[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Is Ramanuja a Demon? Is his Sribhashya a ku-bhashya?

[V Subrahmanian]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 5:34 PM Raghav Kumar Dwivedula <
raghavkumar00 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Namaste Subbu ji
>
>> Is the denigration of Sri Shankara currently available in any published
>> version of Sri Madhwa’s works. Or do we have to solely rely on the
>> secondary source of this Madhwa scholar who is quoting from a certain book
>> kept with him which is currently non-existent in print. And hence only this
>> Madhva scholar’s claims and quotations are the pramANa.
>>
>
Dear Raghav ji,

The denigration of Shankara and Advaitins in such despicable terms is there
spread across many Madhwa texts which are all available in public domain.
The particular instance of this Madhwa scholar claiming to be available in
Raghavendra Tirtha's Bhagavad Gita commentary called Gita vivruti is
somewhat hazy as the printed versions do not have that particular term that
the scholar audaciously claims to be present in the text.

>
>> I write the above not to absolve anyone but to say that - hypothetically
>> if the Madhva peethadhipatis disavow and disown all such references of
>> personalized abuse of Sri Shankara, then, by definition, that becomes the
>> Madhwa view. Especially if we don’t have any published work directly
>> available where personalized abuse of Sri Shankara figures. That leaves
>> their peculiar dvaita theology still totally at odds with advaita. But if
>> the current crop of peethadhipatis and scholars do not consider Madhwa to
>> have ever used such words in his works, then I am not complaining!
>>
>
This is a very laudable situation that you propose: that the present Madhwa
pontiffs along with the top brass scholars come together to pass a
resolution to ' disavow and disown all such references of personalized
abuse of Sri Shankara,' as you nicely put it.  But, unfortunately that
would not happen since the very root of such abuse is in Madhwacharya's own
works, though not the name of Shankara is taken by him anywhere while
giving no room for ambiguity to his followers that it is Shankara and by
extension Ramanuja, etc. Those verses are cited in the article first shared
with a link. Even though a few individuals among them may like those
references to be removed from the original texts where they are at present,
the execution of such a move would be stiffly opposed by radicals among
them who would like that denigration to be there forever. In other words,
the seed for the nindā was sown by Madhwa himself.

                The fact remains that (if I recollect) Madhva in
his iśāvāsya bhāśya says that all advaitins and for good measure,
                    even vishishTAdvaitins, go to eternal dark hellish
worlds in his commentary on the verse “andham tamaḥ praviśanti ye
          vidyām upāsate” etc.


Yes, it is all over his bhashyas and many other works in one way or the
other.

warm regards
subbu


(Except for the advaita paramparā, most other theologies of Indic origin
>> are irritatingly shallow and dogmatic. Non-Indic theologies like islam are
>> even more outrageous since they openly preach physical violence in addition
>> to eternal damnation. Christianity in its bizarre theological claims and
>> threats of eternal damnation is less violent only since a century or two,
>> but is no less a source of harm to humanity.)
>>
>>
>> Om
>> Raghav
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