was regarded by many thinkers well
into the twentieth century as “the standard philosophy of intellectual
Hinduism.”3 Niścaldās’s work was an attempt to distill the essential
teachings of this tradition into a single volume for the sake of those
unable to read Sanskrit. The text was indeed quite popular in its
day: it went through many editions in Hindi and was translated an
impressive number of times, into Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu, Kannada,
Tamil, Telugu, and English; it was eventually even translated into
Sanskrit. The Ocean of Inquiry remains, arguably, one of the best
introductions to post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedānta in any language: it
offers a comprehensive yet relatively accessible survey of almost
every aspect of the tradition, both practical and theoretical, including
metaphysics, epistemology, theology, cosmology, philosophy of
language, yoga, and meditation. The success of the work is all the
more remarkable in that its author, Niścaldās, was a member of the
Dādū Panth, a devotional (bhakti) order not usually associated with
Advaita Vedānta.
How is it that a work once referred to by Vivekananda as the most
influential book in India is not more widely known today? In this
chapter I hope to answer this question, and I will suggest that the
neglect of The Ocean of Inquiry is not an isolated oversight; it is not
a question of a single work that has somehow been overlooked, but
of a much larger history of Advaita Vedānta, and indeed of
Hinduism, that remains so far unwritten.
Advaita Vedānta is usually thought of as a Sanskrit tradition, but
there is a rich trove of vernacular Vedāntic texts composed in
regional languages throughout India, texts which played an
important role in popularizing the tradition, but which remain
unstudied and in some cases even unknown. My first goal in this
book is to draw attention to this wider genre of vernacular Vedānta,
and to the role it played in disseminating Vedāntic ideas beyond the
elite circles of Sanskrit-trained intellectuals. But I am also interested
in those elite circles, since Niścaldās himself moved in them: it was
from the pandits of Banaras, the traditional seat of Sanskrit studies
in North India, that Niścaldās learned Vedānta. My second goal,
therefore, is to draw attention to the relatively neglected period of
late Indian philosophy (ca. 17th to 19th c.), a period too often
dismissed as one of barren scholasticism. I will argue that a close
study of the central theme in Niścaldās’s work—the theme of
intellectual “inquiry” (vicāra)—can help us better appreciate works
produced during this period; it can also shed new light on a long-
standing debate about the origins of modern Hinduism.

