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

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Dear Praveen ji,

Yes, I deliberately didn't offer a samaasa vigraha there, because I think
that should all come only after the manuscript reading is well established.
Pathak's paper says the manuscript as written in balbodh characters. This
script is not very old in origin, but it is obvious to me that there are
typographical mistakes either in the original manuscript or in Pathak's
reading of it.

I had already pointed to the occurrence of the word schApita, which should
perhaps be sthApita. The verse listing Sankaracharya's educational
accomplishments at ages 8 and 12 also seems to be ill constructed.
caturvedAn? sarvaSAstrakRt? It seems to me that the verse would convey a
better sense if it were to read ashTavarshe caturvedI dvAdaSe
sarvaSAstravit. Anyway, without access to the original manuscript, I
wouldn't offer these suggested emendations with any great force. Likewise,
I also hesitate to offer interpretations of samaasa as well.

Best regards,
Vidyasankar




On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 6:01 AM, Sunil Bhattacharjya
sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com [advaitin] <advaitin at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>
> 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.
>
First and foremost, although Vidyasankarji himself knows Sanskrit *very
well*, I assume he chose not to respond to this part. Anyone who knows
Sanskrit will also say that shashThi tatpuruSha samAsa is only one
grammatical possibility here. In any tatpuruSha samAsas, shaShThi is almost
always possible. However, this is a karmadhAraya samAsa, shankarAchAryash
cha asau avatArash cha where shankarAchArya =navAvatAra, wherein navAvatAra
is also a karmadhAraya. Moreover, I have said this quite a few times
earlier, but since you repeat the same ideas, I too am forced to do this;
at least for the benefit of others, especially in this context of samAsa
interpretation. There was no and there can never be Shankaracharya's
avatAra; He Himself was an avatAra of Shiva. This was explained earlier as
Rama and Krishna were both avatAra-s of Vishnu. It would be technically
incorrect to say that Krishna was avatAra of Rama. Similarly, there can
only be an avatAra of Shiva, not of Shankaracharya. Ergo, whosoever
composed the words shankarAchAryanavAvatAra could not have meant shaShThi
tatpurusha but necessarily karmadhAraya. For shaShThi to be even possible,
it would have had to be shivanavAvatAra or shankaranavAvatAra! I hope that
this is *yet another reason*, at least for others to see, why the word
doesn't mean anyone but Adi Shankaracharya.

> 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.
>
The alaMkAra is not for Shankara =Shiva, but Shankara =Shankaracharya.

gurupAdukAbhyAm,
--Praveen R. Bhat
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