[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Works of Sri Vidyashankara

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear Vidyashankarji,

The guruparampara of the Kudali-Shringeri (on the bank of the river Tungabhadra), published from Tirupati, writes that Sri Vidyashankara was the Mathadhipati of that math from 1118 to 1198 CE and after that there was a gap till the Bharatitirtha became the mathadhipati there  and he was succeeded by Sri Vidyaranya. Historically 1198 CE was around the time when Malik Kafur ravaged Karnataka and it is logical to realize that Sri Vidyashankara escaped to Kachipuram in 1198 CE as the Hindu kings, the Pandyas, were ruling Kanchipuram at that time. This also  means that later on (after a gap of few decades) Bharatitirtha became the mathadhipaptis of the Shringeri as well as of the Kudali-Sringeri matha simultaneously and later on Sri Vidyaranya became the successor mathadhipati  of the two maths. Sri Vidyaranya was also a third matha, the Virupaksha matha under him. at some later date the Kudali-shringeri and Sringeri math separated. 

The Kanchi Kamakoti math also shows that after arrival of Sri Vidyashankara in Kanchipuram, there were two mathadhipatis there and one of them was Sri Vidyashankara. That makes it obvious that the Kanchi Kamakoti matha gave the rare honor of the mathadhipati  to the most honorable guest Sri Vidyashankara, while the mathadhipati of their own guru-parampara was still ruling that matha. I would like to state here that the Shringeri math was in a  safer place in the 12th century CE, but that matha too was ravaged a few centuries later by the dacoit groups, ostensibly supported by some foreign power, who were active in the western coast around that time, and the mathadhipati there too had to escape to Pune / Satara. 

Regards,
skb


 
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On Wed, 12/28/16, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] Works of Sri Vidyashankara
 To: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>, "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
 Cc: "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>, "V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
 Date: Wednesday, December 28, 2016, 2:44 AM
 
 Dear
 Sunilji,
 Please, once again,
 my entreaty to you is this - if you want to ask historical
 questions, you must be prepared to evaluate historical
 sources with critical care. 
 Your statement,
 "I feel that as Sri Vedantadeshika
 himself was a disciple of Sri Vidyashankara in Kanchipuram,
 he would have certainly valued Sri Vidyashankara's
 bhashya on the Bhagavadgita," 
 is based on two unsubstantiated
 and extraordinary assumptions, on top of which you have
 added your own suppositions. This is no way to approach such
 problems, if you want to get any sort of clarity on the past
 of our tradition.
 That SrI vedAntadeSika was a
 disciple of SrI vidyASankara is the first unsubstantiated
 and extraordinary assumption.That SrI vidyASankara was teaching
 at Kanchipuram is the second. 
 That Sri vidyASankara must have
 written the bhagavadgItA bhAshya is your own unsubstantiated
 and extraordinary supposition.
 Proof by assertion, proof by
 repetition and conclusions by speculation are the surest
 ways to lead yourself astray in such questions. I am sorry,
 but this is an almost cavalier attitude towards the subject
 and is basically Sruta-hAni plus
 aSruta-kalpanA.
 What exactly is the problem with
 accepting that the gItAbhAshya was written by Adi Sankara?
 Just because one or two quite recent scholars, writing in
 the English language, have raised unnecessary doubts? What
 about the many other recent scholars, also writing in the
 English language, who have laid all those doubts to rest,
 with their more detailed analyses of the texts from our
 tradition? Why don't you examine those studies in some
 detail? If you need references, please see Hajime
 Nakamura's two volume History of Early Vedanta, or
 Sengaku Mayeda's introduction to his translation of the
 upadeSasAhasrI. All the necessary journal articles that
 touch upon the authorship of the gItAbhAshya are referenced
 in those books. 
 Best
 regards,Vidyasankar
 
 On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at
 1:36 AM, Sunil Bhattacharjya via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
 wrote:
 Namaste,
 
 
 
 I feel that as Sri Vedantadeshika himself was a disciple of
 Sri Vidyashankara in Kanchipuram, he would have certainly
 valued Sri Vidyashankara's   bhashya on the
 Bhagavadgita, even though he might have shafted later on to
 Sri Ramanujacharya's camp, Secondly had Sri
 Vidyashankara not composed an advaitic version of the
 Bhagavad Gita bhashya, we would certainly have had a bhasya
 by the eminent Sri Vidyaranya.
 
 
 
 Secondly the order given by Vedantadeeshika as follows need
 not necessarily have been in the quoted chronological order.
 The chronological order could have been   पिशाच
 - रन्तिदेव - गुप्त  -
 यादवप्रकाश -  शङ्कर -
 भास्कर -  नारायणार्य - 
 यज्ञस्वामि - 
 प्रभृतिभि:, If Adi Shankara would have
 composed the Bhagavadgita bhashya there was no need of Sri
 Yadavaprakasha to write another bhashya on the Bhagavad Gita
 bhashya.
 
 
 
 Would you kindly help us by quoting  the exact words /
 concepts in  the Ramanuja-bhashya, which can prove that
 the  Shankara's bhaṣya preceded  Ramanuja's 
 bhāṣya and that Ramanuja-bhashya indeed refuted
 Shankara-bhashya of the Bhagavad gita specifically and that
 what Sri Ranujacharya wrote was not a general refutation of
 Adi Shankara's advaitic views.
 
 
 
 Regards,
 
 Sunil KB