Niścaldās and Greater Advaita Vedānta

Already during his lifetime, Niścaldās’s reputation had begun to
spread across North India. “Your fame in the Vedānta-śāstras has
reached my ears,” wrote the Mahārāj of Bundi, Rām Singh (r. 1821–
1889), in an 1856/7 letter to Niścaldās. When Niścaldās died seven
years later, his funeral in Delhi drew huge crowds. “Thousands of
sādhus, brahmins, and merchants attended,” one of his disciples
reported in a letter written not long after.4 In the decades after
Niścaldās’s death, The Ocean of Inquiry was translated into regional
languages throughout India, its circulation aided by the rise of the
Indian printing industry during this period.5 As mentioned earlier,
The Ocean of Inquiry went through many editions in Hindi and was
eventually translated (often more than once) into many other
languages.6 Two other Hindi works by Niścaldās—the Vṛtti-prabhākar
(an ambitious, technical work of epistemology) and the Yukti-prakāś
(a pedagogical work illustrating Vedāntic teachings through
analogies, dialogues, and parables)—were also published and
translated multiple times, though their influence was never as great
as that of The Ocean of Inquiry. All three works came to be viewed
as authoritative expositions of Advaita Vedānta, even though
Niścaldās was never affiliated with any of the monastic orders
traditionally associated with the lineage of Śaṅkara.
 “A work that is already well-known,” wrote the translator to the
English edition of The Ocean of Inquiry in 1885, “needs no word of
commendation. It has made its way in the outlying districts of the
Punjab, and every Sadhu who knows to read and write receives
instruction from his Guru, on this very work.”7 Early readership for
The Ocean of Inquiry extended not only across India, but at least in
one notable case, across the world: the American philosopher
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) quotes approvingly from the
English translation in an essay written in 1893.8
In India, Niścaldās’s work continued to be read and admired well
into the twentieth century. The well-known Tamil saint Ramana
Maharshi (1879–1950) often recommended Niścaldās’s work to his
disciples, and he himself composed a short text based on the Tamil
translation.9 The Ocean of Inquiry was also held in esteem by
Candraśekharendra Sarasvatī (1894–1994), the revered
Śaṅkarācārya of Kanchi, who gave his blessing to the Sanskrit
translation published in 1964. Although not as widely known today,
Niścaldās’s work remains in print, and has served as inspiration for
Dādū-panthī sermons in Rajasthan and a Vedāntic lecture series in
Chennai.10
The Ocean of Inquiry is worth studying not only as a work that
was widely read in its day, with a reception history that can be more
or less clearly traced through its various editions, translations,
commentaries, and imitations; it is also significant as a window
looking out to a larger religious and intellectual history. Advaita
Vedānta, as I remarked at the outset, is one of the most influential
traditions within Hinduism, especially in modern times; yet the
processes by which it rose to this position of prominence have yet to
be thoroughly explored. Certainly these processes began centuries
before Niścaldās. As Christopher Minkowski has noted in a
pioneering attempt to sketch a “social history” of Advaita Vedānta,
Śaṅkara’s Vedānta was already the “establishment position” among
the pandits of Banaras in the early modern period;11 and as we shall
see in the next chapter, it was there that Niścaldās himself learned
Vedānta. But how did Advaita Vedānta become the establishment
position in the first place?
I suspect that in order fully to understand Advaita’s rise to
prominence—not just in Banaras, but across the subcontinent—we
will have to look beyond the received canon of Sanskrit philosophical
works. Scholarly treatments of Advaita Vedānta do not usually
include, for example, the popular Maharashtrian sant Eknāth (16th
c.), whom R. D. Ranade credits with having “made the ideas of
Vedānta familiar to the men in the streets.”12 Or consider the widely
read and adapted Adhyātma-rāmāyaṇa (ca. late 15th c.)—another
work seldom included in surveys of Vedāntic literature—which
synthesizes nondualist metaphysics with devotion (bhakti) to Rāma,
and which was one of the main sources for Tulsīdās’s Rām-carit-
mānas.13 The Tripurā-rahasya, to take an example from a very
different milieu, is a work of South Indian Tantra, yet its jñāna-
khaṇḍa is deeply indebted to Advaita Vedānta.14 From more recent
times, take the popular saint Sai Baba of Shirdi (d. 1918), who is not
regarded as an Advaita Vedāntin, but who would recommend
Vedāntic works such as the Pañcadaśī.15 These are just a handful of
examples, from very different periods and milieus, of the
dissemination of Advaita Vedānta—or at least of teachings inspired
by Advaita Vedānta—outside the received canon of Sanskrit
philosophical works, a phenomenon I will refer to as “Greater
Advaita Vedānta.”
The notion of Greater Advaita Vedānta can best be understood in
contrast to what might be labeled “Classical Advaita Vedānta,” or
Advaita Vedānta as a philosophical “school” centered around a more
or less clearly defined canon of Sanskrit texts.16 As an example of
this approach, consider Deutsch and Dalvi’s The Essential Vedānta: A
New Source Book of Advaita Vedānta (2004), which includes
selections from the works of Gauḍapāda, Śaṅkara, Sureśvara,
Maṇḍana Miśra, Padmapāda, Vācaspati Miśra, Sarvajñātman,
Vimuktātman, Vidyāraṇya, Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, Śrīharṣa,
Sadānanda, Dharmarāja, and Appayya Dīkṣita. This approach
illustrates what might be termed the standard model: only authors
writing in Sanskrit are included, and only philosophical works (as
opposed to narratives, dramas, hymns, etc.) are surveyed. The same
approach is adopted in Dasgupta’s History of Indian Philosophy (vol.
2, 1932), Sharma’s Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy (1960),
Nachane’s Survey of Post-Śaṅkara Vedānta (2000), Potter’s
Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (vol. 3, 1981; vol. 11, 2006),
and Adluri’s bibliography of Advaita Vedānta for Oxford
Bibliographies (2011). The standard model has also influenced
textbooks on Hinduism; Flood’s Introduction to Hinduism (1996), for
instance, after 2–3 pages on Śaṅkara, includes one paragraph on
“Later Advaita,” mentioning only Maṇḍana Miśra, Sureśvara,
Vācaspati Miśra, and Śrīharśa.17 Finally, one could easily multiply
examples of articles and book-length studies of Advaita Vedānta that
begin by examining a theme as it appears in the works of Śaṅkara
and then trace the development of the theme through the works of
later “canonical” thinkers in the tradition. Even Minkowski’s excellent
work on the social history of Advaita Vedānta in the fifteenth to
seventeenth centuries is limited insofar as his study is based on
Potter’s Bibliography and therefore follows the standard model.
If Classical Advaita Vedānta refers to a relatively narrow, clearly
defined tradition centered around a canon of Sanskrit philosophical
texts, Greater Advaita Vedānta refers to a much more expansive and
less clearly defined tradition, embracing works not usually included
in the classical canon. I find it helpful to think of these works as
falling into three broad, potentially overlapping categories: (1)
vernacular works, (2) nonphilosophical works (e.g., narratives and
dramas), and (3) “eclectic” works in which Vedāntic teachings are
blended with Yoga, Tantra, bhakti, etc. These three categories are
not exhaustive, and they are by no means mutually exclusive. Their
purpose is simply to provide a starting point for conceptualizing this
broader tradition—or better, this complex network of traditions—and
thereby beginning to trace the dissemination of Vedāntic teachings
to a wide audience throughout South Asia. Let me say a few words
about each category in turn.
 The first and perhaps most important category is vernacular
Vedānta. This category, as I am using it here, does not presuppose
any particular theory of vernacularization18 but simply refers, as a
starting point for research, to works of Vedānta written in regional
languages (bhāṣā) rather than in Sanskrit. Within this category, Hindi
literature alone presents a substantial field of unexplored works, as I
will discuss in chapter 3. For other vernaculars, an excellent starting
place is R. Balasubramanian’s edited volume on Advaita Vedānta
(2000), which has made an invaluable contribution to broadening
the canon by including surveys of Advaita Vedānta in regional
languages throughout India.19 These chapters demonstrate the
vitality of Advaita Vedānta—and the richness of avenues available for
future research—in Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi,
Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, and Oriya. Though not a vernacular
strictly speaking, Persian might also be added to the list; the
Mughal-sponsored translations of the Upaniṣads, the Prabodha-
candrodaya, and the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha add a further dimension to the
spread of Vedāntic ideas beyond the classical Sanskrit tradition.20
The second category is the rather loose category of
“nonphilosophical” works. The earliest example—and indeed perhaps
the earliest instance of any work of “Greater Advaita Vedānta”—is
the Prabodha-candrodaya, a Sanskrit allegorical drama composed by
Kṛṣṇamiśra in the eleventh century, featuring characters such as
Discernment (viveka), Delusion (mahāmoha), Lust (kāma), and
Detachment (vairāgya). Kṛṣṇamiśra’s play inspired countless
imitations and translations; there are as many as twenty different
versions in Hindi alone, dating from the sixteenth century onward.21
As I have argued elsewhere, the Prabodha-candrodaya might also
have been the earliest work to present a “big-tent” picture of
Vedānta as the culmination of all theological sects as well as of all
orthodox (āstika) philosophical schools—a picture that is standard in
modern Vedāntic self-understanding but that is absent from the
works of Śaṅkara and his early disciples. Kṛṣṇamiśra’s play was an
attempt to express Vedāntic teachings in dramatic rather than
philosophical form, and its popularity (judging by the number of
translations and adaptations over the centuries) outstripped many
better-known, strictly philosophical works of Vedānta. Nonetheless,
the Prabodha-candrodaya is hardly mentioned at all in surveys of
Advaita Vedānta. Another example of a work in this category is the
Adhyātma-rāmāyaṇa, mentioned earlier. This work, composed in
Sanskrit probably near the end of the fifteenth century, is a retelling
of Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa from a “spiritual” or “inward” (adhyātma)
point of view, interweaving the story of Rāma’s life with short asides
as well as longer didactic passages explaining Rāma’s true nature
and affirming the soul’s identity with Brahman. The Adhyātma-
rāmāyaṇa was the subject of at least thirteen commentaries and was
a source text not only for Tulsīdās’s Rām-carit-mānas but also for a
popular Malayalam version by Eḻuttacchan (16th c.).22 Finally, within
the category of nonphilosophical works one might also include
commentaries on narrative works: for example, Śrīdhara’s
commentary on the Bhāgavata-purāṇa23 or Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary
on the Mahābhārata.24
The third category is that of “eclectic” or “syncretic” works
blending Advaita Vedānta with other traditions, including Sāṃkhya,
Yoga, Tantra, and various streams of bhakti. Here one might begin
by looking to the vast corpus of works attributed to Śaṅkara.25 The
portrait of Śaṅkara that emerges from this corpus, as well as from
hagiographies such as the Śaṅkara-dig-vijaya attributed to Mādhava,
might not accurately reflect the historical Śaṅkara, but it
undoubtedly captures the expansiveness of what I am calling
Greater Advaita Vedānta. Indeed, “pseudo-Śaṅkara” is perhaps the
preeminent representative of this broader tradition: he is not merely
the author of philosophical texts such as the Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya,
he is also a Tāntrika, a Yogin, an author of bhakti hymns, and the
promoter of the “six sects” (ṣaṇ-mata). Further examples of this
category of eclectic works could easily be multiplied; to take just one
historically significant example, many of the Yoga Upaniṣads blend
the metaphysics of Advaita Vedānta with various streams of yogic
tradition.26
 Again, these three categories are not mutually exclusive.
Eḻuttacchan’s Malayalam version of the Adhyātma-rāmāyaṇa, for
instance, belongs to all three categories: it was written in a
vernacular; it is a narrative rather than a philosophical work; and it
synthesizes Vedānta with Rāma-bhakti. Nor, again, are the
categories necessarily exhaustive; they are simply meant as starting
points for rethinking which texts—and by extension which authors,
institutions, and social networks—need to be studied if we are to
understand the full history and reach of Advaita Vedānta.
Returning now to Niścaldās, we might situate his work within a
series of concentric circles: the largest circle is Greater Advaita
Vedānta; within Greater Advaita Vedānta, there is the neglected
genre of vernacular Vedānta; within vernacular Vedānta, there is the
relatively unexplored field of Hindi Vedānta; and within Hindi works
of Vedānta, there is The Ocean of Inquiry. It is important to note,
however, that Niścaldās himself situates his work “squarely” within
the intellectual milieu of classical Sanskrit traditions, which is why in
this book I will draw attention to Niścaldās not only as a
representative of vernacular Vedānta (and therefore of “Greater
Advaita Vedānta” more broadly) but also of late Classical Advaita
Vedānta. As we will see in the next chapter, Niścaldās was
thoroughly trained in the texts of the classical canon, and his
intention in The Ocean of Inquiry was not to innovate but to make
the teachings of these Sanskrit texts available to a wider audience. It
is worth noting from the outset that although Niścaldās belonged to
the Dādū Panth, a vernacular and devotional tradition, The Ocean of
Inquiry reads much like any Sanskrit work of Advaita Vedānta; apart
from maṅgala verses invoking Dādū at the end of each chapter,
there is nothing in the text that would clue the reader in to
Niścaldās’s sectarian identity. Since the early days of its circulation,
The Ocean of Inquiry has been held in high regard within the Dādū
Panth, but its intentionally nonsectarian character helped it achieve a
popularity that crossed sectarian boundaries.
And a popular text it was: T. R. V. Murti goes so far as to claim,
“The great popularity that the Advaita Vedānta enjoys in the non-
scholarly world of sadhus, house-holders and other informed laymen
is, in great measure, due to the two Hindi works of Santa
Niścaldāsa’s [sic] Vicāra Sāgara and Vṛtti Prabhākara.”27 Despite such
testimonies, the full extent of Niścaldās’s influence is hard to assess;
certainly it was nowhere near the influence of Vivekananda a
generation or two later. We should probably take Vivekananda’s
claim—that The Ocean of Inquiry was the most influential book to
appear in India in three hundred years—with a grain of salt;
Vivekananda was given to swells of enthusiasm, and it is a curious
fact that apart from this mention of Niścaldās here and once more
later in the same piece (“Reply to the Madras Address”), neither
Niścaldās nor The Ocean of Inquiry finds mention elsewhere in
Vivekananda’s voluminous works. While the extent of Niścaldās’s
influence is therefore debatable, there is no doubt that The Ocean of
Inquiry was a popular work, widely read in its day; and yet the work
has been virtually erased from the history of Advaita Vedānta, such
that even specialists are often unaware of it.
My argument, then, is not that The Ocean of Inquiry by itself is
the missing link in our understanding of Vedānta’s rise to popularity,
but rather that our ignorance of this work is representative of a
much wider ignorance of sources that are crucial to understanding
this history. To contextualize the popularity of Niścaldās’s work, and
the wider popularity of Advaita Vedānta in the nineteenth century,
we need to look in two directions. First, we need to look toward the
past, seeking to understand earlier phases and modes of the spread
of Advaita Vedānta throughout India. When Niścaldās set out to
write an authoritative exposition of Vedānta in the vernacular, he did
not need to proselytize or to “sell” his work. The prestige of Vedānta
was such that the demand was there beforehand, as I will show in
the following chapter; The Ocean of Inquiry was met by an already
eager audience of sādhus and others who wanted to study Advaita
Vedānta but who were held back by not knowing Sanskrit.
The history of the popularization of Advaita Vedānta also points
us forward, to the shaping of a modern, unified Hindu identity in the
generations just after Niścaldās. No figure looms larger in this
history than Swami Vivekananda,28 who identified Vedānta as “the
real backbone of Hinduism in all its various manifestations,”29 and
who viewed Advaita Vedānta as its loftiest expression. S.
Radhakrishnan (1888–1975), the second president of India and
author of the still widely read The Hindu View of Life, is but one
among countless twentieth-century Indian intellectuals who held
similar views. The disjunctions between classical Vedānta and the
neo-Vedānta of thinkers such as Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan
have often been noted, but these comparisons have tended to focus
on early Advaita Vedānta, especially the thought of Śaṅkara.30 In
order to understand the transformations represented by neo-Vedānta
(and by “the Hindu renaissance” more broadly), one would do well
to compare it not just with Śaṅkara’s thought but with contemporary
(or near-contemporary) expressions of Classical Advaita Vedānta;
and this is precisely what a work such as The Ocean of Inquiry
allows us to do.31
One particularly significant disjunction between the late Vedāntic
thought on display in Niścaldās’s work and the neo-Vedāntic thought
of Vivekananda is the latter’s disdain for scholasticism and his
valorization of mystical experience as the foundation of the tradition.
As Anantanand Rambachan (1994) has shown, this valorization is
connected with a relative downplaying of scriptural authority; it is
also connected with a characteristically modern understanding of
religion as a fundamentally subjective, private, experiential
phenomenon. “Religion is not in books,” Vivekananda once declared,
“nor in theories, nor in dogmas, nor in talking, not even in
reasoning. It is being and becoming.”32 On this point Niścaldās offers
a contrast so complete as to call into question the categorization of
Advaita Vedānta as a form of mysticism. For Niścaldās, as I will
argue in the second half of this book, there is no sharp distinction
between “book-learning” and true knowledge, between theory and
practice, or between scholastic philosophy and concrete realization.
The central practice on the path to liberation is not meditation but
intellectual inquiry (vicāra).
 Recovering the history of Advaita Vedānta
In spite of its popularity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, The Ocean of Inquiry is not as widely known in India
today, and it is virtually unknown among Western scholars, a
situation that calls for some explanation. I believe there are four
main reasons which together help to account for the relative neglect
of Niścaldās’s work: (1) linguistic shifts in modern Hindi, which make
it difficult to read Niścaldās’s work without special training; (2) the
prestige of Sanskrit, which has led to a neglect of vernacular
Vedānta; (3) the uncritically accepted view that late Advaita Vedānta
contains little that is new, but instead represents a period of
stagnation or decline; and finally, and more generally, (4) ruts in
existing research. Recognizing the existence of these ruts is the first
step in moving beyond them and recovering a fuller picture of South
Asian religious and intellectual history.
The first reason for the neglect of Niścaldās by Western scholars,
and to some extent by Indian readers, too, is simple: The Ocean of
Inquiry can be hard to read. It would not have been especially
difficult for an educated Hindi speaker of the nineteenth century,
who would have been familiar with the language of “the Hindi
classical tradition,” as it has been called.33 But the development of
modern standard Hindi in the late-nineteenth and twentieth
centuries (which was based on one particular dialect among others,
and which featured a relatively Sanskritized vocabulary) gradually
distanced Hindi speakers from other dialects and earlier forms of the
language.34 The differences between Niścaldās’s Hindi and modern
standard Hindi are substantial enough that much of Niścaldās’s text
would remain incomprehensible to anyone without special training in
the malleable, transregional language of earlier Hindi texts. This is
especially true of his verses, which (as I explain in chapter 3) are
written in a self-consciously classical register. Moreover, the
development of modern standard Hindi was accompanied by a
cultural shift away from the study of classical Hindi literature. This
explains why, in the second half of the twentieth century, there
began to appear paraphrases or “translations” (anuvād) of The
Ocean of Inquiry into modern standard Hindi.35 I address questions
of language in greater detail in chapter 3 of this book; the point I
wish to stress here is simply that we need more students and
scholars today who are trained to read earlier forms of Hindi.
A more important reason for the neglect of Niścaldās’s work has
to do with the prestige of Sanskrit among Advaitins themselves,
which in turn seems to have shaped scholarly perceptions of Advaita
Vedānta as an essentially Sanskrit tradition. The introduction to the
Sanskrit translation of The Ocean of Inquiry is instructive in this
regard: the Sanskrit version is presented not simply as a translation
but as an improvement—as if Niścaldās’s text had finally come into
its own by being rendered in a language he deliberately avoided!36
As discussed earlier, the common picture of Advaita Vedānta, which
one encounters in both Indian and Western scholarship, is that it is
essentially a Sanskrit textual tradition, with a more or less clearly
defined canon of works, beginning with Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra-
bhāṣya and extending through its major subcommentaries (Bhāmatī,
Vivaraṇa), as well as through dialectical works such as the
Khaṇḍana-khaṇḍa-khādya and Advaita-siddhi, and through
independent expositions such as the Pañcadaśī and Vedānta-sāra.
There is no doubt some truth in this picture, but it is by no means
the full picture. The prestige of Sanskrit in Vedāntic historiography
has led to the neglect not only of Niścaldās but of a much wider
tradition of Vedāntic works in Hindi and other vernaculars,37 as I will
discuss in chapter 3.
A third reason for the neglect of The Ocean of Inquiry is a bias in
favor of creativity and originality, where these terms are understood
in unnecessarily limited ways. At its widest and most damaging level,
this bias has led to entire centuries of intellectual history in South
Asia being dismissed as periods of “stagnation” or “decline.” In the
case of Advaita Vedānta, for example, one can even encounter the
remarkable claim that the tradition “ended” with Madhusūdana
Sarasvatī in the early seventeenth century.38 Manuscript catalogs
and even published texts tell an entirely different story. In fact,
scores of new works of Advaita Vedānta continued to be composed
in the succeeding centuries.39 There was certainly no stagnation or
decline in textual production. It is true that many of the texts
produced—commentaries, subcommentaries, sub-subcommentaries,
textbooks, and compendia—embody different sets of intellectual
values from those that a scholar trained in modern academia might
hold. But the task of scholars should not be to judge prematurely—
much less a priori—what kinds of texts are worth writing. Rather, we
should begin by asking ourselves what value the thinkers of the
period themselves found in the vast number of “unoriginal” works
they wrote, studied, taught, commented on, and copied.40 I discuss
this question further in chapter 6.
A fourth, more general reason for the neglect of Niścaldās has to
do with ruts in research programs, a point which has implications for
the study of South Asia more broadly. The best example from my
own specialty of Advaita Vedānta is the number of studies on
Śaṅkara that continue to be written each year, while later figures
languish in relative obscurity. Not only does this situation deprive us
of potentially rich sources of philosophical and theological reflection,
it inevitably distorts our understanding of South Asian history; for
how can we form any adequate notion of Advaita Vedānta as a
tradition “on the ground” unless we study what Advaitins themselves
were actually reading and writing over the centuries?
The creation of ruts tends to have both an ideological and a
practical dimension. In the case of Advaita Vedānta, the neglect of
the post-Śaṅkara tradition is reinforced by the view that the later
tradition is either decadent (later commentators fail to “get”
Śaṅkara) or derivate (everything of importance is already there in
Śaṅkara). Probably there is a broader bias here toward the study of
founder figures over later interpreters in general, just as there is,
textually, a bias toward root texts over commentaries; commentaries
are perhaps dipped into from time to time when the root text is not
clear, but how often are they taken as objects of study in
themselves?41 Then there is a practical dimension, which is perhaps
even more important: the more people who study Śaṅkara, the
easier it becomes to study Śaṅkara. A general consensus on
authorship issues has been reached; secondary literature is
extensive and reliable enough that one can be confident of
understanding Śaṅkara’s philosophy without having missed anything
major, and without having to go out on an interpretive limb; one is
assured of having other scholars to engage with; even nonspecialists
can appreciate the relevance of the research; most importantly,
perhaps, good editions and translations of all of Śaṅkara’s works are
available. This last point is especially important: the number of
scholars who are going to be attracted to a thinker will plummet
immediately if there are no reliable translations, to say nothing of
there being no printed editions of an author’s corpus (which is still
the case for a surprising number of Vedāntic works). Finally, there is
the burden of cumulative knowledge: in order to understand a given
thinker, one must understand preceding thinkers. The later the
thinker, the higher the bar is set. To study a late Vedāntin such as
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, for example, presupposes a thorough
knowledge of Śaṅkara and the intervening tradition, not to mention
some knowledge of Navya Nyāya (itself enough to daunt an
otherwise brave soul), of Dvaita Vedānta, and of Kṛṣṇa-bhakti.
Another rut in current research programs which is especially
relevant to the case of Niścaldās has to do with language training. To
go to the effort of learning a language, one must have a sense of
what the language is good for, and Sanskrit and Hindi are usually
understood as being good for different things. What is Hindi good
for? Certainly it is good for doing fieldwork in contemporary India.
For those interested in textual research and in earlier periods of
religious history, Hindi also opens the door to the study of bhakti
traditions. But if one is interested in Indian philosophy, Sanskrit is
naturally the language one will choose, and there would seem to be
little incentive (as things stand) for studying Hindi. For a long time,
the classical Hindi tradition was associated primarily with devotional
texts. Fortunately, this is beginning to change. Busch (2011), for
example, has drawn our attention to the rich trove of Mughal-era
poetic works in Braj Bhāṣā, and Williams (2014) has highlighted the
diversity of vernacular ̇ texts—including works of Vedānta—by
authors within the Nirañjanī sampradāya (which had close
connections with the Dādū Panth). Much work remains to be done in
the study of early Hindi materials; countless manuscripts remain
unpublished, covering not only Bhakti literature and courtly poetry,
but also works of Yoga, Vedānta, medicine, and other genres.42 As
scholars begin to travel outside the well-worn paths of inherited
research trajectories, new areas of study open up, with the promise
of expanding, correcting, and refining our knowledge of religious and
intellectual history in South Asia.

