[Advaita-l] Shankarananda

[venkata subramanian]

Dear Karthik
 
To my knowledge, the Gita Tatparya Bodhini (hereinafter GTB) has been published by Chowkhamba Varanasi Rs 150.  
The style is of a peculiarly simple style of Sanskrit.  i mean, in some places, he writes too eloborately.  
he uses standard terms from the Vivarana School terminology.
 
One thing interesting in him is that he gives out in Sanskrit, the Vyutpatthi for each name in Gita in the vedantic way.  ( of course, Sri Madhusudhana Saraswathi, Danapathi Suri ,  Venkatanatha in his Brahmananda giri vyakya have all done this, but Shankarananda is much senior in time to all of them.)
 
this style is evident in his Upanishadic Deepikas also.
 
His Deepika (or Vrithi)
for Isa, kena, Prasna, Mandukya, Thaitreya, Upanishads have been publised by Anandasrama Sansthan,   Pune in their respective Upanishad Bhashya Book.
 
For Swetaswatara, see their edition.
For a few other Upanishads, please see = Upanishadam samuchayaha published by them, which is now not in print.
 
His Brahma Sutra Deepika, in my humble view, is not so very nice as his GTB or his Upanishadic Deepikas.  Published by Chowkhamba Varanasi in one single volume.
 
He has also authored ATMA PURANA in a puranic style explaining, only the Brahma Vidya portions of various Upanishads.  (similar to Jagadguru Vidyaranya's Anubhuthi Prakasha).  The work was available in print once, now extant.  However , Sri Dakshnamurthi Math of Varanasi has now started to republish the whole work in volumes alongwith the Sanskrit commentary of Ramakrishna Pandita and the detailed Hindi commentary of Sri Svayam Prakasha Giri Swamji.
 
He it seems has also written - pancha krosha yatra manjari.

S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com> wrote:
--- bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com wrote:

Thanks again for posting the observations of the Holsenapur Swamiji. I
was just thinking about one aspect:

[..]

> But it is very difficult to believe that this shankara (author of VC)
> is
> prasthAna trayi bhAshyakAra. I have following observation to
> strengthen my
> claims :
> 
> (a) There is substantial difference in style of writing between
> shankara's Upadesha Sahasri (US) & VC. (as said earlier, swamiji
> says, US
> is the genuine work of bhAshyakAra & it is in complete harmony with
> purports of prasthAna trayi bhAshya & Shri Shankara Bhagavadpada's
> direct
> desciple Sri SureshwarAchAya quotes verses from US considering it as
> an
> authoritative work from the pen of his guru Sri Shankara &
> vArtikakAra
> hardly quotes any verse from VC.
> 

[..]

> (b) After realising jagatkAraNa sat-chit-ananda brahman through
> shruti
> mahA vAkya shravaNa of tattvamasi etc. realised soul has to do vAsanA
> tyAga
> etc. is very near to mandana mishra's brahma siddhi purports which is
> evidently absent in shankara's PT bhAshya.
> 

No doubt the author of the VC requires vAsanAkshaya after BrahmaGYAna,
which is un-Shankaran. But is it possible to connect it with the
observations below on the authorship of the VC:

[..]

> After considering the above, I have searched for the author who used
> to
> this style of writing, who quotes these pramANa vAkyas, who upholds
> VC's
> philosophical stand. Finally, I found out one name *Sri
> Shankarananda* who
> wrote *vruttis* in the name of *dIpika* to upanishads & vEdanta
> sUtras &
> also written an elaborate vyAkyAna to gIta in the name of *gIta
> tAtparya
> bOdhini*(GTB). One can easily find that there is lot of similarities
> between GTB & VC in its writing style, purports, philosophy etc. It
> is
> also believed that Sri shankarananda was incarnation of shankara (
> shankarAmsha saMbhUta). & in GTP mangala shlOka Sri shankarananda
> salutes
> his teacher Sri AnandAtma saraswati who was also well known as
> *vidyAshankara*. With this we can assume that Sri Shankarananda
> might have
> saluted his guru AnandAtma as govinda swarUpa & at conclusion *ESha
> shankara bhArati* can be interpreted as his guru's (vidyAshankara)
> words.
> (Swamiji requests here the historians to do more in-depth research
> work on
> his assumptions to arrive at the credible conclusions).

This just struck me:

Swami Vidyaranya says in his famous work jIvanmuktiviveka that
BrahmaGYAna and jIvanmukti are not synonymous terms, since the latter
requires vAsanAkshaya whereas the former does not. This is very similar
to the teachings of the VC. Therefore, between the times of Adi
Shankara and Vidyaranya, vAsanAkshaya has become an extremely important
element in advaita VedAnta. 

If Shankarananda says to the efect that vAsanAkshaya is required for a
GYAnI, then I feel we have a pretty good case for the authorship of the
VC going to Shankarananda. Has anyone taken the Swamiji's analysis to
their logical conclusion? Does anyone know where one can obtain a copy
of the GItA Tatparya Bodhini or any other works of that author?

Thanks,

Kartik

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Thanks & Regards,
Venkat.

Sadgurubhyo Namah.

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