[Advaita-l] Adi Shankara's Amarushataka

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 21 May 2013, Sunil Bhattacharjya wrote:

> Dear friends,
>
> I understand that Adi Shankara's Amarushataka is essentially a deep 
> Advaitic text

It is a collection of verses in shrngara rasa.

> and Appaya dikshita had commented on a verse of this. The 
> commentator Ravichandra is said to have written in his commentary that 
> that the verses of Amarushataka have double meanings but their real 
> import is philosophical.  > It will be nice to hear from the learned members 
> if any study had been carried out on the Advaitc message in the 
> Amarushataka.

An enterprising interpreter can find all kinds of meanings in things but I 
am rather dubious about any "Advaitic message" in the Amarushataka.  Have 
you read it?

  One poem of Adi Shankara's “Amarushataka” is inscribed on 
> a ‘Stupa’ (Pillar) at Nagarjunakonda in AndhraPradesh. This stupa  can 
> be said to be athree dimensional representation of the Amarushataka. 
> This show that even the Buddhists of his timewere influenced by his 
> Advaita philosophy. This inscription probably also throws some light on 
> the times of Adi Shankara, albeit indirectly.

Note the story of Shankaracharya being temporarily confounded by Mandan 
Mishra's wife Bharati asking questions on kamashastra during their debate 
and requesting an adjounment during which he inhabited the body of the 
recently deceased King Amaru (or Amaruka) is first found in the 
14th century Madhaviya Shankara digvijaya.  Earlier mentions of the 
Amarushataka (several kavyashastras use verses from it as examples) are 
silent on this topic.  So I think you are getting way ahead of yourself in 
your analysis of the Nagarjunakonda inscription.  More context is needed.



-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>