[Advaita-l] Bhakti in Advaita Tradition - Post - Gaudapada and Pre-Madhusudana

[Venkata sriram P]

Dear Bhaskarji,
 
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One line of argument to call shankara as vaishNava is that shankara 
whenever talks about 'pratikOpAsana' he invariably refers to 'vishNu 
sAligrAma' & nowhere he gives the example of  shiva lingam
 
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Sringeri Pitha has sphatika sivalinga, sphatika sriyantra, ratnagarbha ganapati 
& nrisimha salagrama that were given by Sankara.  Sankara is said to have worshipped
Devi Sarada which is a small idol of sandalwood and even to this day it can
be seen at the right hand corner in Vidyasankara Temple.  
 
Apart from all these, there is a rasa linga (mercury linga) which is worshipped
by all peethadhipatis.  
 
Sankara composed Saundaryalahari, Sivanandalahari and if you examine each of 
these we get the impression that He was a sAkta & saiva.  
 
Even though, there are controversies around the authorship of Lalita Trishati Bhashya,
the Sringeri Acharya Parampara firmly believe that it was sankara who
wrote it and so do I.  Sringeri is also credited to have the Srividya Mula Mantra Bhashya
of Agastya called "Srividya Dipika" which was thoroughly studied by 
Shri Sacchidananda Sivabhinava Nrisimha Bharati & Shri Chandrasekhara Bharati Mahaswamigal.  
 
So, rather than branding Sankara as vaishnavaite, we should see him as a sarva-mArga
samanvaya-karta and hence called "ShaNmatasthApanAchArya".  
 
shruti-smriti-purANAnAM AlayaM karuNAlayaM
namAmi bhagavatpAda sankaraM lOkasankaraM
 
regs,
sriram