[Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of Adi Shankara
Sunil Bhattacharjya
sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 10 14:32:17 CST 2017
Dear frieds,
Shri Venkatraghavan has great zeal and he is is fully convinced that Nava Shankara was not born in Chidambaram in 788 CE and it was Adi , who was born in 788 CE.
The following question arises and hope a critical person like Shri Venkatraghavan will look at these and work towards finding the date of Adi Shankara.
1)
Hope he will try to find the king Vikramaditya, whose reign started from 765 CE, as according to the information from a mathadhipati of the Sringeri math, Adi Shankara was born on the 14th year of the reign of Vikramaditya.
2)
He will try to find the king Amaru who died around 800 CE
3)
He will try to find the King Sudhanva around 800 CE, who was a contemporary of Adi Shankara.
4)
He will try to find the evidence relating the king who was ruling Kerala around 800 CE as Adi Shankara was born Kaladi in Kerala.
5)
Let us also hope that he will also find the astronomical matching of the time of AdiShankara, taking the details from the Shankaravijaya published by the Srngeri Matha or any other Shankaravijaya, which he think is the most relaible.
6)
He will try to find if and when the Nepal king Vrishadeva was ruling during Adi Shankara's visit to Nepal.
7)
He will also try to find from the historical sources like Rajatarangini, if and when Adi Shankara visited Kashmir.
I await the intelligent people who are really highly concerned with the date of Adi Shankara to debunk the several datings of Adi Shankara. If he was really born in 788 CE , it should hot be able to prove a date about 1200 years ago, using the seven historical tips I suggested above. May be the other scholars would be able to suggest more tips. If however, the 788 CE date cannot be proved one should have an open mind to look for the BCE dates. There have been curious situations in the past, such as follows :
A)
B Rice Lewis claims in an issue of the Mysore Gazette that the Sringeri math had given him the succession of Sringeri gurus, according to which the first guru Shankaracharya was consecrated in that math in 745 CE and he passed away in 769 CE. If Adi Shankara lived for 32 years he must have been born in 737 CE.
B)
Further at one time the Sringeri math also published a guruparampara list according to which Adi Shankara was born in 44 BCE, and the guruparampara list was blank for 700 years.
My interest has not been to criticize other people's views just to win any debate but to find the date of Adi Shankara. Pathak's paper at best shows that there could have been one Nava Shnakar, who was born in 788 CE.
Regards,
Sunil KB
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 1/9/17, Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of Adi Shankara
To: "Vidyasankar Sundaresan" <svidyasankar at gmail.com>
Cc: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>, "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>, "V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, January 9, 2017, 10:30 PM
Pathak claims this
is Adi Shankara only. If Sri Sunil wants to claim the
manuscript refers to a navashankara then so be it - however
that is his opinion, not Pathak's.
Even then, one should note that the
manuscript says that the very same Shankara (the one that
Sri Sunil claims is Nava Shankara) is also the author of the
shaAriraka bhAshya - which is the brahmasUtra bhAshya. So if
Sri Sunil insists that this person is Nava Shankara here,
who is different from Adi Shankara, then he must be prepared
to admit, it is Nava Shankara that wrote the Brahma sUtra
bhAshya also.
The
other reason why the mss. must refer to Adi Shankara only,
is that the guru parampara given there is from Shiva
onwards, down to Gaudapada, GovindapAda and Shankara. If
Nava Shankara was meant, why would it stop at GovindapAda
sishya Shankara, it would go all the way to Nava Shankara.
Failing which, it would at least give the immediate guru of
Nava Shankara. But it apparently does not, for Pathak does
not mention it.
The
other thing to be noted is that the manuscript refers to
rAmanuja and madhva, which reveals that the author of the
manuscript wrote it after their time, which leaves a gap of
500 years from Shankara's time, not much better than the
Shankara vijayams.
