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

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear Vidyasankarji,

Thank you for the mail, and supporting the importance of lateral thinking. in any investigation.ha 

Knowing the problem is half the solution, so the saying goes. It seems most of the people who shows concern for the date of Adi Shankara, have not really tried to look for the problem areas, some of which are created by some spokesman from the matha itself, at different times in the past. Most of the people want to have a status-quo and dump the issues under the carpet. That is against the ancient Indian ethos. Lord Ram says in the Ramayana about the importance of truth very clearly, He means that one has to care for the truth and that does imply that untruths should not be nourished.

Advaitins may think of the Vyavaharika as being of lesser importance than the Paramarthika, but the vyavaharika world is the karma-bhoomi, available to us for trying to live life like the past mahajanas lived. In science we know that only theoretical knowledge without practical is incomplete so also the advaitic knowledhge without practising that in karma, is not complete. This is despite the saying we do not believe in jnana-karma samucchaya. Hope you will agree. So let us take that our efforts should  be not to nourish what is doubtful and look for the truth.  

Regards,
Sunil

--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 1/10/17, 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>
 Date: Tuesday, January 10, 2017, 7:11 PM
 
 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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