[Advaita-l] Namaskar, please .I really need help for some confused

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

I have spent many years learning gaudiya vaishnavam and can try to help you
on this. I also spent a lot of time discussing this with Sri Subrahmanian
Sri Devanathan, Sri lalitha lalitha, Sri Vidyasankar and others to
understand if this verse can even remotely refer to Sankara. I also did my
own independent research.

You can confidently say that this verse refers to a particular sect of pasu
patha matha of nalusha, a Gujarati Brahmana and considered an incarnation
of Lord Siva. He lived 2500 years ago and adopted the Buddhist tantrik
practices and so was considered prachanna bauddha. He taught aikyam between
jiva and Siva by transfer of all qualities,  not acceptable to vaidhikas
because Siva is a particular manifestation of the Lord and you don't become
Siva. He taught in the Brahmana form fitting he description Brahmana rupina
in the verse. He asked the ascetics of his order to violate all regulations
by doing things such as public ejaculation so that common people are
shocked out of maya. He argued everything is an illusion and taught common
people to relax varnashrama rules as did Buddha. Both these fit giving up
all karma stated in the verse.

Sankara was born in a Brahmana family but was a sannyasi. So he did not
teach in Brahmana Rupa as said by the verse. The sannyasa that he taught is
as per Vedic vidhi for paramahamsas. He differed from Buddha very clearly.
He taught realization of Vishnu, the Inner Self not become one with Vishnu,
the husband of Lakshmi or Siva, the husband of Parvathi. So, none of he
descriptions in the verse fit him or Advaita tradition.

How then did this verse come to be associated with Sankara? Sankara had
demolished the pasupatha madam especially the negative variants such as
kabalikas. So, this verse stood there without a reference. The followers of
Ramanuja referred to Sankara's school as prachanna bauddham and mayavadam,
probably taking cue fom this verse. But they did not use the verse
explicitly probably because of the technical difficulties of using it to
refer to Sankara. Madhwas also used the terms but not the verse. Chaitanya
and the six gosvamis did not refer to Sankara by name. Jiva Gosvami made
reference to this verse and made an indirect reference to Sankara with he
words tadiya bhashye. By that time some of the followers of pasupatha had
merged in to Advaita tradition retaining some of their ill-conceptions. And
the oft repeated charge by vaishnavas of Advaitam (mayavadam prachanna
bauddham) had become common place. So, he probably deemed it fit to comment
as such. Also, Chaitanya's Bhakti movement had attracted Ramanandis, who
brought in their opposition to Sankara, which influenced them. After almost
100 years, the followers of Chaitanya, who was a Sankaracharya initiated by
Kesava Bharathi, who shaved his head and removed the thread giving up
rights to karma, who taught Advaitin Sridhara Swami's commentary on
Bhagavathan, crystallised their opposition to Sankara as you can see from
Chaitanya Charitamrta. While a contemporary work Chaitanya Bhagavatha talks
highly of Sarvabhauma, an advaitin scholar and bhakta, Chaitanya
Charitamrta talks about his conversion from Advaitam to Gaudiya Vaishnavam!
Even CC maintains reverence towards Sankara as Lord Siva though critical of
His philosophy and bringing in injunctions to not read them. These
injunctions were however not taken seriously Visvanath and Baladev, who
quote Gaudapada, Sankara, Sridhara and Madhusudana though they adopt
achintya bhedAbheda tattva of Sri Krishna Das Kaviraj. But he was mostly
influenced by Ramanuja. The gaudiya tradition continued as a normal
Vaidhika, Tantrika and Bhagavatha tradition until Bhaktisiddhanta gave it a
Vaishnava colour by adopting the tridandi sannyasa and rejection of worship
of Lord Siva as a demi-god. It is strange because Sri Krishna Chaitanya
taught Bhagavatham in Kapilash, a Siva temple where even today great Siva
bhaktas live in forests amongst wolves etc. performing mantropasana of
Siva. Anyway, ISKCON, as a result, does not worship Sri Krishna Chitanya in
his form as a Sankaracharya! There is a contemporary portrait I sent
yesterday to this group.

ISKCON devotees are very committed to Krishna Bhakti. They have Lord
Krishna as their sole aim in their life. Influenced by Srila Prabhupada,
who took the cue fom Christianity and British governance, they are
extremely well organised. But they violate the rules of radha tantra  by
teaching hare krishna mantra to everyone although it is perhaps okay
because they don't teach the real meaning of the mantra but just say that
these are names of god. Many of them will be shocked if they learnt that,
in the hare krishna mantra, ha in hare refers to Siva and re to Parvathi :)

On Sunday, March 18, 2012, ktvmb <ktvmb at qq.com> wrote:
> Namasar
>
>  I need help for some confused, it really make me suffering,it is about
the verse from Padma purana which is usually quoted by Vashnava schloar
that talking about Advaita is a non-vedic but illusion princple. However,
Shankarachaya is the sun of the spiritual sky , therefore, I really wants
to know is this verse be distorted to translated?
>  I really wants to know. I dont want to be confused on this any more.
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