[Advaita-l] References to Critics of Sankara's Gita Commentary

V Subrahmanian v.subrahmanian at gmail.com
Tue Nov 18 02:16:52 CST 2014


On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 11:16 PM, saha niranjan via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> For handy/ readymade reference, could any body help me find out
> places/verses where critics like Ramanuja, Madhva, Bhaskara
> (Anandavardhana, Ramakantha, Rajanaka, Abhinavagupta) have criticised
> Sankara in explicit/implicit terms in their respective Gita commentaries.
>

The quest is quite a strenuous and involving one.  You will have to give a
lot of time and effort for this.  During my replies/refutations in
discussion groups/articles, I have looked into the Madhva commentary to the
BG.  On many occasions one will find the criticism of Shankara in the
Jayatirtha's gloss to Madhva's commentary.  You can use the Gitasupersite
which contains both these: Madhva's commentary and Jayatirtha's gloss.  But
then, Madhva has not commented on several verses and so J too mostly leaves
them out.  One might have to go to the other Gita commentaries of Madhva
and their glosses to get more instances of their criticism of Shankara.

As far as I have seen, they do not mention Shankara by name.  They use
words like 'paraiḥ' ('...as said by the 'others') and from the issue taken
up you will have to infer that it is Shankara they are referring to. Maybe
terms like 'māyāvādibhiḥ' could also be found somewhere!!

A reasonable knowledge of Sanskrit is a must in such a quest.  You may
perhaps benefit by studying B.N.K.Sharma's books too on the BG, if any as
they are in English.

The above methodology is common for all other non-advaitin commentators.

regards
subrahmanian.v


>
>
> I'll also appreciate to know if any other ancient commentators (barring
> the abovementioned commentators) of the Gita have criticised Samkara
> explicitly/implicitly in their respective commentaries on the Gita.
>
> With best regards,
> Niranjan Saha
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