Ādi-līlā, Chapter 7
95
mayaiva vakṣyate devi jagatāṁ nāśa-kāraṇāt
“The Māyāvāda philosophy,” Lord Śiva informed his wife Pārvatī, “is impious  [asac-chāstra] . It is covered Buddhism. My dear Pārvatī, in the form of a  brāhmaṇa  in Kali-yuga I teach this imagined Māyāvāda philosophy. In order to cheat the atheists, I describe the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be without form and without qualities. Similarly, in explaining Vedānta I describe the same Māyāvāda philosophy in order to mislead the entire population toward atheism by denying the personal form of the Lord.” In the  Śiva Purāṇa  the Supreme Personality of Godhead told Lord Śiva:
dvāparādau yuge bhūtvā kalayā mānuṣādiṣu svāgamaiḥ kalpitais tvaṁ ca janān mad-vimukhān kuru
“In Kali-yuga, mislead the people in general by propounding imaginary meanings for the  Vedas  to bewilder them.” These are the descriptions of the  Purāṇas .
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thākura comments that  mukhya-vṛtti  (“the direct meaning”) is  abhidhā-vṛtti , or the meaning which one can understand immediately from the statements of dictionaries, whereas  gauṇa-vṛtti  (“the indirect meaning”) is a meaning that one imagines without consulting the dictionary. For example, one politician has said that Kurukṣetra refers to the body, but in the dictionary there is no such definition. Therefore this imaginary meaning is  gauṇa-vṛtti , whereas the direct meaning found in the dictionary is  mukhya-vṛtti  or  abhidhā-vṛtti . This is the distinction between the two. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu recommends that one understand the Vedic literature in terms of  abhidhā-vṛtti , and the  gauṇa-vṛtti . He rejects. Sometimes, however, as a matter of necessity, Vedic literature is described in terms of the  lakṣaṇā-vṛtti  or  gauṇa-vṛtti , but one should not accept such explanations as permanent truths.
The purpose of the discussions in the  Upaniṣads  and  Vedānta-sūtra  is to philosophically establish the personal feature of the Absolute Truth. The impersonalists, however, in order to establish their philosophy, accept these discussions in terms of  lakṣaṇā-vṛtti , or indirect meanings. Thus instead of being  tattva-vāda , or in search of the Absolute Truth, they become Māyāvāda, or illusioned by the material energy. When Śrī Viṣṇusvāmī, one of the four  ācāryas  of the Vaiṣṇava cult, presented his thesis on the subject matter of  śuddhādvaita-vāda , immediately the Māyāvādīs took advantage of this philosophy and tried to establish their  advaita-vāda  or  kevalādvaita-vāda . To defeat this  kevalādvaita-vāda , Śrī Rāmānujācārya presented his philosophy as  viśiṣṭādvaita-vāda , and Śrī Madhvācārya presented his philosophy of  tattva-vāda , both of which are stumbling blocks to the Māyāvādīs because they defeat their philosophy in scrupulous detail. Students of Vedic philosophy know very well how strongly Śrī Rāmānujācārya’s  viśiṣṭādvaita-vāda  and Śrī Madhvācārya’s  tattva-vāda  contest the impersonal Māyāvāda philosophy. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, how-