ADVAITA-L Digest - criteria for judging shankara's works

[Giri]

On Tue, 28 May 1996, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

> > Judeo-Christian beliefs and the difficulty of an alien religion and
> > philosophical system. But, she herself, makes remarks that Gaudapada and
> > Shankara differed in their philosophy while this is said not to be case
> > by Advaitains like Ramana [Talks with Ramana].
>
> They did differ in the kaarikaa and the suutra bhaashhya. However, shaMkara
 has
> shown himself to be an ajaata vaadin in the upadeshasaahasrii. Ofcourse, he

        Vidya has answered and/or commented on most of the criteria.
Regarding the above, I should have written :

But, she [Natalia Isayeva] herself, makes remarks that Gaudapada and
Shankara differed in their philosophy presented in the karika of Gaudapada
and karika bhasya of shankara while this is said not to be case by
Advaitins like Ramana [Talks with Ramana]

        My contention is that Gaudapada and Shankara did not differ in
their philosophies, though they have differed in their presentation.

        Regarding the 5BCE date of shankara, there has been enough proof
that Gaudapada lived around 6-7 century AD [See TMP Mahadevan, Gaudapada,
and also Natalia Isayeva work]. Gaudapada could not have lived after 700
AD because Tibetan sources dated around this period like tattva sangraha
quote directly from mandukya karika stating that 'this is upanishhad
teaching'.  Further, Gaudapada lived after Nagarjuna for certain since
there are almost verbatim passages in the karika from Nagarjuna's
Madhyamaka-karika like passage 7.34 of Madhyamaka-karika and 2.31 of
mandukya karika. Cole in 'Asparsa yoga' argues that the date of Gaudapada
is around 600 AD. I am aware that despite this evidence Kanchi math
argues that Shankara lived around 5 BCE.

> Now, I have a question here. The paJNchaaksharii stotraM has a bhaashhya by
> padmapaada. Can it be considered a genuine work of shaMkara? By the criteria

        I am not sure about this. There are lists of genuine works by
Shankara published by Piantelli based on Hacker's criteria.


Giri