[Advaita-l] Adi Shankara was a Vaishnava from Vyaavahaarika Dasha

[V Subrahmanian]

On Sat, 6 Aug 2022, 1:34 pm Kaushik Chevendra via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> There will also arise another problem for shri  vaishnavas calling
> shankaracharya a vaishnava. Their founder shri ramanujacharya has called
> advaitins as people "lacking samskaras" and "prachanna-baudhas". Vedanta
> deshika says advaitins are people who can't appreciate the form of the lord
> and any person with intellect should stay away from advaitins.
> If such being the case how can such a person be called a vaishnava?
> So any such statments by shri vaishnavas can be disregarded
>


List given by Vedantadeshika as follows in his Tatparya Chandirka for the
Bhagavadgita bhashya of Ramanuja, for the shloka Bh/Gita 18.66:
http://apps.vedavaapi.org/ihg/tree_1/brwhtm/gitatatparyachandrika/Adhyaya18.txt
: पिशाच-रन्तिदेव-गुप्त-*शङ्कर*
यादवप्रकाश-भास्कर-नारायणार्य-यज्ञस्वामि-प्रभृतिभि: स्वं स्वं मतमास्थितै:
प्रशस्तै: भाष्यकृद्भि: अस्मत् सिद्धान्त तीर्थकरैश्च
भगवद्यामुनाचार्यभाष्यकारादिभिरविगीतपरिगृहीतोयमत्र सारार्थ: भगवानेव परं
तत्त्वं अनन्यशरणैर्यथाधिकारं तदेकाश्रयणं परमधर्म: इति|

Vedanta Desika says that Shankaracharya was one among many commentators of
the Bhagavad Gita who held Bhagawan to be the supreme reality and that he
should be resorted to with one pointed devotion.

To say that such an Acharya was a pracchanna Bauddha is a contradiction.
Also to be noted is that Ramanuja never acknowledged Shankara as a
Vaishnava, nor did Madhwa. They had extremely strong words of indictment
for Shankaracharya.

regards
subbu


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