The argument of this book

By now it should be clear that I do not view the neglect of
Niścaldās’s works as an anomaly: it is not a question of a single
author who has somehow been overlooked, or of a solitary gap in
our knowledge of Advaita Vedānta that can be filled with a few
articles and a robust monograph. Rather, the neglect of The Ocean
of Inquiry is symptomatic of a much wider neglect of materials that
could help us better understand the tradition and its rise to
prominence. This is the central argument I wish to make in this
book: that Niścaldās and his works are part of a much larger—and
still largely unwritten—history of Hinduism. More specifically, I will
argue that The Ocean of Inquiry represents both a wider genre and
an entire period in need of further study. First, there is the neglected
genre of vernacular Vedānta, which points to the popularization of
Vedāntic ideas even before the British colonial period, when Vedānta
came to be identified by many thinkers as the “essence” of
Hinduism. Second, there is the neglected period of late Indian
philosophy (17th–19th c.), which can help us understand how
intellectual elites in early modern India understood their own
tradition, and how their views might have informed the work of
orientalist scholars and Hindu reformers seeking to make sense of
the diversity of Hindu texts, doctrines, sects, and practices. Indeed, I
will ultimately argue that without understanding the scholasticism of
the period, one cannot fully understand the emergence of modern
Hinduism.
Part I of this book (chapters 1–3) focuses on The Ocean of
Inquiry as a representative of the wider genre of vernacular
Vedānta. In this introduction (chapter 1) I have identified vernacular
Vedānta as a significant dimension of what I am calling “Greater
Advaita Vedānta,” or Advaita Vedānta as it was disseminated in a
wide variety of forms outside the canon defined by the works of
Śaṅkara and his better-known followers, and I have suggested that a
study of Greater Advaita Vedānta is necessary if we are to
understand where, how, when, and why Advaita Vedānta came to
occupy a position of prestige vis-à-vis other Indian philosophical
traditions. In chapter 2, I will turn to the life of Niścaldās, explaining
how a member of a bhakti order steeped in vernacular traditions
came to write an authoritative exposition of Advaita Vedānta. I will
argue that Advaita Vedānta already enjoyed considerable popularity
in North India prior to Niścaldās, contrary to the view of scholars
who trace the “privileging” of Vedānta to the work of nineteenth-
century orientalists and Hindu reformers. Chapter 3 situates The
Ocean of Inquiry in the context of a much wider, largely unexplored
archive of vernacular Vedāntic works composed in early modern
North India. The chapter also argues that the widely accepted
“Sanskrit vs. vernacular” binary is too limiting. In fact, The Ocean of
Inquiry and other relatively late vernacular works can be seen as
heir to two classical traditions: a classical Sanskrit tradition and a
classical vernacular tradition.
Part II of this book (chapters 4–6) focuses on The Ocean of
Inquiry as a representative of late Vedāntic scholasticism. As an
attempt to distill over a thousand years of Vedāntic teachings,
Niścaldās’s work is at once original and conservative: it is original in
the sheer scope of its synthesis and in its manner of presentation,
but it is conservative in that it does not seek to present “new” ideas
(a questionable goal in any case for a tradition in which the goal is
the realization of truths already declared in the Vedas). The
conservatism of the work is in fact a boon for anyone wishing to
understand late Advaita Vedānta, for the positions held by Niścaldās
may be taken as representative of a wider intellectual world. At the
very least, Niścaldās’s work provides a glimpse of Vedānta as it was
taught in early nineteenth-century Banaras, where Niścaldās studied.
Here my goal is to recover the intellectual values that led so many
authors of the period to compose works that have struck modern
critics as unworthy of study. I do this by offering a detailed study of
the central theme of Niścaldās’s text: the role of intellectual inquiry
(vicāra) on the path to liberation.
I have noted that The Ocean of Inquiry is a compendium of
Advaita Vedānta. It is also, for Niścaldās, a profoundly practical text:
its purpose, he states from the outset, is to lead to liberation,
defined as the complete removal of suffering and the attainment of
perfect bliss. Although he stresses the goal of liberation throughout
the text, a modern reader might be hard pressed to see the practical
relevance of many of the discussions in The Ocean of Inquiry. If one
comes to Niścaldās’s work looking for a lyrical celebration of mystical
experience, one will quickly be disappointed. The vast majority of
the text is prose commentary, and it reads like what it is: a work of
philosophy—and “scholastic” philosophy at that, responding to
centuries of inherited debates, seeking to answer objections and
reconcile contradictions, and drawing on a highly technical
vocabulary. The following passage, which considers an objection to
the well-known rope-snake analogy, suffices to give a taste:

