[Advaita-l] 'VinAyaka' in ShAnkara GItA BhAShyam

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

On 5 July 2011 21:05, Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 5 Jul 2011, Satish Arigela wrote:
>
>  It looks like shankara is of the opinion that some forms of devata-s are
>> tAmasika as opposed to criticizing tAmasika worship in general.
>>
>>
> I think you've made a convincing case that Shankaracharya totally rejected
> a particular tantrika cult based around saptamatrkas, chaturbhaginis, and
> vinayaka(s)
>
>

This somewhat corresponds to my sense as well, i.e. that sha~NkarAchArya
took a negative view of a particular upAsana involving all these deities.
Satish showed quite clearly that the mention of the three [vinAyaka(s),
saptamAtR^ikA-s and chaturbhagini-s] together is not accidental but in the
context of a particular system.

Therefore, there is a stronger case that he took a dim view of the system
rather than individual deities. If the latter had been the case, he might as
well have picked a few deities randomly rather than 3 who were connected by
a particular upAsana system.