[Advaita-l] Epigraphica about Vidyaranya

venkata subramanian venkat_advaita at yahoo.com
Tue Jun 24 03:02:48 CDT 2003


Dear All, 

  i believe that Sri Vidyaranya was the Jagadguru in
the Sringeri Shankara Math.  (12th Pontiff) 

  if this is so, what about this Vidyaranya Vs
Akshobhya tirtha conflict from the records of Sri
Sringeri Math.








--- Shrisha Rao <shrirao1 at mchsi.com> wrote:
> On Monday, June 23, 2003, at 05:20  PM, Vidyasankar
> Sundaresan wrote:
> 
> > One might have to hunt for them deeply though. I
> remember one 
> > half-verse that runs "akshobhyaM kshobhayAmAsa
> vidyaraNya mahAmuniH." 
> > Of course, the dvaitins quote a half-verse that
> says something like 
> > "vidyAraNyaM mahAraNyam akshobhyamunir achinnat."
> 
> I would appreciate further information too.
> 
> The only information in this regard I have seen is
> in B.N.K. Sharma's 
> "The History of the Dvaita School of Vedanta" (3rd
> ed., 2000, Motilal), 
> pp. 229--230, which says about Akshobhya T.:
> 
> == begin quote
> 
> His chief claim to recognition rests on the incident
> of his historic 
> disputation with Vidyaranya, on the purport of the
> `tattvamasi' text, a 
> disputation which is believed to have taken place at
> Mulbagal, ten 
> miles from Kolar.  It is said to have been referred
> to Vedanta Desika 
> for arbitration; and he is reported to have given
> his verdict in favor 
> of Akshobhya, in the following verse, oft-quoted in
> traditional circles:
> 
>    asinA tattvamasinA parajIvaprabhedinA  |
>    vidyAraNamahAraNyamaxobhyamunirachchhinat.h  ||
> 
> This tradition is corroborated [1] by the 
> vedAntadeshika-vaibhavaprakAshikA of Mahacharya
> (16th century) and by 
> the still earlier (15th cent.) work of Brahmatantra
> Svatantra Jeer III, 
> accounted to have been the third in spiritual
> succession from Desika, 
> at the Parakala Matha, in Mysore.  It is also
> recorded in the 
> jayatIrthavijaya of Vyasatirtha (a direct disciple
> of Jayatirtha) in 
> canto ii, 54.68; in the jayatIrthavijaya of Chalari
> Samkarsanacharya; 
> and in the Raghavendravijaya (17th cent.) and in the
> Vishishtadvaitic 
> work AchArya vijayachampu, V.  There is also some
> kind of epigraphic 
> evidence at Mulbagal, where a commemorative stone
> pillar of victory has 
> been discovered, though in a grossly mutilated form
> [2].  A covert 
> allusion to Akshobhya's victory is perhaps intended
> by Jayatirtha, in 
> one of the introductory verses of his TP:
> 
>   
>
durvAdivAraNavidAraNadaxadIxamaxobhyatIrthamR^igarAjamahaM
> namAmi  || 
> 4 ||
> 
> Footnotes:
> 
> [1] A.V. Gopalacharya first made an irresponsible
> statement, in his 
> introd. to the Yadavabhyudaya (Srirangam, 1907) that
> the Advaitins 
> claim that the judgment was in their favor,
> expressed in the following 
> way:
> 
>    axobhyaM xobhayAmAsa vidyAraNyo mahAmuniH  |
> 
> without indicating the source of his information. 
> This opinion has 
> been blindly echoed by certain writers of the
> Vijayanagar Sexcentinary 
> Vol. (pp. 49 and 301) unmindful of the facts that
> the Vishishtadvaitic 
> tradition (recorded) is emphatically against such a
> view and that such 
> an emendation of the second line would be palpably
> inconsistent with 
> the first line which is clinchingly in favor of
> `difference' and the 
> metaphor underlying the word "asi" (sword).
> 
> [2] On the entire question of the historicity of the
> 
> Akshobhya-Vidyaranya episode, see my rejoinder to
> S.N. Rajapurohit, in 
> the AUJ, v. 1., pp. 103--7.  The jayatIrtha vijaya
> of Vyasatirtha also 
> refers to the erection of a stone-pillar to
> commemorate the victory: 
> stambhaM pratishhThapya jayAN^kamashmanaH |
> 
> == end quote
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Shrisha Rao
> 
> > Vidyasankar
> 
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=====
Thanks & Regards,
Venkat.

Sadgurubhyo Namah.

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