[Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of Adi Shankara

Vidyasankar Sundaresan svidyasankar at gmail.com
Mon Jan 9 22:00:10 CST 2017


Dear Sunilji,

Have you read the paper carefully? How do you explain the word schApita,
which occurs twice, in two verses that refer to Ramanuja and Madhva? It
could be emended to sthApita, but that only means that we should be very
careful in interpreting these things. There are obviously editorial issues
with either the manuscript or with Pathak's reading of it.

The mss that Pathak reports talks of ONE Sankaracharya, who wrote
commentaries, who established maThas, who was the disciple of govindapAda
and grand disciple of gauDapAda, and who was born in the year 788 (nidhi
nAga ibha vahni abda of Kaliyuga). There is no reference whatsoever to
Chidambaram. There is no reference to a theory that there were five
reincarnations of Sankaracharya or even just to Nava Sankara In the verses
quoted in the paper.

Further, Pathak refers to Anandagiri, not to anantAnandagiri. Please read
his paper again. Carefully. It is amusing that you accuse me of taking the
two to be the same. When you look at the published literature on the
Sankaravijaya texts, my paper is perhaps the only one which vociferously
argues against making such an equation.

Finally, Pathak is concerned with the date of Adi Sankaracharya, nobody
else, as is evident from his introductory paragraph. Those whom he quotes
as assigning dates ranging from the 7th to 9th centuries were also
concerned only with Adi Sankara. You cannot project your own opinions about
Adi vs Nava Sankaracharya-s, backwards in time, on to writers who lived
more than a century ago.

Vidyasankar


On Jan 9, 2017 8:11 PM, "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
wrote:

Dear Vidyashankarji,

ShankarAcharyanavAvatara means  the new avatara of Shankaracharya. It is
according to shashthi tatpurusha samasa. You can ask anybody who knows
Sanskrit. This is not as you interpret. There is no alankara needed for
Shankara, but only the differentiation that this Nava Shankara was a later
Shankara regarded as an avatara of Adi Shankara, as he was as versatile as
Adi Shankara,  .

Secondly, I was talkng of Anantanandagiri and not Anandagiri. You took
Anantanandagiri to be the same as Anandagiri

No entreaties please.  Pathak was concerned with the date of this Nava
shankara and he quoted what he thought served that purpose. He omitted most
of the paper. That does not mean thaton onecan look up whether there was
any Nava Shankara or not, and if there was any, where he was born etc.

Regards,
Sunil KB



--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 1/9/17, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of Adi Shankara
 To: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
 Cc: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
vedanta.org>, "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>, "V Subrahmanian" <
v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
 Date: Monday, January 9, 2017, 3:51 PM

 Dear
 Sunilji,
 Pathak's paper
 says he has seen a manuscript from a private collection. He
 quotes a verse that describes Sri Sankaracharya as a
 nava-avatAra. Of whom? Obviously, Siva. For, the adjacent
 verse says, Adau Sivas, tato vishNuH etc. The sense is that
 Siva was the first guru and that Sankaracharya is his new
 avatAra in the Kali age. There is NOTHING there about Adi vs
 Nava Sankara, NOTHINGabout birth in Chidambaram,
 NOTHING about one person being the author of commentaries
 and another being the founder of maThas, etc etc. As for
 Pathak's reference to Anandagiri, I have no idea which
 text me is really quoting from here.
 Please, I entreat you, please learn
 to read journal papers and original quotations as per their
 original contexts. Please resist the temptation to force fit
 your own contexts and interpretations to the bare facts. I
 don't know what else to tell you. We have been over
 these same details at least five or six or times in the
 past!
 Vidyasankar
 On Jan 9, 2017 1:55 PM,
 "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
 wrote:
 Dear
 Vidyasankarji,



 The paper of Pathak, which I read, clearly mentions
 "Nava Shankara" and not Adi Shankara. Can you
 please send me the paper of Pathak, which  you claim to
 have read ?

  person  as the "Anandagiri". If you think they
 are the same person. Ccan you please let me know the source
 of your information?



 Regards,

 Sunil KB



 ------------------------------ --------------

 On Sun, 1/8/17, Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
 > wrote:



  Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of Adi
 Shankara

  To: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
 >, "Vidyasankar Sundaresan" <svidyasankar at gmail.com>

  Cc: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
 <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
 vedanta.org>, advaitin at yahoogroups.com,
 "V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>,
 "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>

  Date: Sunday, January 8, 2017, 11:14 AM



  Dear Vidyasanarji,



  Can you please attach the paper of Pathak?