Another objection: although the removal of the snake is thus possible through
an awareness of the rope, nevertheless, the removal of the awareness of the
snake is not possible, since the substratum of the snake is consciousness
delimited by the rope, while the substratum of the awareness of the snake is
the Witness-consciousness. In accordance with what has already been said,
through an awareness of the rope there is only a revealing of consciousness
delimited by the rope, not of the Witness-consciousness. Therefore, despite
there being an awareness of the rope, the Witness-consciousness, which is
the substratum of the awareness of the snake, will remain unknown, and
there cannot be the removal of an imagined object when its substratum is
unknown.43

This is not, perhaps, what one would expect from a runaway

best-seller today! But that is precisely what makes The Ocean of
Inquiry worth studying. Late Advaita Vedānta is sometimes
dismissed as a mere scholasticism divorced from the concerns of
everyday religious practice. Śaṅkara, we are told, was concerned
with the practical goal of liberation; later Vedāntins, by contrast,
tended to lose themselves in abstract and fruitless theories. This
reading of Vedānta, however, is a projection of modern prejudices. I
will argue that Niścaldās provides a clear example of a late scholastic
thinker for whom highly technical theories were neither abstract nor
fruitless, but concretely related to the goal of liberation.
The three chapters of Part II offer a close reading and
interpretation of the text, building on one another to develop a
sustained argument about the relationship of philosophy to spiritual
practice. By the final chapter, the reader should have a clear sense
of the meaning and role of inquiry (vicāra) in Niścaldās’s thought, as
well as (I hope) a deeper respect for the intellectual values of the
scholasticism his work represents. As we shall see, for Niścaldās
there need not be a distinction between theoretical knowledge and
liberating knowledge. Under the right conditions, seemingly abstract
intellectual inquiry can become a concrete spiritual practice; indeed,
for those who are properly qualified, it is the central practice on the
path to liberation.
Chapter 4 lays the groundwork for this argument by exploring the
epistemology contained—both explicitly and implicitly—in The Ocean
of Inquiry. I argue that for thinkers like Niścaldās, the kind of
knowledge that liberates exists on a continuum with everyday
knowledge. The key distinction is not between “academic”
knowledge and transcendent knowledge, but rather between doubt-
laden awareness and doubt-free awareness. Chapter 5 delves deeper
into the idea of intellectual “inquiry” (vicāra) as a form of spiritual
practice. I place The Ocean of Inquiry within a wider tradition of
Vedāntic texts in which the central practice on the path to liberation
is primarily intellectual, and I consider the relationship of this view of
inquiry to Pierre Hadot’s well-known idea of “spiritual exercises” in
Greco-Roman philosophy. Chapter 6 looks at three “case studies” of
inquiry in practice. I begin by urging that we must be careful not to
read scholastic texts through the lens of modern intellectual values. I
then discuss the scholastic values implicit in Niścaldās’s text, drawing
on the interpretation of inquiry developed in the previous chapter. I
suggest that although The Ocean of Inquiry does not display
doctrinal originality, it displays considerable stylistic, pedagogical,
and “procedural” originality.
Part I of this book thus focuses on historical context, while Part II
focuses on the text itself, and some readers will naturally be drawn
more to one or the other. But the two parts are intimately
connected. That historical context can shed light on texts is obvious;
what is sometimes less appreciated is the value of close, textual
study for a better understanding of history. In my conclusion
(chapter 7), I will show that the close reading and interpretation
offered in Part II, while valuable for its own sake at the level of
ideas, also has significant historical implications, bearing on the
much-debated question of the origins of modern Hinduism. Many
scholars have argued that Hinduism as we know it today—as a
coherent, unified religious tradition—was largely a “construction” or
“invention” of European orientalist scholarship. Others, such as
David Lorenzen and Andrew Nicholson, have argued that some form
of a unified “Hinduism” existed avant la lettre, and that the role of
orientalists should not be overemphasized. I argue that a close
reading of the final chapter of The Ocean of Inquiry—which offers a
Vedāntic synthesis of the various “Hindu” philosophical schools and
religious sects—lends weight to the argument that a unified tradition
existed prior to the work of nineteenth-century orientalists. Although
this tradition differed in significant ways from modern Hinduism,
notably in its exclusion of folk and subaltern practices, there is clear
evidence that many premodern thinkers saw themselves as part of a
broader tradition, theoretically rooted in the Vedas but de facto
linked to a wide range of scriptures, schools, and “sects.” Niścaldās’s
work further shows that such a vision was not limited to Sanskrit-
speaking Brahmins, but, like Advaita Vedānta itself, had spread more
widely through vernacular channels. On the other hand, Niścaldās’s
work calls into question Lorenzen’s and Nicholson’s hypothesis that
the unification of Hinduism was catalyzed by the presence of Islam
in India. I argue that an equally important factor—and one that
predates Islam—is the scholastic method itself: the desire to
synthesize, harmonize, and remove doubts contributed to the
gradual systematization of an expanded Vedic canon. The unification
of traditions that would later come to labeled “Hindu” can thus be
understood, at least in part, as a natural result of the kind of
intellectual inquiry embodied in Niścaldās’s magnum opus.

1 See, e.g., the sparse entry in Potter’s Bibliography (2009), which incorrectly
gives Niścaldās’s date as 1913 and which—probably following an earlier mistake in
Dasgupta (1932, p. 216, n. 1)—misidentifies Niścaldās’s Vṛtti-prabhākar as a
commentary when in fact it is an independent work. As Pahlajrai has noted (2009,
p. 57), McGregor’s survey Hindi Literature from Its Beginnings to the Nineteenth
Century (1984) makes no mention of Niścaldās either. A noteworthy exception is
Balasubramanian (2000), whose edited volume devotes considerable attention to
Advaita Vedānta in vernacular languages, including a discussion of Niścaldās’s
philosophy (pp. 583–590). Until recently, relatively little research had been done
on Niścaldās. The only substantial study in a non-Indian language from the
twentieth century is Shrivastava (1980); see also the brief treatment by
Sethuraman (1968). More recently, Pahlajrai (2009, 2013) and Shivkumar (2009)
have published on the VP, and Bhuvaneshwari (2015) has written on the Sanskrit
translation of the VS. For Hindi scholarship, see Singh (1981), Dādū (1994), and
Kapil (2005).
2
Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 281. The “Reply to the Madras Address,” from
which this line comes, is undated but seems to have been written about a year
after Vivekananda’s participation in the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in
Chicago; “I am now busy writing a reply to the Madras address,” he wrote in a
letter dated 25 September 1894 (vol. 6, p. 237).
3 Basham (1986 [1954]), p. 331.
8
Peirce (1998), p. 3.
9 This text has been translated into English as Jewel Garland of Enquiry (1968).
10
On the Dādū-panthī sermons, see Thiel-Horstmann (1992), p. 46, n. 11; on
the lecture series, see Bhuvaneshwari (2015), p. xi.
11 Minkowski (2011), p. 217.
12
Qtd. as cited in Zelliot (1987), p. 95. Cf. Talghatti (2000), pp. 545–546.
13 For more on the Adhyātma-rāmāyaṇa, see Allen (2011).
14
For more on the Tripurā-rahasya, see Rigopoulos (1998), pp. 169–194.
15 See Rigopoulos (1993), pp. 261–270.
 16 It is worth noting that the identification of Advaita Vedānta with this canon of
Sanskrit philosophical texts is to some extent traceable to Advaitins themselves.
Niścaldās himself, for example, cites only Sanskrit philosophical works in The
Ocean of Inquiry. I will discuss the significance of this choice in chapter 3.
17
Flood (1996), pp. 239–242.
18 See, e.g., Pollock’s (2006) wide-ranging study of vernacularization in relation

to the Sanskrit “cosmopolis,” or Novetzke’s (2017) definition of vernacularization,

in the context of medieval Maharashtra, as “the strategic use of the topos of
everyday life within a social, political, artistic, linguistic, and cultural process in
which the quotidian (‘ordinary,’ ‘everyday’) expands at the center of a given
region’s public culture” (p. 10).
19
Mahadevan (1968), while not nearly as thorough, is a noteworthy forerunner
of Balasubramanian; his edited volume includes a brief section, “Some Authors of
Works in Regional Languages,” covering the Maharashtrian sant Jñānadeva,
Niścaldās, the Tamil Advaitin Tāṇḍavarāyar, and the Telegu poet Potana (pp. 356–
375). More recent, specialized studies include Dobe (2014), who has discussed
vernacular influences on the Vedānta of Rāma Tīrtha, and Steinschneider (2017),
who has studied the nineteenth-century reception of the Kaivalliyanavanītam, a
major work of Advaita Vedānta in Tamil.
20 On this Persian translation literature, see Gandhi (2011, 2020), Nair (2020),

and Truschke (2016).

