SaktAdvaita

Vidyasankar Sundaresan vidya at CCO.CALTECH.EDU
Tue Oct 20 01:10:30 CDT 1998


On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Ravisankar Mayavaram wrote:

> namaste
>
> In the book "Dancing with Siva" by shrI shivAya subramuniya
> svAmi, there is a reference to something called "shiva-advaita".
> Not much detail is given there though. Author talks about
> "shrI appaya dIkshita" in this regard.
>
> I have not heard anything about shAktAdvaita. I am able
> understand only what shiva-vishishtAdvaita (shrIkaNTha) or
> shaktI-vishishTAdvaita can possibly mean. In the realm of
> advaita-vedanta there is very little or no scope for difference
> between shiva, shaktI and shrIman nArAyaNa.
>

Yes, you are right. Historically speaking, there is a SivAdvaita school
associated with the name of the great appayya dIkshita. He wrote works
like SivArkamaNidIpikA and SivAdvaita-nirNaya, as also the parimalA
commentary in the bhAmatI sub-school in advaita vedAnta. He reinterprets
SrIkaNTha's version of viSishTAdvaita along the lines of Sankaran advaita.

Re: SAktAdvaita, one could possibly count authors like bhAskararAya (16th
century), who wrote on various SAkta traditions and texts. However, if we
hold a commentary on the brahmasUtra to be necessary for a school to be
called vedAnta, one cannot call bhAskararAya a vedAntin. Most of these
SAkta authors also tend to refer to SankarAcArya's commentaries and hymns
with great respect, so that their SAktAdvaita is derivative of advaita
vedAnta, in some senses.

Vidyasankar

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