Prakarana Granthas of Adi Sankara

[Vivek Anand Ganesan]

Namaste Jaldharji and others,

  I have some concerns about the same issue. As you have
rightly pointed out, many works do claim to be upanishads
( even the gItA states that it is an upanishad; nobody
regards it as such, to the best of my knowledge ). My
question pertains to how the canonical version of the
108 upanishads came about and what were the criteria used
to form the list?

  Now, regarding the vajrasUchIka Upanishad :
1) The advaita vedAnta homepage itself lists it as part of
   the 108 upanishads accepted by the smArthA tradition
   ( http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/upanishad.html )
     - under the sAmAnya vedAnta category for sAma veda

2) I am assuming that brahmashrI upanishad brahmendra, who
   is said to have commented on all of the 108 upanishad-s
   would have written one for the vajrasUchika as well.
   Since his work is accepted as canonical ( atleast the
   kAnchi maTha does, I think ), why is there a doubt about
   the authenticity or the canonical status of the
   vajrasUchIka upanishad?

3) If I remember correctly, the last time on the same topic
   you had doubted if the vajrasUchI that was quoted was
the
   same one mentioned in the list. I request knowledgeable
   list members to shed more light on this. Did shrI
   brahmendra or any other scholar comment on the same
   exact verses which were quoted?

Thanks,

-Vivek.

--- "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at BRAINCELLS.COM> wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, kuntimaddi sadananda wrote:
>
> > In the past there were discussions in this list that
> > some of the upanishads are not authentic.  Shree
> > Jaldhar,  for example had raised questions that
> > vajrasuuchi upanishad that discusses the varnaashrama
> > in a different perspective and mentioned that it is
> > not considered as authentic.
>
> As a recap for those who weren't present for the original
> thread my
> reasoning was as follows:
>
> There are many texts with upanishad in the title not all
> of which are
> genuine.  (For instance there is one called Allah
> Upanishad!)  How to
> distinguish?  Holding non-mainstream views should cause
> suspicion but it
> isn't reason enough for rejection.  After all our
> tradition is hardly
> monolithic.  Many unorthodox views from the past survive
> in the
> refutations of astika authors.  The thing about this work
> is the
> total silence of the past concerning it.  Given that our
> entire Vedanta
> philosophy is based on the Upanishads, surely someone
> throughout the
> centuries would have deigned to mention it--even if only
> to refute it.
> But not one Advaitin or Vishishtadvaitin or Dvaitin or
> Pashupata or Pushti
> Margi, not anyone has noticed it.  Plus that it should
> suddenly turn up in
> the 20th century amongst people whose ability to place
> truth over politics
> is questionable is what makes it unreliable in my eyes.
> Perhaps more
> evidence will come up later but until then it should not
> be used as a
> pramana.
>
> It's the same with that Mahabharata quotation from last
> week.  It's not
> impossible that it is genuine but the evidence is weak.
> I wrote to
> Shrinivasan asking him to back up his claims but so far
> there has been
> only silence.
>
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
> It's a girl! See the pictures -
http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/


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