[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Works of Sri Vidyashankara
Sunil Bhattacharjya
sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 3 00:23:32 CST 2017
Dear Subbuji,
There is a paper by Gopala Aiyengar on the work of Bhaskara.
Regards,
Sunil KB
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 1/2/17, V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian 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>
Date: Monday, January 2, 2017, 10:18 PM
On Tue,
Jan 3, 2017 at 11:41 AM, Sunil Bhattacharjya via Advaita-l
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
wrote:
Dear
Venkatraghavanji,
Good you could get the paper. I however agree with Prof.
Karmarkar. Further it appears to me that the the
Bhagavadgita-bhashya was written by the great scholar Sri
Shankara (Nava-Sankara, whom many advaitins consider as an
incarnation of Adi Shankara). Shakara (also called
Nava-Shankara or Abhinava Shankara) lived in the 8th/9th
century CE and he refuted the Bhagavadgita-bhshya of
Bhaskar, who lived in the 8th century CE.
Dear
Sunil ji,
Where is the
proof for this last assertion? Is that advaita bhashya
available now or is it cited by anyone? On the other hand,
we have just seen from Gopalaswamy's paper that Bhaskara
critiqued the Advaita Gita bhashya.
regardssubbu
Regards,
Sunil K. BHattacharjya
------------------------------ --------------
On Mon, 1/2/17, Venkatraghavan S
via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org> wrote:
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] Works of Sri
Vidyashankara
To: "A discussion group for Advaita
Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org>
Date: Monday, January 2, 2017, 3:56 PM
Dear all,
Firstly, here is wishing everyone a very happy new
year.
Good news. I have managed to find the ABORI edition
where
Prof. Karmarkar's
paper on the authorship of the Gita was published. Here
is
the link
http://www.dli.ernet.in/
handle/2015/97593
I was initially reluctant from sharing my thoughts on
the
paper with the
group as I am in no way to qualified to question the
erudite
Professor, but
I am doing so having consulted with some esteemed list
members, who thought
this may be of interest to a broader group. At the outset,
I
want to
clarify that no disrespect whatsoever is intended to
the
Professor or his
learning.
Having read the paper, I am sorry to say that I do not
find
the objections
to Shankara's authorship of the gIta bhAshya
convincing at
all. I have
tried to present the summary conclusions of Prof.
Karmarkar
and my replies
below.
1) One of Prof. Karmarkar's objections is that in
the
introductory portion
of the Gita bhAshya, the whole description of Ishvara
as
NArAyaNa, VishNu,
etc., the reference to the six-fold jnAna-aishvarya
shakti
of Ishvara and
vaishNavIm svAm mAyAm, do not appear quite in line
with Shankara as an
advaitin. The passage, he says, looks more apt in the
mouth
of a
Vaishnavite or some follower of the Bhakti school
proper.
This does not seem to take into account the practice of
advaita vedAnta at
all - bhakti is very much accepted within the sphere of
advaita practice
and is viewed as a means for chitta shuddhi which is a
necessary
pre-requisite for the gain of advaita jnAna. The
acknowledgment of Vishnu
as Bhagavan occurs in the Brahma sUtra bhAshya itself.
2) Prof Karmarkar goes on to say that Shankara scarcely
refers to VedavyAsa
as Bhagavan and sarvajna in the Brahma sUtra bhAshya but
the
author of the
gIta bhAshya does so. However, he does not provide the
number of instances
where VedavyAsa is referred to as sarvajna BhagavAn in
the
gIta bhAshya vs
the sUtra bhAshya to prove his point - now, if the
argument
was based on
the usage of the epithet in the gIta bhAshya and the
scarcity of its usage
in the sUtra bhAshya, then it would be important to
justify
that argument
with statistics. Prof. Karmarkar fails to do so.