  Regards,

  Sunil KB

  ------------------------------ --------------

  On Sun, 1/8/17, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at gmail.com>

  wrote:



   Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of
 Adi

  Shankara

   To: "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
 >

   Cc: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
 <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
 vedanta.org>,

  advaitin at yahoogroups.com,

  "V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>,

  "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>

   Date: Sunday, January 8, 2017, 1:11 AM







   On Jan 6, 2017 11:03 PM, "Sunil Bhattacharjya via

   Advaita-l" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-

   vedanta.org> wrote:



   >



   > Dear Subbuji,



   >



   > I think Sri  Nava Shankara was indeed a great

  scholar

   and if I remember correctly the manuscript, which
 Pathak

   found and on that basis he (Pathak) wrote a paper,
 Nava

   (Abhinava) Shankara was born  in 788 CE in
 Chidambaram.

   This Nava Shankara is reported to have also written
 many

   texts including bhashyas and had gone to Kashmoir as
 well

  as

   to Kailash.



   >

   Dear Sunilji,

   I have read Pathak's paper in the Indian

   Antiquary. It says nothing about Nava Shankara or
 about

   Chidambaram. The paper attributes the date 788 CE to
 Adi

   Shankara and nobody else. You cannot cite Pathak in

  support

   of this fanciful theory of an 8th century Nava
 Shankara.



   >



   There might have some confusion in the past as the name
 of

   both Adi Shankara and the Nava Shankara was Shankara.
 It

   appears that Anantaanandagiri  had written a biography
 of

   Nava Shanaka.  Antarkar had done some work on the

   shankaravijayas  as part of his PhD work but did not

   continue that work to sort out all confusions



   >

   Sorry, anantAnandagiri also says nothing about

   Nava Shankara. His text claims to be an account only
 of

  Adi

   Shankara. However, it is an extremely problematic
 text.

   At the risk of sounding like I'm doing

   self-promotion, please note that I have published an

   extensive paper in the year 2000, published in The

   International Journal of Hindu Studies, examining

   Antarkar's papers as well as many of the original

   Sankaravijaya texts. I have sent this by email to you
 as

   well. I am only mentioning this here so that others

   following this thread are aware of it. I

   too hope that further research is taken up on these
 texts,

   but I hope that whoever does it adopts sound research

   methodology and works towards clarifying matters
 rather

  than

   confusing them even further. Regards, Vidyasankar

   > May be there is scope for more research

   and hope some university or some organization will
 sponsor

   PhD level research in this area.



   >



   > Regards,



   > Sunil KB



   > ------------------------------ --------------



   > On Fri, 1/6/17, V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l
 <advaita-l at lists.advaita-

   vedanta.org> wrote:



   >



   >  Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas
 of

   Adi Shankara



   >  To: "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>,

   "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
 <advaita-l at lists.advaita-

   vedanta.org>



   >  Date: Friday, January 6, 2017, 1:39 AM



   >



   >  On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at



   >  1:56 PM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <



   >  advaita-l at lists.advaita-

   vedanta.org>



   >  wrote:



   >



   >  > Namaste Sri



   >  Vidyasankar,



   >  > The number of the works



   >  that are called bhAshya in the mAdhavIya
 Sankara



   >  > vijaya (I sent the references earlier)



   >  when read in conjunction with the



   >  >



   >  DiNDima appear to be 16 in number. The next
 verse

  in

   the



   >  Sankara vijaya



   >  > says that Adi Sankara



   >  wrote innumerable granthAs such as upadeSa
 sAhasri,



   >  > so these are apparently classified in a



   >  different category compared to



   >  >



   >  bhAShyas.



   >  >



   >



   >  There is also a text called



   >  'hastāmalaka-bhāṣyam' which is
 admitted

   in



   >  the



   >  tradition to be a commentary penned by



   >  Shankara on the verses given out by



   >  the



   >  disciple Hastamalaka. This text is also
 published

  by

   the



   >  Vani Vilas



   >  Press, Srirangam.



   >



   >  regards



   >  vs



   >



   >



   >



   >  >



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