[Advaita-l] Sundara Pandya

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

[was Re: [Advaita-l] Adi Shankara,s birth date.]

On Tue, 10 May 2011, Venkatesh Murthy wrote:

> But there is no name Sundara Pandya mentioned in the Bhashya at all.
> How do we know it is in Sundara Pandya Karika?

We have to look to the tikakaras like Anandagiri or Vachaspati Mishra to 
fill in some of these details.  Sureshwaracharya also quotes from Sundara 
Pandya I believe.

> Where is this Karika found? Any comments?

Sundara Pandya was a pre-Shankaran Advaitin.  Unfortunately the greatness 
of Shankaracharyas exposition obliterated all those who came before him 
and Sundara Pandyas works only survive in quotes from later authors. 
Little is known about him.  In Gujarat Pandya is a Brahmana surname but it 
is a relatively recent prakritization of Pandit (akin to Pande or Panda in 
North India.) so thats a red herring. There is the famous Pandya dynasty 
of Madurai.  Several Pandya kings were called Sundara, perhaps he was one 
of them?



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