The GK, mANDUkya controversy and some other stuff

Giri gmadras at ENGR.UCDAVIS.EDU
Fri Mar 14 16:01:14 CST 1997


On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

> and explained that shrI sha.nkara does not call it shruti, he uses the phrase
> "atra uktam vedAnta-artha-sampradAyavidbhir AcharyAiH". H.H said "quote
> paNNarAr AnA shrutinnu sollalai" (translation: He quotes (the GK I), but does
> not call it shruti). The verse quoted from GK I is the 16th verse. Further
> GK 3.15 is also quoted by shrI sha.nkara and he uses the _exact same phrase,
> viz, "atra uktam vedAnta-artha-sampradAyavidbhir AchAryaiH" when quoting that!

BSB : Brahma suutra bhashya

Thanks for your interesting e-mail. Just to add that Shankara quotes GK 1.16
in section 2.1 of BSB and quotes GK 3.15 in section 1:4 of BSB.

Shankara is very careful in attributions (imho). For example, in the adhyatma
patala I recently posted, He says that certain verses are most likely from
the upanishhad.s (Shruti) which have been lost, but in his commentary
mentions that we should accord only Smriti status to them since we are
unsure about the source.

> Anandagiri's comment in the TIkA to the GK bhAshhya:
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> In the TIkA, Anandagiri says "there are many upanishhad-s in the atharva veda,
> beginning with the brahma and garbha. However sha.nkara bhagavatpAda does not
> quote them in the BSB since bAdarAyaNa has not used them" (paraphrased). I
> found this in Deussen's "Philosophy of the Upanishads".

        But Shankara does quote from the muNDaka upanishhad.h (Which is
from the atharva veda) frequently in BSB (129 times, according to Paul
Duessen). Or do you mean Shankara does not quote from the _minor_
upanishhad-s in the Atharva veda ? He does not quote from them in BSB (I
think), but he quotes them in lalita trishati bhashya (attributed to him).

        Further, in the list I have, brahma and garbha upanishhad-s are
from the kR^ishhNa yajur veda. I remember Vidya posting a list of
upanishhad-s long back on srh (?). Maybe it would be useful to
cross-check. On a side note, a list of 108 upanishhad-s as given in the
muktika and which veda each belongs to is available at
        ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu/private/sanskrit/sanskrit.html
(click on list of 108 upanishhad-s). If there are mistakes in this list,
please let me know. Thanks.

**

I have also read in some books that Shankara does not quote from Ramayana.
But this is not correct, Shankara quotes from the Ramayana both in BSB
and upadeshasahasri (and there is no doubt about the authencity of these
works). Further Shankara quotes from Markandeya puraaNa in BSB and quotes
from Vishnu, Shiva and Brahmanda puraaNa-s in other works (which are all
attributed to Shankara, but may not have been written by him), so it can
be assumed that Shankara was well aware of puraaNa-s.

Namaste.



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