Regards,Venkatraghavan
On 10 Jan 2017 4:00 a.m.,
"Vidyasankar Sundaresan" <svidyasankar at gmail.com>
wrote:
Dear Sunilji,
Have you read the paper carefully?
How do you explain the word schApita, which occurs twice, in
two verses that refer to Ramanuja and Madhva? It could be
emended to sthApita, but that only means that we should be
very careful in interpreting these things. There are
obviously editorial issues with either the manuscript or
with Pathak's reading of it.
The mss that Pathak reports talks of
ONE Sankaracharya, who wrote commentaries, who established
maThas, who was the disciple of govindapAda and grand
disciple of gauDapAda, and who was born in the year 788
(nidhi nAga ibha vahni abda of Kaliyuga). There is no
reference whatsoever to Chidambaram. There is no reference
to a theory that there were five reincarnations of
Sankaracharya or even just to Nava Sankara In the verses
quoted in the paper.
Further, Pathak refers to
Anandagiri, not to anantAnandagiri. Please read his paper
again. Carefully. It is amusing that you accuse me of taking
the two to be the same. When you look at the published
literature on the Sankaravijaya texts, my paper is perhaps
the only one which vociferously argues against making such
an equation.
Finally, Pathak is concerned with
the date of Adi Sankaracharya, nobody else, as is evident
from his introductory paragraph. Those whom he quotes as
assigning dates ranging from the 7th to 9th centuries were
also concerned only with Adi Sankara. You cannot project
your own opinions about Adi vs Nava Sankaracharya-s,
backwards in time, on to writers who lived more than a
century ago.
Vidyasankar
On Jan 9,
2017 8:11 PM, "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
> wrote:
Dear Vidyashankarji,
ShankarAcharyanavAvatara means the new avatara of
Shankaracharya. It is according to shashthi tatpurusha
samasa. You can ask anybody who knows Sanskrit. This is not
as you interpret. There is no alankara needed for Shankara,
but only the differentiation that this Nava Shankara was a
later Shankara regarded as an avatara of Adi Shankara, as he
was as versatile as Adi Shankara, .
Secondly, I was talkng of Anantanandagiri and not
Anandagiri. You took Anantanandagiri to be the same as
Anandagiri
No entreaties please. Pathak was concerned with the date
of this Nava shankara and he quoted what he thought served
that purpose. He omitted most of the paper. That does not
mean thaton onecan look up whether there was any Nava
Shankara or not, and if there was any, where he was born
etc.
Regards,
Sunil KB
------------------------------ --------------
On
Mon, 1/9/17, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at gmail.com>
wrote:
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of Adi
Shankara
To: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
>
Cc: "A discussion group for Advaita
Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedan
ta.org>, "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>,
"V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, January 9, 2017, 3:51 PM
Dear
Sunilji,
Pathak's paper
says he has seen a manuscript from a private collection.
He
quotes a verse that describes Sri Sankaracharya as a
nava-avatAra. Of whom? Obviously, Siva. For, the
adjacent
verse says, Adau Sivas, tato vishNuH etc. The sense is
that
Siva was the first guru and that Sankaracharya is his
new
avatAra in the Kali age. There is NOTHING there about Adi
vs
Nava Sankara, NOTHINGabout birth in Chidambaram,
NOTHING
about one person being the author of commentaries
and another being the founder of maThas, etc etc. As
for
Pathak's reference to Anandagiri, I have no idea
which
text me is really quoting from here.
Please, I entreat you, please learn
to read journal papers and original quotations as per
their
original contexts. Please resist the temptation to force
fit
your own contexts and interpretations to the bare facts.
I
don't know what else to tell you. We have been over
these same details at least five or six or times in the
past!
Vidyasankar
On Jan 9, 2017 1:55 PM,
"Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
>
wrote:
Dear
Vidyasankarji,
The paper of Pathak, which I read, clearly mentions
"Nava Shankara" and not Adi Shankara. Can you
please send me the paper of Pathak, which you claim
to
have read ?
person as the "Anandagiri". If you think
they
are the same person. Ccan you please let me know the
source
of your information?