21
On Hindi versions of the Prabodha-candrodaya, see Agraval (1962). On the
historical significance of the play for what I am calling Greater Advaita Vedānta,
see Allen (2016).
22 Freeman (2003) writes that Eḻuttacchan’s work “spread with a phenomenal

popularity in manuscript form from one end of Kerala to the other in Nāyar and
other middle-caste homes, where it seems to have served as the principal text for
domestic devotional recitation down to the present” (p. 480).
23
The degree of Advaitic influence in Śrīdhara’s commentary has been debated;
see Sheridan (1994) and R. Gupta (2007). Without entering the debate, I might
simply note that much hinges on how broadly Advaita Vedānta is defined. Jīva
Gosvāmī (16th c.) writes that Śrīdhara’s “writings are interspersed with the
doctrines of advaita,” which to my mind would make his work representative of
Greater Advaita Vedānta, whether or not his views line up perfectly with Śaṅkara’s.
Incidentally, Jīva further notes that the Advaitins “are now quite prevalent,
especially in central India” (Tattva-sandarbha 27.1, trans. Dasa [2007, p. 396]).
24 Nīlakaṇṭha’s Mahābhārata commentary “was well-received in its own day, and

circulated to many parts of India fairly rapidly. . . . Nīlakaṇṭha designed his

commentary as a properly non-dualist or Advaitin reading of the text” (Minkowski
2010; see also Minkowski 2005). Niścaldās cites Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary
approvingly in VS ch. 7, v. 99 (Niścaldās 2003, p. 320).
 25 The neglect of these works is an unfortunate consequence of the otherwise
helpful work of Hacker and Mayeda in establishing criteria of authenticity for the
works of Śaṅkara. Their efforts have been invaluable for the study of Śaṅkara, but
have perhaps indirectly hindered the study of Advaita Vedānta more broadly, which
cannot be reduced to the teachings of (the historical) Śaṅkara.
26
See also Mallinson (2014) on the nondualism of the Haṭhayoga-pradīpikā. He
concludes: “Although haṭhayoga provided a home for a variety of Śaiva practices
and concepts, its philosophical basis came to be dominated by advaita Vedānta”
(p. 238).
27 “Introductory Words,” in Shrivastava (1980), p. xi.
28
Agehananda Bharati once went so far as to write: “Modern Hindus derive
their knowledge of Hinduism from Vivekananda, directly or indirectly” (1970, p.
278).
29 “Reply to the Madras Address,” Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 280.
30
See, e.g., Rambachan (1994).
31 Madaio (2017) makes a similar point, arguing against the very dichotomy of

“traditional Vedānta” vs. “neo-Vedānta” by drawing attention to the “multivocality

and diversity” of Vedānta in the medieval and early modern periods (p. 2). While I
disagree with Madaio’s rejection of the label “neo-Vedānta”—which need not be
pejorative, and which need not signal a complete rupture with tradition (cf. neo-
Confucianism, neo-Platonism, neo-Thomism)—Madaio’s work complements my
own, suggesting that more scholarship is needed on neglected genres and periods
within the tradition.
32
“The Sages of India,” Complete Works, vol. 3, p. 253.
4 Citations and further details on Niścaldās’s life will be provided in the next

chapter.
5
On the rise of commercial publishing in India in the second half of the
nineteenth century, see Stark (2007).
6 The online catalog of the Center for Research Libraries lists two Gujarati

translations (SAMP Early 20th-Century Indian Books Project, items 11162 and
11374). Blumhardt (1913, p. 211) lists the Marathi version. A Bengali translation is
mentioned by several authors (e.g., Shrivastava 2000, p. 583), but I have been
unable to track it down. The online catalog of the Oriental and India Office
Collections of the British Library lists an Urdu translation (“in Persian characters . .
. . With a Hindustani translation by Srirama of the Hindi commentary,” British
Library shelfmark 14154.e.29); it also lists a version “in Persian characters, with a
Hindustani commentary by Lala Baburama” (British Library shelfmark
14154.ee.24). The same catalog also lists a Kannada translation (shelfmark
14155.d.5), two Tamil translations (shelfmarks 14170.e.53 and 14169.f.23), and
two Telugu translations (shelfmarks 14174.b.61 and 14174.c.1). (The catalog also
lists a version in Gurumukhi characters [shelfmark 14154.e.36], but it is unclear
whether this is a translation or simply a transliteration.) For the English translation,
see Sreeram 1994 [1885]. For the Sanskrit translation, see Vāsudeva Brahmendra
Sarasvatī 1986 [1964]; Nārāyaṇdās (vol. 2, p. 853) mentions having seen two
other Sanskrit translations as well. On the publishing history of the printed Hindi
editions, see ch. 2, n. 31.
7 Sreeram (1994), p. I.
33
Snell (1991).
34 Cf. Trivedi (2003).
35
Among these, the edition of Kiśordās (2007) is an especially helpful resource
for readers of modern Hindi.
36 The editor (P. Panchapagesa Sastrigal) argues, without a hint of irony, that

the Sanskrit translation makes Niścaldās’s work more universally accessible. He

also criticizes the original version for not including supporting quotations from the
Upaniṣads. See Vāsudeva Brahmendra Sarasvatī (1986), pp. xl–xli. See also my
discussion of this translation in chapter 3.
37
Dobe (2014) comes to a similar conclusion from a different starting point in a
recent article on the neo-Vedāntin Rāma Tīrtha (1873–1906), noting that “the
sources and styles of Rāma Tīrtha’s Vedāntin experience were varied and
polyvalent,” including popular traditions of storytelling, Sufi poetry, and “Vedānta
texts in Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi.” “These details,” he concludes, “suggest a
multiply sourced vernacular Vedānta” (p. 190).
38 Chakraborty (2003), preface.
39
My discussion here is indebted to Minkowski (2011), pp. 205–211, and also
to Busch (2011).
40 The “Sanskrit Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism” project,

coordinated by Sheldon Pollock, has thankfully helped to reverse the long-standing

bias described previously, contributing immensely to our knowledge of intellectual
history in early modern South Asia (though Advaita Vedānta remains
underrepresented in the project).
41
A notable exception is Clooney (1993), who argues that layers of
commentary can be read together with the root text as part of a larger “Text,”
which embodies “the extant form of generations of experience in reading and
understanding texts” (p. 23).
42 Cf. Busch (2011), pp. 247–248: “Aside from serving as a vehicle for spiritual

discourse, politics, history, and literary theory, Brajbhasha was also widely used for
treatises on astrology, medicine, equestrian science, and even pākaśāstra (the
science of cooking). We know almost nothing about any of this material and there
is a considerable volume of it. . . . [U]ntil scholars read and publish the vast
quantities of early modern Hindi texts that lie in Indian archives, we really do not
know what we have and do not have. Some of this material will almost certainly
change the way we think about the Mughal-period Hindi past. At the very least we
could reconstruct more of India’s intellectual and social history.”
 43 VS 4.50 comm., p. 79: anyaśaṅkā—yadyapi yā rītisaiṃ sarpkī nivṛtti rajjuke
jñāntaiṃ saṃbhavai hai tathāpi sarpke jñānkī nivṛtti saṃbhavai nahīṃ / kahetaiṃ?
sarpkā adhiṣṭhan rajju[-] avacchinnacetan hai au sarpke jñānkā adhiṣṭān
sākṣīcetan hai / pūrv[-]uktaprakārtaiṃ rajjujñānsaiṃ rajju[-]avacchinnacetankā hī
bhān hovai hai / sākṣīcetankā nahīṃ / yātaiṃ rajjukā jñān huyetaiṃ bī sarpjñānkā
adhiṣṭhān sākṣīcetan ajñāt hai au ajñāt[-]adhiṣṭhānmaiṃ kalpitkī nivṛtti hovai
nahīṃ . . . (The text is provided here to give readers a sample of Niścaldās’s prose
style. In the remainder of this work, as a general rule I will provide the original
text for quotations of verses from the VS but not of prose passages, for
considerations of space. Readers may find scanned copies of the VS on the
Internet Archive by searching for “Vichar Sagar.”)
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farm the loss wouldn’t be great. It might even be used in some way. I
just wanted to mention it; we can talk out the details after you’ve
thought it over.”
In his anxiety to make himself clear Shepherd had stammered
repeatedly. He waited, his face flushed, his eyelids quivering, for
some encouraging word from his father. Mills dropped his cigarette
into the tray before he spoke.
“What would such a house cost, Shep?”
“It can be built for twenty thousand dollars. I got a young fellow in
Freeman’s office to make me some sketches—Storrs—you met him
at the country club; a mighty nice chap. If you’ll just look at these
——”
Mills took the two letter sheets his son extended, one showing a floor
plan, the other a rough sketch of the proposed building, inspected
them indifferently and gave them back.
“If you’d like to keep them——” Shepherd began.
“No; that isn’t necessary. I think we can settle the matter now. It was
all right for those people to use the farm as a playground during the
summer, but this idea of building a house for them won’t do. We’ve
got to view these things practically, Shep. You’re letting your
sentimental feelings run away with you. If I let you go ahead with that
scheme, it would be unfair to all the other employers in town. If you
stop to think, you can see for yourself that for us to build such a
clubhouse would cause dissatisfaction among other concerns I’m
interested in. And there’s another thing. Your people have done
considerable damage—breaking down the shrubbery and young
trees I’d planted where I’d laid out the roads. I hadn’t spoken of this,
for I knew how much fun you got out of it, but as for spending twenty
thousand dollars for a clubhouse and turning the whole place over to
those people, it can’t be done!”
“Well, father, of course I can see your way of looking at it,” Shepherd
said with a crestfallen air. “I thought maybe, just for a few years——”
“That’s another point,” Mills interrupted. “You can’t give it to them and
then take it away. Such people are bound to be unreasonable. Give
them an inch and they take a mile. You’ll find as you grow older that
they have precious little appreciation of such kindnesses. Your
heart’s been playing tricks with your head. I tell you, my dear boy,
there’s nothing in it; positively nothing!”
Mills rose, struck his hands together smartly and laid them on his
son’s shoulders, looking down at him with smiling tolerance.
Shepherd was nervously fumbling Storrs’s sketches, and as his
father stepped back he hastily thrust them into his pocket.
“You may be right, father,” he said slowly, and with no trace of
resentment.
“Storrs, you said?” Mills inquired as he opened a cabinet door and
took out his hat and light overcoat. “Is he the young man Millie
introduced me to?”
“Yes; that tall, fine-looking chap; a Tech man; just moved here—
friend of Bud Henderson’s.”
“I wasn’t quite sure of the name. He’s an architect, is he?” asked
Mills as he slowly buttoned his coat.
“Yes; I met him at the Freemans’ and had him for lunch at the club.
Freeman is keen about him.”
“He’s rather an impressive-looking fellow,” Mills replied. “Expects to
live here, does he?”
“Yes. He has no relatives here; just thought the town offered a good
opening. His home was somewhere in Ohio, I think.”
“Yes; I believe I heard that,” Mills replied carelessly. “You have your
car with you?”
“Yes; the runabout. I’ll skip home and dress and drive over with
Connie. We’re going to the Claytons’ later.”
When they reached the street Shepherd ordered up his father’s
limousine and saw him into it, and waved his hand as it rolled away.
As he turned to seek his own car the smile faded from his face. It
was not merely that his father had refused to permit the building of
the clubhouse, but that the matter had been brushed aside quite as a
parent rejects some absurd proposal of an unreasoning child. He
strode along with the quick steps compelled by his short stature,
smarting under what he believed to be an injustice, and ashamed of
himself for not having combated the objections his father had raised.
The loss of shrubs or trees was nothing when weighed against the
happiness of the people who had enjoyed the use of the farm. He
thought now of many things that he might have said in defence of his
proposition; but he had never been able to hold his own in debate
with his father. His face burned with humiliation. He regretted that
within an hour he was to see his father again.

