[Advaita-l] Pre-lude to Manisha Panchagam

Ananth Padmanabhan padmanabhan_ananth at hotmail.com
Mon Jun 11 10:29:05 CDT 2012


Namaskaram

Manisha Panchagam, a great treatise on Advaitha Vedantha, has 2 beautiful slokas, from the Lord to Sri Sankara (annamayAt annamayam aThavA..., kim gangAmbuni...)
and the Five Slokas(Gems) from Sri Sankara, an outcome of  Surrender invoking the very Atman (jAgratswapnasushUbdishu..., brahmaivahamidham..., sasvannasvaramEva..., yAtiryangnaradEvadAbhir..., yatsowkyAmbhutilEsa...)


I request the elite list members to throw some light on this great treatise. The scene ,probably, interpreted as prelude to this great work, from the Sri Ramakrishna Mission edition states two beautiful slokas:
(apparently from Sri MAdhva VidyAranyar)

'satyAcharyasya gamanE katachit muktidaykam
kAsi kshEtram prati saha gowryA mArgEtu sankaraha||

anti vEsa dharam dristvA gachCha gachCha idhi cha abhraveet
sankarah sOpa chAnDAlA tam punah prAha sangkaraha||

There are also some versions where Sri Sankara , with his disciples, coming from ManikarnikA towards the Sri VisvanAtha Kshetram, meets the Lord with his cohort Gowri in the garb of a 'Chandala and his wife' with four dogs (symbolising 4 vedas) on the way. The disciples and Sri Sankara ask him to move away (gachCha gachCha!). Manisha Panchagam is an outcome of this supposed scene with the Lord questioning Sri Sankara with the first  2 verses and Sankara realizing the Lord HIMSELF in front of him surrenders with his 5 verses (apparently reflecting the four mahA vakyAs from the chatur vedas and the ParaBrahman).

Reflecting on these 7 slokas of this treatise is a great 'Sravana manana nidhityAsam'. I look forward to hear on this from the elite members of this list. I read the above slokas from the book from Sri Ramakrishna Matam by Swami Ranganathanandar (Tamil with sanskrit slokas) 

with namaskaram
Padmanabhan
 		 	   		  


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