From my search, the usage of the epithet
"Bhagavan" when
applied to
VedavyAsa appears twice in the gIta bhAshya - once in
the
introduction
section (which is referred to by Prof. Karmarkar) and
once
in the bhAshya
for sloka 2.21 (which is not). In comparison, the number
of
occasions the
sUtrakAra is referred to as BhagavAn / Bhagavata in
sUtra
bhAshya is thrice
by my count (once in BS 1.1.1 when Shankara calls the
sUtrakAra as
"भगवान्सूत्रकारः",
once in BS
3.4.8 as "भगवतो
बादरायणस्य"
and once in
4.4.21 as "भगवान्बादरायण
आचार्यः".) Prof. Karmarkar fails to
mention
the
other two occurrences in the sUtra bhAshya, and says
that
Shankara
uses this epithet in relation to BAdarAyaNa only once -
in
4.4.21. Even
there he claims that, the use of Bhagavan is probably
"an
addition by some
copyist".
In fact, as we have seen, Shankara uses this epithet
thrice
in the sUtra
bhAshya. One occurrence can be dismissed as the work of
a
copyist, but to
explain away three instances is difficult. Therefore,
Prof.
Karmarkar's
statement that "To Sankara, Upavarsa alone is
Bhagavan
proper" is unfounded
my view. Shankara's reference to vedavyAsa as Bhagavan
is
not out of
character, given what we see in the Brahma sUtra.
3) Prof. Karmarkar further states that the description
of
Ashvattha does
not tally between the gIta and KaTha bhAshyas. He says
"the
most important
point, however, is that
'अवाक्शाख:' is
explained as
'स्वर्गनरकतिर्यक्प्रेतादिभि:
शाखाभि:' " in the KaTha bhAshyam,
whereas the
same term is explained in Gita 15.1 as
"अध:शाखं
महदहङ्कारतन्मात्रादय:
शाखा
इवास्यधो भवन्तीति".
Prof.
Karmarkar says "It appears there can be no
justification for such variation in the interpretations,
if
both the
Bhasyas were by the same author".
However, in the next verse Gita 15.2, while explaining
the
line "अधश्चोर्ध्वं
प्रसृतास्तस्य शाखा"
of the
sloka, the author of the gIta bhAshya gives the
meaning as "अधः
मनुष्यादिभ्यो यावत्
स्थावरम् ऊर्ध्वं च
यावत् ब्रह्मणः
विश्वसृजो धाम
इत्येतदन्तं", which achieves
the same
meaning as the one
given for the kaTha bhAshyam. Therefore, the difference
in
variations
perceived by Prof. Karmarkar is because the explanation
of
the next gIta
verse is not taken into account.
4) The Professor then says that the reference to
जलसूर्यक दृष्टान्त in
gIta
bhAshya 15.7 is not relevant and that it is not in
keeping
with Shankara's
tendencies, as he "usually uses सृगजल,
रज्जुसर्प and उपाधि
दृष्टान्तs".
However, there is an important reason why Shankara
gives
this example in
this sloka. This is one of the bhAshya portions where
Shankara presents
both the AbhAsa vAda and avaccheda vAda as acceptable
prakriyas within
advaita siddhAnta. Therefore, the usage of
जलसूर्यक दृष्टान्त
should
be
viewed in parallel with the usage of
घटाद्युपाधिपरिच्छिन्नो
घटाद्याकाशः
immediately afterwards, as two alternative views of the
jIva
acceptable
within advaita siddhAnta. To complain that Shankara
never
uses the जलसूर्यक
दृष्टान्त is failing to appreciate
the
true reason for the usage.
5) Prof. Karmarkar points to sloka 13.12 's bhAshya
that
Shankara has split
the word अनादिमत्परं occurring in
the
verse as अनादिमत् + परम् as
opposed
to अनादि + मत्परं which is
Ramanuja's
preference. Through this, he argues
that the author of the shAnkara bhAshya did so in
response
to Ramanuja's
commentary which must have preceded his. Therefore, Adi
Shankara cannot
have been the author of the gIta bhAshya.
However, it is clear that the author of the gIta bhAshya
is
doing so in
response to a commentary that is earlier than his (and
not
Ramanuja),
because in the shAnkara bhAshya, the pUrvapaksha
interpretation is
described as अहं
वासुदेवाख्या
परा शक्तिर्यस्य
तन्मत्परमिति. The pUrvapakshi
is saying by matparam, what Krishna means is "Me, the
one
endowed with the
highest power called paravAsudeva shakti". Shankar
goes out
of his way to
name the shakti as वासुदेवाख्या
परा शक्ति.
