[Advaita-l] Fwd: Bhagavatpada’s Authorship of Prapanchasara : reply to certain objections

[V Subrahmanian]

Shri Natraj Maneshinde's post:

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Bhagavatpada’s Authorship of Prapanchasara : reply to certain objections
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In our Advaita sampradaya, it is a well known fact that Bhagavatpada has
composed/compiled an Agamik text called Prapanchasara tantra which is an
authoritative text in the world of Mantra-shastra.  The text has a tika
called ‘Vivaranam’ authored by Bhagavatpada’s direct disciple Shri
Padmapadacharya. In the tika, Padmapadacharya ji says that Bhagavatpada was
tormented to see the sufferings of the common people and hence composed
this work for their benefit.
The text has been acknowledged as Bhagavatpada’s composition by Shri
Amalananda Saraswati ji, Madhavacharya ji, Madhava Mantri ji, Raghava Bhatt
ji and all the commentators of Prapanchasara. Raghava Bhatta ji even quotes
the ‘Vivaranam’ in numerous places of his work and also attributes it to
Padmapadacharya.
Even in the light of such strong testimonies, there are a few men who still
cast doubts on Bhagavatpada’s authorship. Few of the objections they make
are as follows :
1. Even traditional Advaitian scholars are suspicious on Bhagavatpada’s
authorship of Prapanchasara
2. Prapanchasara is purely a tantrik work. Hence, it is unlikely that
Bhagavatpada might have written it.
3. It is particularly antagonistic to the spirit of Vedanta.
4. Bhagavatpada has denounced the Tantrika approach in Geeta-bhashya 9.25
and 17.4 where he considers the worship of Vinayaka, Saptamatrika-s etc as
Tamasic. Hence, he certainly cannot compose a tantra related work.
5. Prapanchasara Tantra has not been taken as seriously as the
Prasthana-traya-bhashya in the traditional circles while understanding the
purport of the Bhashya and is ignored most of the times.
I don’t quite agree with these objections. Based on my limited knowledge, I
have evaluated these statements in the document shared below and tried to
demonstrate that they have got no merit in refuting the authorship of
Bhagavatpada.
The document can be accessed from the following link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WRIc3Eb_EAliGn6NkkelJq9KpHT_RKiC/view?usp=sharing

It is my earnest request to the fellows Advaitians to please go through the
evidences compiled in the shared document.
॥ भव शङ्कर देशिक मे शरणम् ॥

See a image here:  https://groups.google.com/g/advaitin/c/dK4TvDaUp5A