Regards,
Sunil KB
----------------------------- - --------------
On Sun, 1/8/17, Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
> wrote:
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of
Adi
Shankara
To: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
>, "Vidyasankar Sundaresan" <svidyasankar at gmail.com>
Cc: "A discussion group for Advaita
Vedanta"
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org>, advaitin at yahoogroups.com,
"V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>,
"Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, January 8, 2017, 11:14 AM
Dear Vidyasanarji,
Can you please attach the paper of Pathak?
Regards,
Sunil KB
---------------------------- -- --------------
On Sun, 1/8/17, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at gmail.com>
wrote:
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of
Adi
Shankara
To: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
>
Cc: "A discussion group for Advaita
Vedanta"
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org>,
advaitin at yahoogroups.com,
"V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>,
"Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, January 8, 2017, 1:11 AM
On Jan 6, 2017 11:03 PM, "Sunil Bhattacharjya
via
Advaita-l" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> Dear Subbuji,
>
> I think Sri Nava Shankara was indeed a great
scholar
and if I remember correctly the manuscript, which
Pathak
found and on that basis he (Pathak) wrote a paper,
Nava
(Abhinava) Shankara was born in 788 CE in
Chidambaram.
This Nava Shankara is reported to have also written
many
texts including bhashyas and had gone to Kashmoir as
well
as
to Kailash.
>
Dear Sunilji,
I have read Pathak's paper in the Indian
Antiquary. It says nothing about Nava Shankara or
about
Chidambaram. The paper attributes the date 788 CE to
Adi
Shankara and nobody else. You cannot cite Pathak in
support
of this fanciful theory of an 8th century Nava
Shankara.
>
There might have some confusion in the past as the
name
of
both Adi Shankara and the Nava Shankara was
Shankara.
It
appears that Anantaanandagiri had written a
biography
of
Nava Shanaka. Antarkar had done some work on the
shankaravijayas as part of his PhD work but did
not
continue that work to sort out all confusions
>
Sorry, anantAnandagiri also says nothing about
Nava Shankara. His text claims to be an account only
of
Adi
Shankara. However, it is an extremely problematic
text.
At the risk of sounding like I'm doing
self-promotion, please note that I have published an
extensive paper in the year 2000, published in The
International Journal of Hindu Studies, examining
Antarkar's papers as well as many of the
original
Sankaravijaya texts. I have sent this by email to
you
as
well. I am only mentioning this here so that others
following this thread are aware of it. I
too hope that further research is taken up on these
texts,
but I hope that whoever does it adopts sound
research
methodology and works towards clarifying matters
rather
than
confusing them even further. Regards, Vidyasankar
> May be there is scope for more research
and hope some university or some organization will
sponsor
PhD level research in this area.
>
> Regards,
> Sunil KB
> ------------------------------ --------------
> On Fri, 1/6/17, V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The
Bhashyas
of
Adi Shankara
> To: "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>,
"A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org>
> Date: Friday, January 6, 2017, 1:39 AM
>
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at
> 1:56 PM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Namaste Sri
> Vidyasankar,
> > The number of the works
> that are called bhAshya in the mAdhavIya
Sankara
> > vijaya (I sent the references earlier)
> when read in conjunction with the
> >
> DiNDima appear to be 16 in number. The next
verse
in
the
> Sankara vijaya
> > says that Adi Sankara
> wrote innumerable granthAs such as upadeSa
sAhasri,
> > so these are apparently classified in a
> different category compared to
> >
> bhAShyas.
> >
>
> There is also a text called
> 'hastāmalaka-bhāṣyam' which is
admitted
in
> the
> tradition to be a commentary penned by
> Shankara on the verses given out by
> the
> disciple Hastamalaka. This text is also
published
by
the
> Vani Vilas
> Press, Srirangam.
>
> regards
> vs
>
>
>
> >
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