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

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Indeed, Sunilji. A researcher should examine alternate hypotheses and use
lateral thinking. One of those alternatives for an impartial researcher is
to consider seriously that the entire question of raising doubts about the
authorship of gItAbhAshya by Sankara bhagavatpAda is quite baseless!

And another application of lateral thinking would be to decide not to over
complicate the problem. Intricately coupling the authorship question with
the date question and with the Sankaravijaya question and with the Matha
question and the subsequent lineages question only results in greater and
greater confusion. Yes, these are related problems and cannot be made
completely separate problems address, but a researcher will tie himself up
in knots if he ties these various questions into complicated knots. He can
get better clarity by not clustering them all together and by proceeding in
a methodical manner.

Best regards,
Vidyasankar

On Jan 10, 2017 4:00 PM, "Sunil Bhattacharjya" <
sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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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