?Question?

[Ravisankar Mayavaram]

|| AUM sha.nkarAcharyavaryAya namaH ||

If someone belongs to the dashanAmi order as a monk, should
he/she be faithful shrI shankara's philosophy?  Will it be
considered a guru droham if they do not?

Being in the dashanAmi order is a mere affiliation or it
constitutes a proper guru siShya relationship?

|| hariH AUM ||

Ravi

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>From  Thu Nov 19 21:08:05 1998
Message-Id: <THU.19.NOV.1998.210805.0500.>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 21:08:05 -0500
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To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: ?Question?
Comments: To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
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Ravisankar Mayavaram wrote:

> If someone belongs to the dashanAmi order as a monk, should
> he/she be faithful shrI shankara's philosophy?  Will it be
> considered a guru droham if they do not?
>
> Being in the dashanAmi order is a mere affiliation or it
> constitutes a proper guru siShya relationship?

This question cannot be answered yes/no IMHO.

Traditionally dashanAmI monks follow sha.nkara and advaita. However,
there is a book on the yoga sUtras by one Swami Hariharananda-aranya,
obviously a dashanAmI name, but he is called sA.nkhya yogAcArya. I was
talking to Vidyasankar last week and brought up this topic, namely about
this Swami. He pointed out that the sAnkhya of this Swami is a very
vedAntified sAnkhya, but even then it seems to me that he was a follower
of sA.nkhya/yoga, which is somewhat different from advaita. So, in
short: no, at least these days there are some dashanAmIs not following
sha.nkara - at least in the strict sense. But mostly dashanAmIs are
followers of sha.nkara. I have read the Swamiji's book and I have
developed great respect for him. Perhaps, even this swami wrote the
commentary on the yogasUtrabhAshhya of vyAsa, just like vAcaspati
mishra. I mean, just following the respective school while commenting on
a text of that school, even though an advaitin himself. Also,
dashanAmI's only nominally recognize the 4 sha.nkara maTHas as
authority. But, in some sense we can trace back all of them to sha.nkara
and his disciples. So in a slightly loose sense it is a guru-shishhya
paramparA which can be traced back to sha.nkara. But, there is no doubt
it is _a_ guru-shishhya paramparA.

Rama

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