[Advaita-l] Shankara Digvijaya Sara - part 1 (corrections)

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020, Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l wrote:

Not so much corrections, but additional information.

> (Madhavacharya is the middle of three brothers who were instrumental in the 
> founding of the Vijayanagara Empire.  The older brother Sayanacharya is the 
> celebrated and authoritative commentator on the Vedic texts.  The younger 
> brother Bhoganatha wrote on alankarashastra but is not that well-known. 
> Madhava wrote on many branches of Shastra, including Ayurveda, Dharmashastra, 
> Mimamsa and Vedanta and the most popular hagiography of Shankaracharya of 
> which this work is an abridgement. Later, he took sannyasa under the name 
> Swami Vidyaranya and became Jagadguru of Shringeri Pitha.  His guru and 
> predecessor on the Pitha was Swami Bharati Tirtha, whose own predecessor was 
> Swami Vidya or Vidyashankara Tirtha.  Thus in this shloka he is saluting the 
> supreme Self of all in the form of his paramaguru.)
>

Shri Achyuthan wrote to say that according to the Shringeri tradition, it 
was the younger brother Bhoganātha who took sannyasa at an earlier age as 
Bhāratī Tīrtha and became the guru of his older brother.  (Mādhava took 
sannyasa at age 75.)

Despite the fame and authority of his writings Mādhava/Vidyāraṇya did not 
have any desire to hog the limelight for himself. In several of his works, 
such as the celebrated Sarvadarṣanasaṁgraha, he signs his name as 
Sāyaṇamādhava.  Whether this is simply out of respect or they collaborated 
is not known with certainty but it shows a lack of ego in any case. 
The last five chapters of his Pañcadaśī were composed by Swami Bhāratī Tīrtha.
Some of the Dīpīkās on upaniṣads ascribed to him are actually by or in 
collaboration with Swami Śaṅkarānanda another pupil of Swami Vidya Tirtha.

> 2. Just as an entire stack of pots can be seen in even a small mirror,

Some commentators on MDS interpret ghaṭānāṁ paṭala not as heap or stack of 
pots but "forehead of an elephant" -- a proverbially large object. 
Whatever the case may be, the meaning is the same; this short composition 
can still give the gist of its much larger source.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>