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

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Dear Sri Chandramouli,

This and many other similar stories are there, but cannot be given any
historical credence. And I'm sorry to say, nor do they have much
traditional value. The various Sankaravijayas were composed in the time
period between 1350 and 1850 CE. Commentaries on the major such texts, like
DiNDImA and advaitarAjyalakshmI on the mAdhavIya, were written around the
turn of the 19th century. There is no hint about this legend in any of such
texts.

When we want to make historical conclusions out of numerous such legends,
we need to have some self-consistent way of evaluating what is pramANa and
what is not. Otherwise, we will be left with lots of internal
contradictions and inconsistencies. I'll leave it at that!

Best regards,
Vidyasankar

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 7:59 AM, H S Chandramouli <hschandramouli at gmail.com>
wrote:

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> Sri Vidyasankar Ji, Sri Sunil Ji, and Sri Venkatraghavan Ji,
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> Nama.ste.
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> I was just reading a kannada book “Guruvilasa Tarangini (Karnataka Srimad
> Shankara Vijaya) “ by Sri Shesha Sharma, and came across the following
> story concerning Abhinava Shankara. I thought it may be of interest and
> hence reproduced the same here.  Translation from kannada is mine.
>
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> Quote  << Some persons have comeout with several texts  portraying the
> thirty third pontiff of Sri Kamakoti Peetham Sri Abhinava Shankara as Adi
> Shankara himself. This Abhinava Shankara was born in Chidambaram to Sri
> Viswajit and Srimathi Vishishtha. Since the father passed away while the
> child was still in the womb, the mother was frightened and did not give
> birth to the child in the normal course but protected the same for almost
> three years and thereafter gave birth in the year 3896 after the start of
> Kaliyuga, Vibhava Samvatsara Vaishakha Shudha Dashami and left the child in
> a forest. It was found there and  broughtup  by Sage Vyaghrapada who was
> on one of his travels, who duly performed the Upanayanam ceremony also in
> its fifth year. In due course Sri Bhagavatpada ( Adi Shankara ) along with
> Sri Padmapadacharya gave darshan to the child ( the word mentioned in
> kannada is vivikta darshana, I am mentioning it here since I did not
> understand its significance properly and could not translate it accurately)
> and gave the child his pAdukas. The child continued in Chidambaram doing
> pUjas to the pAdukAs where it came to the notice of the Pontiff of Kamakoti
> Peetham Swami Vidyadhana the Third who then gave him sanyasa diksha with
> the yOga patta of Abhinava Shankara and made him his successor. This
> Abhinava Shankara also became very famous like Sri Bhagavatpada (Adi
> Shankara). >> Unquote.
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> Thought could be of some interest.
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> Regards
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