II
The interior of Franklin Mills’s house was not so forbidding as
Henderson had hinted in his talk with Bruce. It was really a very
handsomely furnished, comfortable establishment that bore the
marks of a sound if rather austere taste. The house had been built in
the last years of Mrs. Mills’s life, and if a distinctly feminine note was
lacking in its appointments, this was due to changes made by Mills in
keeping with the later tendency in interior decoration toward the
elimination of nonessentials.
It was only a polite pretense that Leila kept house for her father. Her
inclinations were decidedly not domestic, and Mills employed and
directed the servants, ordered the meals, kept track of expenditures
and household bills, and paid them through his office. He liked
formality and chose well-trained servants capable of conforming to
his wishes in this respect. The library on the second floor was Mills’s
favorite lounging place. Here were books indicative of the cultivated
and catholic taste of the owner, and above the shelves were ranged
the family portraits, a considerable array of them, preserving the
countenances of his progenitors. Throughout the house there were
pictures, chiefly representative work of contemporary French and
American artists. When Mills got tired of a picture or saw a chance to
buy a better one by the same painter, he sold or gave away the
discard. He knew the contents of his house from cellar to garret—
roved over it a good deal in his many lonely hours.
He came downstairs a few minutes before seven and from force of
habit strolled through the rooms on a tour of inspection. In keeping
with his sense of personal dignity, he always put on his dinner coat in
the evening, even when he was alone. He rang and asked the
smartly capped and aproned maid who responded whether his
daughter was at home.
“Miss Leila went to the Country Club this afternoon, sir, and hasn’t
come in yet. She said she was dining here.”
“Thank you,” he replied colorlessly, and turned to glance over some
new books neatly arranged on a table at the side of the living-room.
A clock struck seven and on the last solemn stroke the remote titter
of an electric bell sent the maid to the door.
“Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd Mills,” the girl announced in compliance with
an established rule, which was not suspended even when Mills’s son
and daughter-in-law were the guests.
“Shep fairly dragged me!” Mrs. Mills exclaimed as she greeted her
father-in-law. “He’s in such terror of being late to one of your feasts! I
know I’m a fright.” She lifted her hand to her hair with needless
solicitude; it was perfectly arranged. She wore an evening gown of
sapphire blue chiffon,—an effective garment; she knew that it was
effective. Seeing that he was eyeing it critically, she demanded to
know what he thought of it.
“You’re so fastidious, you know! Shep never pays any attention to
my clothes. It’s a silly idea that women dress only for each other; it’s
for captious men like you that we take so much trouble.”
“You’re quite perfectly turned out, I should say,” Mills remarked.
“That’s a becoming gown. I don’t believe I’ve seen it before.”
Her father-in-law was regarding her quizzically, an ambiguous smile
playing about his lips. She was conscious that he never gave her his
whole approval and she was piqued by her failure to evoke any
expressions of cordiality from him. Men usually liked her, or at least
found her amusing, and she had never been satisfied that Franklin
Mills either liked her or thought her clever. It was still a source of
bitterness that Mills had objected strongly to Shepherd’s marrying
her. His objections she attributed to snobbery; for her family was in
nowise distinguished, and Constance, an only child, had made her
own way socially chiefly through acquaintances and friendships
formed in the Misses Palmers’ school, a local institution which
conferred a certain social dignity upon its patrons.
She had never been able to break down Mills’s reserves, and the
tone which she had adopted for her intercourse with him had been
arrived at after a series of experiments in the first year of her
marriage. He suffered this a little stolidly. There was a point of
discretion beyond which she never dared venture. She had once
tried teasing him about a young widow, a visitor from the South for
whom he had shown some partiality, and he hadn’t liked it, though
he had taken the same sort of chaff from others in her presence with
perfect good nature.
Shepherd, she realized perfectly, was a disappointment to his father.
Countless points of failure in the relationship of father and son were
manifest to her, things of which Shepherd himself was unconscious.
It was Mills’s family pride that had prompted him to make Shepherd
president of the storage battery company, and the same vanity was
responsible for the house he had given Shepherd on his marriage—
a much bigger house than the young couple needed. He expected
her to bear children that the continuity of the name might be
unbroken, but the thought of bearing children was repugnant to her.
Still, the birth of an heir, to take the name of Franklin Mills, would
undoubtedly heighten his respect for her—diminish the veiled
hostility which she felt she aroused in him.
“Where’s Leila?” asked Shepherd as dinner was announced and
they moved toward the dining-room.
“She’ll be along presently,” Mills replied easily.
“Dear Leila!” exclaimed Constance. “You never disciplined her as
you did Shep. Shep would go to the stake before he’d turn up late.”
“Leila,” said Mills a little defensively, “is a law unto herself.”
“That’s why we all love the dear child!” said Constance quickly. “Not
for worlds would I change her.”
To nothing was Mills so sensitive as to criticism of Leila, a fact which
she should have remembered.
As they took their places Mills asked her, in the impersonal tone she
hated, what the prospects were for a gay winter. She was on the
committee of the Assembly, whose entertainments were a
noteworthy feature of every season. There, too, was the Dramatic
Club, equally exclusive in its membership, and Constance was on
the play committee. Mills listened with interest, or with the pretense
of interest, as she gave him the benefit of her knowledge as to the
winter’s social programme.
They were half through the dinner when Leila arrived. With a
cheerful “Hello, everybody,” she flung off her wrap and without
removing her hat, sank into the chair Shepherd drew out for her.
“Sorry, Dada, but Millie and I played eighteen holes this afternoon;
got a late start and were perfectly starved when we finished and just
had to have tea. And some people came along and we got to talking
and it was dark before we knew it.”
“How’s your game coming on?” her father asked.
“Not so bad, Dada. Millie’s one of these lazy players; she doesn’t
care whether she wins or loses, and I guess I’m too temperamental
to be a good golfer.”
“I thought Millie was pretty strong on temperament herself,”
remarked Shepherd.
“Well, Millie is and she isn’t. She’s not the sort that flies all to pieces
when anything goes wrong.”
“Millie’s a pretty fine girl,” declared Shepherd.
“Millicent really has charm,” remarked Constance, though without
enthusiasm.
“Millie’s a perfect darling!” said Leila. “She’s so lovely to her father
and mother! They’re really very nice. Everybody knocks Doc Harden,
but he’s not a bad sort. It’s a shame the way people treat them. Mrs.
Harden’s a dear, sweet thing; plain and sensible and doesn’t look
pained when I cuss a little.” She gave her father a sly look, but he
feigned inattention. “Dada, how do you explain Millie?”
“Well, I don’t,” replied Mills, with a broad smile at the abruptness of
the question. “It’s just as well that everything and everybody on this
planet can’t be explained and don’t have to be. I’ve come to a time of
life when I’m a little fed up on things that can be reduced to figures. I
want to be mystified!”
Leila pointed her finger at him across the table.
“I’ll say you like mystery! If there was ever a human being who just
had to have the facts, you’re it! I know because I’ve tried hiding
milliners’ bills from you.”
“Well, I usually pay them,” Mills replied good-humoredly. “Now that
you’ve spoken of bills, I’d like to ask you——”
“Don’t!” Leila ejaculated, placing her hands over her ears with
simulated horror. “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to
ask why I bought that new squirrel coat. Well, winter’s coming and
it’s to keep me from freezing to death.”
“Well, the house is well heated,” Mills replied dryly. “The answer is
for you to spend a little time at home.”
Leila was a spoiled child and lived her own life with little paternal
interference. After Mills had failed utterly to keep her in school, or
rather to find any school in which she would stay, he had tried tutors
with no better results. He had finally placed her for a year in New
York with a woman who made a business of giving the finishing
touches to the daughters of the provincial rich. There were no
lessons to learn which these daughters didn’t want to learn, but Leila
had heard operas and concerts to a point where she really knew
something of music, and she had acquired a talent that greatly
amused her father for talking convincingly of things she really knew
nothing about. He found much less delight in her appalling habit of
blurting out things better left unsaid, and presumably foreign to the
minds of well-bred young women.
Her features were a feminized version of her father’s; she was dark
like him and with the same gray eyes; but here the resemblance
ended. She was alert, restless, quick of speech and action. The
strenuous life of her long days was expressing itself in little nervous
twitchings of her hands and head. Her father, under his benignant
gaze, was noting these things now.
“I hope you’re staying in tonight, Leila?” he said. “It seems to me
you’re not sleeping enough.”
“Well, no, Dada. I was going to the Claytons’. I told Fred Thomas he
might come for me at nine.”
“Thomas?” Mills questioned. “I don’t know that I’d choose him for an
escort.”
“Oh, Freddy’s all right!” Leila replied easily. “He’s always asking me
to go places with him, and I’d turned him down until I was ashamed
to refuse any more.”
“I think,” said her father, “it might be as well to begin refusing again.
What about him, Shep?”
“He’s a good sort, I think,” Shepherd replied after a hasty glance at
his wife. “But of course——”
“Of course, he’s divorced,” interposed Constance, “and he hasn’t
been here long. But people I know in Chicago say he was well liked
there. What is it he has gone into, Shep?”
“He came here to open a branch of a lumber company—a large
concern, I think,” Shepherd replied. “I believe he has been divorced,
Father, if that’s what’s troubling you.”
“Oh, he told me all about the divorce!” interposed Leila
imperturbably. “His wife got crazy about another man and—biff! Don’t
worry, Dada; he isn’t dangerous.”

