ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to understand how bhakti prompted unlikely early modern changes in the very structure of a system of knowledge, Mīmāṃsā, that had never been attuned to the rhythms of a love supreme. How and why did Mīmāṃsakas, atheist interpreters of Vedic ritual, become enchanted with bhakti, religious devotion to an embodied god? Reading closely the work of early modern Maharashtrian Brahmin families living in Banaras, this essay suggests that the role of bhakti in the life of the Deva and Bhaṭṭa families points to the possibility that new intellectual interests were sparked by texts and traditions from a wider range than generally comprised the scope of the Brahmin elite of Banaras. The unmistakable shifts in this intellectual tradition’s discursive registers do not necessarily take place at the level of doctrine, but are present in new hermeneutical concerns. In the case of the Banaras-based scholars discussed here, the majority of their pedagogical activity was conducted in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, but their personal religious commitments had an equally significant effect on their scholarly careers.
