Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

Therere many preaching approaches by GV acaryas, from extreme straightforwardness of BSST to adhunika vada of BVT. Yet both of them wanted to be perceived as serious in order to be taken seriously by their listeners.

I havent heard the term adhunika vada before. I looked it up (also on your website), and it seems interesting!

It was a special type of approach used only by him, afaik. BVT later encouraged his son BSST to preach the mukhya vritti, direct literal meaning of sastra. One could say that the approach to use anumana to support sabda used by some devotees is another type of adhunika vada.

Found this:

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So Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakuras intended audience, as he himself explains, are those who have certain "qualification" (western educated people) and who also do not accept the traditional means of understanding shastra. Preaching through adhunika vada, then, is to bring the faithless to the point of developing some respect for the authority of the shastras. Srila Prabhupada himself often did this, sometimes he would refer to the dictionary for the definition of a word when preaching to westerners, sometimes he would quote current events and refer to scientific discoveries as he did in Easy Journey to Other Planets. The point of using examples and evidence in the course of preaching is to guide people in the direction of accepting Vedic authority. For example, when telling someone where the Sun is, we may refer them to a tree saying something like, "The Sun is in that tree over to your left." Now, the sun is not really in the tree, but if you look in the direction of the tree you are also looking in the direction of the Sun. If in a few years time the tree is cut down, then some other point of reference, perhaps a house, needs to be used to point someone in the direction of the Sun. The tree or the house is to the Sun what adhunika vada is to Vedic authority. Just as these local and temporary points of reference such as the tree or the house appear for some time and then disappear, so also do materialistic theories about reality appear and disappear. However, their utility lies in their potential to bring us to the threshold of devotion. Bahunam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapadyante vasudevam sarvam iti.... Bhaktivinoda Thakuras intent in presenting Shri Krishna Samhita, then, is to bring the faithless to the point of accepting some faith in shastra, for which he hopes that ". . . much good can be done for India." Accepting something from shastra as true and good is better than accepting nothing at all.

Something needs to be said, however, about who might benefit from and who might be harmed by adhunika vada. After all, one mans food is another mans poison. The Puranas, for example, are categorized according to each of the three modes of nature. Some Puranas, such as the Bhagavata and Vishnu Puranas, are meant especially for those in the mode of goodness whereas other Puranas, such as the Shiva Purana, are meant for those predominated more by the modes of ignorance. A Vaishnava partaking of religious rituals mentioned in some parts of Vedic literature can result in that Vaishnavas progressive degradation, whereas those same rituals may gradually elevate someone who is to begin with very fallen. In the case of utilizing adhunika vada as a means to understand shastra, for someone without any faith in shastra at all this could be of great help.
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http://www.gaudiyadiscussions.com/topic_2266.html

[quote][cite] VEDA:[/cite]One could say that the approach to use anumana to support sabda used by some devotees is another type of adhunika vada.[/quote]

This is how I understood it to begin with. I suppose the approach to bring in popular culture, psychology, art and possibly more (the way, for example, Suhotra Swami did) can also be considered in the spirit of adhunika vada.[br]
I find it interesting the way you replied to this OP question!