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

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear Venkatraghavanji,

You took objection to my examining the authorship of Abhinava Shanaka, when my examination of the Authorship of Sri Vidyashankara was not found suitable. A researcher does not given up if one possibility falis, he tries the other possibilities. The researchers have the habit of lateral thinking in search of truths. 

Anyway, you seem to argue well and congrats. May be you should take up in earnest.  solving the muddle concerning the date Adi Shankara. 

Regards,
Sunil KB
--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 1/10/17, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] [advaitin] The Bhashyas of Adi Shankara
 To: "Vidyasankar Sundaresan" <svidyasankar at gmail.com>
 Cc: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
 Date: Tuesday, January 10, 2017, 6:44 AM
 
 Namaste Sri
 Vidyasankar,
 
 I agree, we
 need not get caught up with the number 16. It was merely
 an
 interesting coincidence - to the extent
 that what Sri Sunil said about the
 bRhat
 Shankara vijayam is verifiable and true, this would be
 evidence from
 another Sankara vijayam that
 corroborates it.
 
 I
 certainly don't agree with the view that Adi Sankara did
 not write the
 gIta bhAShya - the attempts
 thus far in this thread to prove otherwise, by
 attributing it to various other personalities
 have been a bit bizarre.
 
 Sri Sunil first brought up VidyAsankara as an
 author of the gIta bhAShya.
 However, when it
 was pointed that Bhaskara quotes Sankara bhAshya and
 therefore VidyASankara cannot be the author,
 that theory was abandoned. The
 new theory
 was to say that Abhinava Sanakara wrote it. When the need
 to
 postulate a new author in the first place
 was raised, Karmarkar's paper was
 quoted
 to question the authorship of the bhAshya. However, when
 the
 contents of it were refuted, we did not
 get any substantive response to
 those
 arguments. Instead it was argued that Pathak wrote a paper
 alleging
 the birth of Abhinava Sankara in
 788 AD. However when it was pointed that
 Pathak said no such thing in the paper that was
 cited, the argument changed
 to the
 manuscript pointing to a nava Sankara instead. Now that has
 been
 refuted too. In the interim there was a
 brief, pretty arbitrary segue into
 an
 allocation of bhAShyas to Sankara based on the number 16
 from
 chitsukhA's Sankara vijayam. I
 truly wonder where this will end.
 
 Regards,
 Venkatraghavan
 
 
 On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at
 12:33 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <
 svidyasankar at gmail.com>
 wrote:
 
 > Dear Sri
 Venkataraghavan,
 >
 > A
 late response to your note about the number 16. Yes, if we
 go by the
 > description in the DiNDimA,
 we can add up to that number. However, there is
 > no textual source or oral tradition that
 says only 16 commentaries were
 > written
 by Sankara bhagavatpAda. I was wondering if Sri Bhattacharya
 had
 > some textual source in mind when he
 said that he had heard Sankaracharya
 >
 had composed 16 bhAshyas. It turns out that he is pointing
 to a
 > bRhacchankaravijaya, a text that
 nobody seems to have ever seen. (That can
 > be an entirely independent topic of
 discussion, by the way.)
 >
 > The DiNDimA commentary on the mAdhavIya
 was written in the year 1798. Just
 >
 about a century later, we have the printed collection from
 Vani vilas
 > press. The founder of that
 publishing house and general editor,
 >
 Balasubrahmanya Iyer, took great care in ensuring that the
 texts he
 > published were traditionally
 handed down and accepted by the Sankaracharya
 > of his time. We see other commentaries
 included in that collection, so in
 > my
 opinion, we should not get too hung up over the number 16.
 Furthermore,
 > I really look askance at
 Sri Bhattacharya's attempt to remove the
 > gitAbhAshya from that list, searching for
 other texts instead, to somehow
 > make up
 16 commentaries, one way or the other. Combined with
 fanciful
 > assumptions about a mythical
 nava Sankara and the historical vidyA Sankara,
 > uncertain dates, unavailable texts,
 speculative jumping to conclusions, it
 >
 all results in massive confusion, wouldn't you say?
 >
 > Best regards,
 > Vidyasankar
 >
 > On Jan 6, 2017 4:51 AM,
 "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com>
 wrote:
 >
 >> Namaste
 Subbuji,
 >>
 >>
 Agreed. I was pointing this out not to suggest that Adi
 Sankara only
 >> wrote 16 bhASyas, but
 in response to Sri Vidyasankar's question for a
 >> source for the number 16.
 >>
 >> Until Sri
 Sunil mentioned it in this thread, I wasn't aware of
 tradition
 >> attributing 16 bhASyas to
 Shankara, but the proposition appears to have
 >> some merit.
 >>
 >> Regards,
 >> Venkatraghavan
 >>
 >> On 6 Jan 2017
 9:39 a.m., "V Subrahmanian" <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
 >> wrote:
 >>
 >>>
 >>>
 >>> 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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