[Advaita-l] Shanmatha Sthapanam by Adhisankaracharya

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

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?

>  saguNa brahman is sOpAdhika upAsya brahman as enshrined in shAstra says shankara in sUtra bhAshya.  

1. Can you please give me references* only *from* Prastanatraya bashya* of Adishankaracharya where he talks about *"him as Shanmatha stapakacharya"* 

>  AFAIK there no explicit  reference to this in his PTB.  

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.)

>  'abedha' is there as the Chaitanya behind the bedha is ONE.  


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 ...)?

>  atharvaNi sUryOpanishat (veda) says sUrya is sAkshAt parabrahma.  And the same upanishat also says the chaitany that pervades Aditya is ONE.  And for that matter Indra is brahma, parabrahma Chaitanya tattva addressed as indra in the Upanishad itself.  

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?

>  It is because upAdhi vishishTa Chaitanya is upAsya brahma and jneya brahma is sarvOpAdhi rahita.  

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.

>  Likewise he often gives example of vishNu sAligrAma in upAsana sAdhana but not about linga, but that does not prove he was vaishNava para 😊 

*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)

>  I reckon geeta bhAshya is enough to understand bhagavatpAda's theistic approach in Advaita sAdhana.  BTW, PTB is for doing the brahma jignAsa in jnAna mArga with IshwarAnugraha and AcharyOpadesha.  sAdhaka-s in Advaita jnAna mArga have hardly any qualms about upAdhi bedha in saguNa brahmOpAsana.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar