[Advaita-l] RE: On the parakAyapraveSa legend about Sankara

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Sri Karthik prabhuji :

Before Sankara sets out to inhabit the king's body, Padmapada tells
him how sexuality is evil and has brought down many a great person.

bhaskar :

Infact, this is what actually happened to even shankara, the brahmajnAni
par excellence was comfortably enjoying *nirargala brahmAnanda* by
indulging in sexual activities & started composing kAvya on sexuality
thinking that *sexuality* is the ultimate in life!!! ChidvilAsIya
shankara's biography still goes further in highlighting shankara's sexual
indulgence with more than 100 queens :-))let us not go into those
details.....According to mAdhavIya biography, shankara's desciples
padmapAda & co had to struggle very hard by singing songs on non-duality
(nEti nEti etc.) to sexually intoxicated King shaped shankara to bring back
to his normal senses!!! After listening to these enlightening songs from
his desciples, shankara  realized his forgotten true nature & immediately
left kings body & assumed a bird shape to fly back to his original saNyAsi
body!!!

Sri Karthik prabhuji :

Sankara in reply says that he is equal to Mahavishnu himself, giving
the analogous situation of Krishna among the Gopis, and hence will
remain unaffected by the episode.

bhaskar :

As far as I remember, in justification, shankara did say (according to
author) that like Krishna,  being a yati he is also an *asangi*...but I
dont think shankara says he is equal to mahAvishNu etc. If possible kindly
provide the original Sanskrit text for this.

Apart from this justification, shankara gives (according to author of
shankara digvijaya) many other explanations (around 7 to 8) for parakAya
pravEsha... One of them is vajrOli, a yOgic occult power (siddhi) from
which one can avoid ejaculation & his semen always travels at the upward
trend (urdhva mukhi rEtas) through sushumna nAdi towards sahasrAra!!
Shankara says padmapAda since he has mastered this yOgic power there is no
problem in going to king's body & *learning* sexuality practically with
queens!!

Interestingly, in another justification shankara quotes shruti also for the
course of his forthcoming action, but no need to mention this shruti quote
is completely out of context here..

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar