Gaudapada: Webpage announcement

[Vidyasankar]

In the spirit of going back to the Sanskrit originals, instead of relying
on commentaries and/or translations, here are a couple of comments on the
following statements from the related page -
http://home.earthlink.net/~pushpasri/vedanta/shank_adv.html

"The earliest biographical account on Shankara's life, Shankaravijaya by
Anantaanandagiri, holds that Shankara was born around 50 BC in Chidambaram
in modern Tamil Nadu ..."

One, I am unaware of any specific date given in the above text. Two, the
Chidambaram version is in the 19th century editions of this text from
Calcutta, but the 1971 Madras edition says Kaladi. Three, it is by no
means correct to say that this is the earliest biographical account. In
two separate chapters, Anantaanandagiri quotes from the AdhikaraNa
Ratnamaalaa, which is well-known as a 14th century text, written by
Bharatii Tiirtha of Sringeri. So, Anantaanandagiri's text is only about as
old as any of the other texts in the Sankaravijaya genre.

"According to the Shankaradigvijaya of Maadhava he establised four
monasteries (mathas) in four corners of the country ..."

Maadhava's text gives no such number and also no locations except for
Rishyasringaasrama (katicana vinive"sya atha .r.sya"s.r.ngaa"sramaadau),
i.e. Sringeri. That Sankara established four Mathas at Sringeri, Dwaraka,
Puri and Badrinath is based primarily on oral tradition. Perhaps the only
text to cast this oral tradition into written form is the Sankaravijaya
Vilasa of Cidvilasa.

Best regards,
Vidyasankar