III
When they had gone upstairs to the library for coffee, Leila lighted a
cigarette and proceeded to open some letters that had been placed
on a small desk kept in the room for her benefit. She perched herself
on the desk and read aloud, between whiffs of her cigarette,
snatches of news from a letter. Shepherd handed her a cup and she
stirred her coffee, the cigarette hanging from her lip. Constance
feigned not to notice a shadow of annoyance on her father-in-law’s
face as Leila, her legs dangling, occasionally kicked the desk frame
with her heels.
“By the way, Leila,” said Constance, “the Nelsons want to sell their
place at Harbor Hills. They haven’t been there for several years, you
know. It’s one of the best locations anywhere in Michigan. It would
solve the eternal summer problem for all of us—so accessible and a
marvelous view—and you could have all the water sports you
wanted. And they say the new clubhouse is a perfect dream.”
Shepherd Mills’s cup tottered in its saucer with a sharp staccato. He
had warned his wife not to broach the matter of purchasing the
northern Michigan cottage, which she had threatened to do for some
time and had discussed with Leila in the hope of enlisting her as an
ally for an effective assault upon Mills.
“It’s a peach of a place, all right,” Leila remarked. “I wonder if the
yacht goes with the house. I believe I could use that yacht. Really,
Dada, we ought to have a regular summer place. I’m fed up on
rented cottages. If we had a house like the Nelsons’ we could all use
it.”
She had promised Constance to support the idea, but her sister-in-
law had taken her off guard and she was aware that she hadn’t met
the situation with quite the enthusiasm it demanded. Mills was
lighting a cigar in his usual unhurried fashion. He knew that
Constance was in the habit of using Leila as an advocate when she
wanted him to do something extraordinary, and Leila, to his secret
delight, usually betrayed the source of her inspiration.
“What do the Nelsons want for the property?” he asked, settling
himself back in his chair.
“I suppose the yacht isn’t included,” Constance answered. “They’re
asking seventy thousand for the house, and there’s a lot of land, you
know. The Nelsons live in Detroit and it would be easy to get the
details.”
“You said yourself it was a beautiful place when you were there last
summer,” Leila resumed, groping in her memory for the reasons with
which Constance had fortified her for urging the purchase. “And the
golf course up there is a wonder, and the whole place is very
exclusive—only the nicest people.”
“I thought you preferred the northeast coast,” her father replied.
“What’s sent you back to fresh water?”
“Oh, Dada, I just have to change my mind sometimes! If I kept the
same idea very long it would turn bad—like an egg.”
Constance, irritated by Leila’s perfunctory espousal of the proposed
investment, tried to signal for silence. But Leila, having undertaken to
implant in her father’s mind the desirability of acquiring the cottage at
Harbor Hills, was unwilling to drop the subject.
“Poor old Shep never gets any vacation to amount to anything. If we
had a place in Michigan he could go up every week-end and get a
breath of air. We all of us could have a perfectly grand time.”
“Who’s all?” demanded her father. “You’d want to run a select
boarding house, would you?”
“Well, not exactly. But Connie and I could open the place early and
stay late, and we’d hope you’d be with us all the time, and Shep,
whenever he could get away.”
“Shep, I think this is only a scheme to shake you and me for the
summer. Connie and Leila are trying to put something over on us.
And of course we can’t stand for any such thing.”
“Of course, Father, the upkeep of such a place is considerable,”
Shepherd replied conciliatingly.
“Yes; quite as much as a town house, and you’d never use it more
than two or three months a year. By the way, Connie, do you know
those Cincinnati Marvins Leila and I met up there?”
Connie knew that her father-in-law had, with characteristic deftness,
disposed of the Harbor Hills house as effectually as though he had
roared a refusal. Shepherd, still smarting under the rejection of his
plan for giving his workmen a clubhouse, marveled at the suavity
with which his father eluded proposals that did not impress him
favorably. He wondered at times whether his father was not in some
degree a superman who in his judgments and actions exercised a
Jovian supremacy over the rest of mankind. Leila, finding herself
bored by her father’s talk with Constance about the Marvins, sprang
from the table, stretched herself lazily and said she guessed she
would go and dress.
When she reached the door she turned toward him with mischief in
her eyes. “What are you up to tonight, Dada? You might stroll over
and see Millie! The Claytons didn’t ask her to their party.”
“Thanks for the hint, dear,” Mills replied with a tinge of irony.
“I think I’ll go with you,” said Constance, as Leila impudently kissed
her fingers to her father and turned toward her room. “Whistle for me
at eight-thirty, Shep.”
Both men rose as the young women left the room—Franklin Mills
was punctilious in all the niceties of good manners—but before
resuming his seat he closed the door. There was something ominous
in this, and Shepherd nervously lighted a cigarette. He covertly
glanced at his watch to fix in his mind the amount of time he must
remain with his father before Constance returned. He loved and
admired his wife and he envied her the ease with which she ignored
or surmounted difficulties.
Connie made mistakes in dealing with her father-in-law and
Shepherd was aware of this, but his own errors in this respect only
served to strengthen his reliance on the understanding and
sympathy of his wife, who was an adept in concealing
disappointment and discomfiture. When Shepherd was disposed to
complain of his father, Connie was always consoling. She would say:
“You’re altogether too sensitive, Shep. It’s an old trick of fathers to
treat their sons as though they were still boys. Your father can’t
realize that you’re grown up. But he knows you stick to your job and
that you’re anxious to please him. I suppose he thought you’d grow
up to be just like himself; but you’re not, so it’s up to him to take you
as the pretty fine boy you are. You’re the steadiest young man in
town and you needn’t think he doesn’t appreciate that.”
Shepherd, fortifying himself with a swift recollection of his wife’s
frequent reassurances of this sort, nevertheless wished that she had
not run off to gossip with Leila. However, the interview would be
brief, and he played with his cigarette while he waited for his father
to begin.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to talk with you about, Shep. It will
take only a minute.”
“Yes, father.”
“It’s about Leila”—he hesitated—“a little bit about Constance, too. I’m
not altogether easy about Leila. I mean”—he paused again—“as to
Connie’s influence over your sister. Connie is enough older to realize
that Leila needs a little curbing as to things I can’t talk to her about
as a woman could. Leila doesn’t need to be encouraged in
extravagance. And she likes running about well enough without
being led into things she might better let alone. I’m not criticizing
Connie’s friends, but you do have at your house people I’d rather
Leila didn’t know—at least not to be intimate with them. As a
concrete example, I don’t care for this fellow Thomas. To be frank,
I’ve made some inquiries about him and he’s hardly the sort of
person you’d care for your sister to run around with.”
Shepherd, blinking under this succession of direct statements, felt
that some comment was required.
“Of course, father, Connie wouldn’t take up anyone she didn’t think
perfectly all right. And she’d never put any undesirable
acquaintances in Leila’s way. She’s too fond of Leila and too deeply
interested in her happiness for that.”
“I wasn’t intimating that Connie was consciously influencing Leila in a
wrong way in that particular instance. But Leila is very
impressionable. So far I’ve been able to eliminate young men I
haven’t liked. I’m merely asking your cooperation, and Connie’s, in
protecting her. She’s very headstrong and rather disposed to take
advantage of our position by running a little wild. Our friends no
doubt make allowances, but people outside our circle may not be so
tolerant.”
“Yes, that’s all perfectly true, father,” Shepherd assented, relieved
and not a little pleased that his father appeared to be criticizing him
less than asking his assistance.
“For another thing,” Mills went on. “Leila has somehow got into the
habit of drinking. Several times I’ve seen her when she’d had too
much. That sort of thing won’t do!”
“Of course not! But I’m sure Connie hasn’t been encouraging Leila to
drink. She and I both have talked to her about that. I hoped she’d
stop it before you found it out.”
“Don’t ever get the idea that I don’t know what’s going on!” Mills
retorted tartly. “Another thing I want to speak of is Connie’s way of
getting Leila to back her schemes—things like that summer place,
for example. We don’t need a summer place. The idea that you can’t
have a proper vacation is all rubbish. I urged you all summer to take
Connie East for a month.”
“I know you did. It was my own fault I didn’t go. Please don’t think
we’re complaining; Connie and I get a lot of fun just motoring. And
when you’re at the farm we enjoy running out there. I think, Father,
that sometimes you’re not—not—quite just to Connie.”
“Not just to her!” exclaimed Mills, with a lifting of the brows. “In what
way have I been unjust to her?”
Shepherd knew that his remark was unfortunate before it was out of
his mouth. He should have followed his habit of assenting to what his
father said without broadening the field of discussion. He was taken
aback by his father’s question, uttered with what was, for Franklin
Mills, an unusual display of asperity.
“I only meant,” Shepherd replied hastily, “that you don’t always”—he
frowned—“you don’t quite give Connie credit for her fine qualities.”
“Quite the contrary,” Mills replied. “My only concern as her father-in-
law is that she shall continue to display those qualities. I realize that
she’s a popular young woman, but in a way you pay for that, and I
stand for it and make it possible for you to spend the money. Now
don’t jump to the conclusion that I’m intimating that you and Connie
wouldn’t have just as many friends if you spent a tenth of what you’re
spending now. Be it far from me, my boy, to discredit your value and
Connie’s as social factors!”
Mills laughed to relieve the remark of any suspicion of irony. There
was nothing Shepherd dreaded so much as his father’s ironies. The
dread was the greater because there was always a disturbing
uncertainty as to what they concealed.
“About those little matters I mentioned,” Mills went on, “I count on
you to help.”
“Certainly, father. Connie and I both will do all we can. I’m glad you
spoke to me about it.”
“All right, Shep,” and Mills opened the door to mark the end of the
interview.

