[Advaita-l] Did Sankara have non-brahmin disciples?

[D.V.N. Sarma]

I would like to inform the list that in Andhra we had in the first
half of 20th century
one "Mala Picchamma"  a lady of chandala caste. She was married and
had a daughter
but after sometime she started living separately. Most of the time she
was naked.
Some of the educated higher caste people venerated her as a jnani.

regards,
Sarma.

On 10/13/10, Sarma KV <sarmakv at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sankara digvijaya clearly says that the "chanDaala" was Siva Himself.
> (Sankara sees Siva everywhere, as a matter of fact.)
>
> However, if we confine to the question of whether Sankara had disciples
> among non-brahmins... we need to first think of what "disciple' means. If it
> means the ochre-robed samnyaasi-s, there are less chances that there were
> non-brahmins among them. Because, Sanakara didn't give samnyaasa ASrama
> deeksha to whoever comes without establishing arhata (the way Budhdhism did
> and added another reason to its own fundamental flaws, leading to its
> downfall.)
> If we think of disciple as someone who "follows" the advise/instruction, it
> is more likely that the disciples include non-brahmins. And the teachings
> are 'for each his own.' For example "bhaja gOvindam" is not reserved for
> only brahmins.
>
> I am eager to see what Sankara-digvijaya says on this, if at all.
>
> -Syam
>
> On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 2:07 AM, Rajaram Venkataramani <
> rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In his Gita commentary, Sankaracharya says that previous commentators have
>> commented on every sentence and word but the meaning is not clear to lay
>> people. And that he is writing this to make it clear and that this message
>> would spread. Did he teach advaita to non-brahmins and accept them as
>> disciples? In Manisha Panchakam, he accepts as guru a low born jnani but
>> dont know if scholars accept that this incident took place at all.
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