[Advaita-l] Fwd: Panchapadika and Prapanchasara-vivaranam of Bhagavan Padmapadacharya

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms 
Hare Krishna

While there is absolutely no doubt that for us, the advaitins, shankara bhagavatpAda is 'avatAra purusha'.  But some of the prakaraNa-s in his name is still suspicious even among traditional advaita scholars.  And the work prapanchasAra is one of those works.  Prof. SKR, then the head of kalpataru saMshOdhana Kendra at Sringeri Bangalore mutt was of the opinion that this work is purely tAntrik based work and the authorship of this work is doubted and can be debated like in lalita trishati bhAshya (though it has been commented by Kanchi paramaachaarya). And this has been justified based on shankara's commentary on geeta 9-25 and 17-4 where bhAshyakAra rejected tAntrik approach and the worship of vinAyaka, saptamAtruka-s and so on as tAmasi!! prapanchasAra in particular he says antagonistic to the spirit of vedAnta.  And it has not been taken as seriously as PTB in the traditional circle for the vyAkhyAna-s on bhAshya and most of the time ignored.  And he continues to observe that the authorship of the gloss on prapanchasAra by padmapAda is as doubtful as the authorship of the original work.  Though I donot have any personal conclusions on these issues I just thought of sharing these standing arguments against popular belief with regard to authorship of prapanchasAra and vivaraNa on it by  panchapAdika author is still existing without any credible conclusions.  As a matter of fact the authorship of paNchapAdika (commentary on vedAnta sUtra bhAshya) itself not conclusively proved that it is indeed the work by padmapaada, the direct disciple of PTB bhAshyakaara according to some including Sri SSS.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
Bhaskar YR