Therefore, if the shAnkara gIta bhAshya had followerd
RAmAnuja's, we
would expect the specific name of the shakti to be
present
in RAmAnuja's
bhAshya too. However, RAmAnuja does not specifically
call
this vAsudeva
shakti, he simply says अहं परो यस्य
तत् मत्परं. Therefore, this
specificity must have existed in some other pAncarAtra
bhAshya of the gIta
that Shankara referred to when he wrote the gIta
commentary.
Further, vedAnta desika, in commenting on
RAmAnuja's
bhAshya, quotes
Shankara's bhAshya in introducing the section where
RAmAnuja
talks about
Brahman being endowed with guNas
(बृहत्वगुणयोगि /
स्वत:
शरीरादिभि:
परिच्छेदरहितं), with a view
to
refute Shankara's point that nirguNa Brahman
is being referred to in this verse.
Another point to be noted is that RAmAnuja translates
sat
and asat as kArya
and kAraNa, which is the meaning that Anandagiri gives
-
which is a simpler
interpretation of the sloka. Shankara could simply have
used
this meaning,
instead he takes a different meaning - sat as
existence and asat as
non-existence. Prof. Karmarkar states this must be from
RAmAnuja's Brahma
sUtra bhAshya. He does acknowledge that it may be some
other
prior bhAshya
that Shankara had access to, but states there is no
evidence
of such a
bhAshya.
Professor Daniel Ingalls, while remarking that
BhAskara's
commentary is
vociferously, even caustically different from
Shankara's on
certain sUtras,
also states that it is remarkably similar on several
other
sUtras. This
leads him to conclude that there must be a vrittikAra,
a
proto-commentator
which both of them have based their commentary on. This
is
in line with the
traditional view too. In my view, this could be the
same
source from which
RAmAnuja bases his brahma sUtra commentary too,
explaining
the similarity
of language between the gIta bhAshya and RAmAnuja's
sUtra
bhAshya.
6) Prof. Karmarkar also complains that the author of
the
gIta bhAshya
"ignores completely the first adhyAya of the Gita
(46
slokas) and 10 slokas
of the second Adhyaya" and that "this goes
against
Shankara's method of
explanation" as "in the case of the various
section of
the Upanishads
where even small introductory AkhyAyikas are
introduced". It
is
unthinkable, he says that Shankara could have given only
a
very inadequate
and short reference to the introductory portion of the
Gita.
a) Firstly neither Shankara has ignored the stated
portion
nor has he
omitted giving an introduction to the gIta. In fact he
has
written an
upodghAta bhAshya introducing the gIta, after which he
separately
summarises the verses that he has not commented upon,
to
present only the
message that is relevant to that topic at hand. What is
the
point in
writing page upon page commenting on which Kaurava and
Pandava warrior blew
which conch, etc when that is completely irrelevant to
the
central message
of the Gita?
b) Secondly, Shankara does have form in ignoring portions
of
text that are
not of much relevance. For example, in the vaitathya
prakaraNa of the
mANDUkya kArika, Shankara ignores kArikas 2.20 to 2.27
in
his commentary
completely. Therefore, it would be incorrect to assert
that
Shankara
comments on every word of every text for which he writes
a
bhAshya.
c) Thirdly, the Professor remarks that some of the
commentary of Shankara
in the gIta bhAshya is puerile, and that he is stating
the
obvious in doing
so. It appears that whatever the author of the gIta
bhAshya
does, he is
damned in the eyes of the Professor. If Shankara comments
on
obvious
passages where there is little room for commentary, the
Professor remarks
that the commentary is puerile. If Shankara then
ignores
descriptions of
battle formation, names of warriors and their
paraphernalia
as irrelevant,
the Professor says that Shankara is ignoring the text.
7) Finally, there are a few minor nits that the
Professor
picks on, such as
Shankara not using the same name for the Gita in many
places, or that he
does not name the devayAna / pitryAna in Chapter
8's
commentary, or that he
sometimes refers to himself in the singular in the gIta
bhAshya but at
least in my view, these are not major flaws that would
necessitate a
conclusion questioning the authorship of the gIta
itself.
In light of the above, I believe that the objections of
Professor
Karmarkar's to Shankara's authorship are not
very
convincing.
Regards,
Venkatraghavan
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