[Advaita-l] Shanmatha Sthapanam by Adhisankaracharya

[Sangeerth P]

Namaskaram

I was going through a book *Shankararum Vainavamum *(link
<https://archive.org/details/sava-pki-ao>). This book is in Tamil by Puttur
Krishnaswamy Iyengar swamy. There is a kandana given to this book by
*Subramanian
sir* in this
<https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/sankararum-vai%E1%B9%87avamum-%E0%AE%93%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D-%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9A%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D/>
link.
To Make the long story short, I am very new to Shankaracharya and I am
eager to know about it. Kindly forgive me if the following questions look
silly or wrong. I am seriously curious to know the answers. The following
questions revolve mostly in and around who is the Saguna Brahman that
Adhisankaraya is telling?

1. Can you please give me references* only *from* Prastanatraya bashya* of
Adishankaracharya where he talks about *"him as Shanmatha stapakacharya"* and
*"Siva-Vishnu Abedha". *Dont take references from any other grantas(as
there are debates if the other grantas are written only by him or by his
successors.)

2. If *Adisankaracharya* has even done the Shanmatha stapana why was *Surya
*put into the list and not *Indra.* As in my limited knowledge, *Indra *is
the head of all Devas. How to understand Surya as the supreme one if he is
afraid of someone else (Beeshasma vatapavate ...)?

3. In the book by *Iyengar Swamy* he even mentions Gita Bhasya of
Sankaracharya(slokas 9-24,7-23) where Sankara tells that only by
worshipping Krishna one can attain him. Even if one can argue that he is
referring to the Supreme Brahman or some extrapolations like this. But why
do you need to extrapolate or use certain grammatical gymnastics when the
meaning is clearly evident that he refers to him? What is the necessity to
extrapolate if Ramanuja/Madhva have taken the direct meaning of Krishna(or
Vishnu) only for this sloka?

4. As per one *Panini* sutra we can tell that Nara+Ayana=Naraayana, can
indicate only one person then how can one understand that Adishankara is
Shanmata stapanaacharya where he gives equal status for all the 6 gods as
Saguna Brahman. Then how can he be a Shanmatha stapanacharya? Whenever he
talks about *padam *he uses the term Vaishnava padam(eg:BG-15-4). Inspite
of having several other synonymous words for Vyapti, why was Shankara using
terms like Vishnu padam etc (which are Vaishnavaitic), even if you want to
tell that vyapti is being talked about by vaishnava padam.

*If you are having some references to cite from Adhishankara kindly cite
only from Prastanatraya bashyas of his work* and not even from any other
grantas of Adisankaracharya as there is a lot of debates on if the other
grantas are even written by him or the successors after him(not even
from *Vishnu
sahasranama Bashya* which Puttur swami has used)



Regards
Sangeerth P
8608658009