[Advaita-l] Sankaracharya

[Venkat Shrinivas]

>> -  Why should  a public debate arise as to whether it is authentic
Sankarite or not,

>> -  why should one be urged to  study books and copper plates to believe
in the Mutt s antiquity,

>> -  why at all should this debate arise  in the last 100 plus years if
people had known well  this Mutt all the time.

I do not have the real answers to these questions. But coming from Tamilnadu
and having been exposed to Tamil literature, history and politics - I have
the following observations:
1) TN has been place where other non-Vedic religions especially Jainism was
predominant. There was this constant conflict between Shaivaites and other
traditions. Texts like periya-puranam detail several such episodes where the
debates raged and the losing party either committed suicide or converted to
the tradition of the winners! Lot of saints were very much interested in
converting the Kings - as the religion of the Kings had a big say on how
well the faith flourished in the kingdom.

2) Even in recent history - the parties like DK and DMK were stared and
flourished on the atheistic and anti-Brahmin platform in TN.

My point is Advaita-Vedanta as a philosophy faced and continues to face lots
of threats and challenges in TN.

Venkat Shrinivas

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org] On Behalf Of vijay
kartik
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 5:42 AM
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Sankaracharya


The purpose of my message was not to initiate any new chain of arguments on
this subject. 

 

I wish to clarify first that I did not write my message from the position of
any particular mutt. So the references to your math ,your friends etc
seem to be based on a misconception of my position. 

 

Given the nature of this historical issue, an objective conclusion can be
made only by relying on books, copper plates, other evidence which were in
public knowledge even before the controversy arose. Any book, copper plate
etc, even if  supposedly 300 or 400 years old , if brought to public
knowledge after such a controversy arose, could never be taken as objective
and authentic.

 

There is no doubt that one should respect any institution or individual
which/who  plays a major role in spreading Vedic Dharma (so long as there
are no baseless antiquity claims.)

 

Shining examples of such great personalities are Ramana Maharishi, Swami
Chinmayananda, Swami Sivananda- to name a few.

 

Looking at this issue from another angle  

 

1) if indeed a Mutt had its origin from the great Sankara

2) if indeed a Mutt had an unbroken line of succession from origin till date
( 2500 years or whatever)

3) if indeed a Mutt commanded the respect and reverence of people as a
Sankara Mutt all those 2500 years,

4) if indeed a Mutt always had solid evidence on dates of
gurus-birth,sanyasa,Samadhi etc all those years,

 

 -  Why should  a public debate arise as to whether it is authentic
Sankarite or not,

 -  why should one be urged to  study books and copper plates to believe in
the Mutts antiquity,

 -  why at all should this debate arise  in the last 100 plus years if
people had known well  this Mutt all the time.

 

An objective thinker would find  the logical answer easily.