IV
In Leila’s room Constance had said, the moment they were alone:
“Well, you certainly gummed it!”
“Oh, shoot! Dada wouldn’t buy that Nelson place if it only cost a
nickel.”
“Well, you didn’t do much to advance the cause!”
“See here,” said Leila, “one time’s just as good as another with
Dada. I knew he’d never agree to it. I only spoke of it because you
gave me the lead. You never seem to learn his curves.”
“If you’d backed me up right we could have got him interested and
won him over. Anybody could see that he was away off tonight—
even more difficult than usual!”
“Oh, tush! You and Shep make me tired. You take father too
seriously. All you’ve got to do with him is just to kid him along. Let’s
have a little drink to drown our troubles.”
“Now, Leila——”
Leila had drawn a hat-box from the inner recesses of a closet and
extracted from it a quart bottle of whiskey.
“I’m all shot to hell and need a spoonful of this stuff to pep me up!
Hands off, old thing! Don’t touch—Leila scream!” Constance had
tried to seize the bottle.
“Leila, please don’t drink! The Claytons are having everybody of any
consequence at this party and if you go reeking of liquor all the old
tabbies will babble!”
“Well, darling, let them talk! At least they will talk about both of us
then!”
“Who’s talking about me?” Constance demanded.
“Be calm, dearest! You certainly wore the guilty look then. Let’s call it
quits—I’ve got to dress!”
She poured herself a second drink and restored the bottle to its
hiding place.
 CHAPTER SIX
I
Several interviews with Freeman had resulted in an arrangement by
which Bruce was to enter the architect’s office immediately. As
Henderson had predicted, Mrs. Freeman was a real power in her
husband’s affairs. She confided to Bruce privately that, with all his
talents, Bill lacked tact in dealing with his clients and he needed
someone to supply this deficiency. And the office was a place of
confusion, and Bill was prone to forgetfulness. Bruce, Mrs. Freeman
thought, could be of material assistance in keeping Bill straight and
extricating him from the difficulties into which he constantly stumbled
in his absorption in the purely artistic side of his profession. Bruce
was put to work on tentative sketches and estimates for a residence
for a man who had no very clear idea of what he wanted nor how
much he wanted to spend.
Bruce soon discovered that Freeman disliked interviews with
contractors and the general routine necessary to keep in touch with
the cost of labor and materials. When he was able to visualize and
create he was happy, but tedious calculations left him sulky and
disinclined to work. Bruce felt no such repugnance; he had a kind of
instinct for such things, and was able to carry in his head a great
array of facts and figures.
On his first free evening after meeting Millicent Harden at the
Country Club he rang the Harden doorbell, and as he waited glanced
toward the Mills’ house in the lot adjoining. He vaguely wondered
whether Franklin Mills was within its walls.
He had tried to analyze the emotions that had beset him that night
when he had taken the hand of the man he believed to be his father.
There was something cheap and vulgar in the idea that blood speaks
to blood and that possibly Mills had recognized him by some sort of
intuition. But Bruce rejected this as preposterous, a concession to
the philosophy of ignorant old women muttering scandal before a
dying fire. Very likely he had been wrong in fancying that Mills had
taken any special note of him. And there was always his mother’s
assurance that Mills didn’t know of his existence. Mills probably had
the habit of eyeing people closely; he shouldn’t have permitted
himself to be troubled by that. He was a man of large affairs, with
faculties trained to the quick inspection and appraisment of every
stranger he met....
The middle-aged woman who opened the door was evidently a
member of the household and he hastily thrust into his pocket the
card he had taken out, stated his name and asked if Miss Harden
was at home.
“Yes, Millie’s home. Just come in, Mr. Storrs, and I’ll call her.”
But Millicent came into the hall without waiting to be summoned.
“I’m so glad to see you, Mr. Storrs!” she said, and introduced him to
her mother, a tall, heavily built woman with reddish hair turning gray,
and a friendly countenance.
“I was just saying to Doctor Harden that I guessed nobody was
coming in tonight when you rang. You simply can’t keep a servant in
to answer the bell in the evening. You haven’t met Doctor Harden?
Millie, won’t you call your papa?”
Millicent opened a door that revealed a small, cozy sitting-room and
summoned her father—a short, thick-set man with a close-trimmed
gray beard, who came out clutching a newspaper.
“Shan’t we all go into the library?” asked Millicent after the two men
had been introduced and had expressed their approval of the
prolonged fine weather.
“You young folks make yourselves comfortable in the library,” said
Mrs. Harden. “I told Millie it was too warm for a fire, but she just has
to have the fireplace going when there’s any excuse, and this house
does get chilly in the fall evenings even when it’s warm outside.”
Harden was already retreating toward the room from which he had
been drawn to meet the caller, and his wife immediately followed.
Both repeated their expressions of pleasure at meeting Bruce; but
presumably, in the accepted fashion of American parents when their
daughters entertain callers, they had no intention of appearing again.
Millicent snapped on lights that disclosed a long, high-ceilinged room
finished in dark oak and fitted up as a library. A disintegrating log in
the broad fireplace had thrown out a puff of smoke that gave the air
a fleeting pungent scent.
The flooring was of white and black tiles covered with oriental rugs in
which the dominant dark red brought a warmth to the eye. Midway of
the room stood a grand piano, and beyond it a spiral stair led to a
small balcony on which the console of an organ was visible. Back of
this was a stained glass window depicting a knight in armor—a
challenging, militant figure. Even as revealed only by the inner
illumination, its rich colors and vigorous draughtsmanship were
clearly suggested. And it was wholly appropriate, Bruce decided, and
altogether consonant with the general scheme of the room. Noting
his interest, Millicent turned a switch that lighted the window from a
room beyond with the effect of vitalizing the knight’s figure, making
him seem indeed to be gravely riding, with lance in rest, along the
wall.
“Do pardon me!” Bruce murmured, standing just inside the door and
glancing about with frank enjoyment of the room’s spaciousness.
The outer lines of the somewhat commonplace square brick house
had not prepared him for this. The room presented a mingling of
periods in both architecture and furnishing, but the blending had
been admirably done.
“Forgive me for staring,” he said as he sat down on a divan opposite
her with the hearth between them. “I’m not sure even yet that I’m in
the twentieth century!”
“I suppose it is a queer jumble; but don’t blame the architect! He,
poor wretch, thought we were perfectly crazy when we started, but I
think before he got through he really liked it.”
“I envy him the fun he had doing it! But someone must have
furnished the inspiration. I’m going to assume that it was mostly
you.”
“You may if you’ll go ahead and criticize—tear it all to pieces.”
“I’d as soon think of criticizing Chartres, Notre Dame, or the hand
that rounded Peter’s dome!” Bruce exclaimed. “Alas that our
acquaintance is so brief! I want to ask you all manner of questions—
how you came to do it—and all that.”
“Well, first of all one must have an indulgent father and mother. I’m
reminded occasionally that my little whims were expensive.”
“I dare say they were! But it’s something to have a daughter who can
produce a room like this.”
He rose and bowed to her, and then turning toward the knight in the
window, gravely saluted.
“I’m not so sure,” he said as he sat down, “that the gentleman up
there didn’t have something to do with it.”
“Please don’t make too much of him. Everyone pays me the
compliment of thinking him Galahad, but I think of him as the
naughty Launcelot. I read a book once on old French glass and I just
had to have a window. And the organ made this room the logical
place for it. Papa calls this my chapel and refuses to sit in it at all. He
says it’s too much like church!”
“Ah! But that’s a tribute in itself! Your father realizes that this is a
place for worship—without reference to the knight.”
She laid her forefinger against her cheek, tilted her head slightly,
mocking him with lips and eyes.
“Let me think! That was a pretty speech, but of course you’re
referring to that bronze Buddha over there. Come to think of it, papa
does rather fancy him.”
When she smilingly met his gaze he laughed and made a gesture of
despair.
“That was a nice bit of side-stepping! I’m properly rebuked. I see my
own worshiping must be done with caution. But the room is beautiful.
I’m glad to know there’s such a place in town.”
“I did have a good time planning and arranging it. But there’s nothing
remarkable about it after all. It’s merely what you might call a refuge
from reality—if that means anything.”
“It means a lot—too much for me to grasp all at once.”
“You’re making fun of me! All I meant was that I wanted a place to
escape into where I can play at being something I really am not. We
all need to do that. After all, it’s just a room.”
“Of course that’s just what it isn’t! It’s superb. I’ve already decided to
spend a lot of time here.”
“You may, if you won’t pick up little chance phrases I let fall and
frighten me with them. I have a friend—an awful highbrow—and he
bores me to death exclaiming over things I say and can’t explain and
then explaining them to me. But—why aren’t you at the Claytons’
party?”
“I wasn’t asked,” he said. “I don’t know them.”
“I know them, but I wasn’t asked,” she replied smilingly.
“Well, anyhow, it’s nicer here, I think.”
Bruce remembered what Henderson had said about the guarded
social acceptance of the patent medicine manufacturer and his
family; but Millicent evidently didn’t resent her exclusion from the
Claytons’ party. Social differentiations, Bruce imagined, mattered
little to this girl, who was capable of fashioning her own manner of
life, even to the point of building a temple for herself in which to
worship gods of her own choosing. When he expressed interest in
her modeling, which Dale Freeman had praised, Millicent led the way
to a door opening into an extension of the library beyond the knight’s
window, that served her as a studio. It was only a way of amusing
herself, she said, when he admired a plaque of a child’s profile she
confessed to be her work. The studio bore traces of recent use.
Damp cloths covered several unfinished figures. There was a
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