Re; Vidyaranya

[Guest guest]

Mani writes

 

*** Sumanth, it seems you are arguing for the sake of

*** arguing in this post. Vidyasankar has presented rather

*** substantial evidence that Vidyaranya the mathadhipati

*** of Sringeri Matha could not have been a mere court

*** official of the Vijayanagara empire. Adumbrations

*** about Vasishta and others aside, the practice of

*** sannyasis during this time period was to live by

*** themselves or in a matham, certainly not to actively

*** involve themselves in the day to day administration of a

*** kingdom.

 

I am sorry you thik I am arguing for the sake of argument.

But you are enttitled to your opinion. I remain unconvinced at

the "weight of evidence."

 

You dismiss Kanchi acharya's views quite easily. I am far more

charitable.

 

Additionally, your argument that muttadhipathis are confined exclusively

to the Mutts is needless and unsubstantiated. I have my own doubts

about this. There are far too many "stories" I have heard about

Muttadipatis of various denominations to be believe this. But there is

not need to go into this wanton speculation here.

 

There is nothing to have prevented the Vijayanagara kinds from

referring and even bestowing the title of Minister to Vidyaranya,

without expecting much inthe form of routine Ministerial duties.

However, it is quitte possible that Vidyaranaya spent substantial time

away from the Mutt. There is absolutely no reason (at least I am not

convinced my any evidence prsented so far) to believe that he did not

spend tubstantial portionof his time away from the Mutt.

 

*** At any rate, Vidyasankar is surmising that Madhava

*** (the author of the Sankara Vijayam) is different from

*** Vidyaranya the sannyasi.

 

I don't think this was the issue. This is a different subject and to

be debated by you and others more interested in a different forum.

 

*** With no disrespect to Kanchi Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati

*** intended, I would put a great deal more faith in the Sringeri

*** Matha historical tradition based upon their own historical

*** records than the oral tradition of a rival mutt.

 

I prefer to be more charitable. The tone of the discourse, as I saw it

was quite charitable to Vidyaranya. I saw no deep politics.

 

In any case, there appears not much to be gained by further discussion

on this matter. Your original e-mail prsented this as a fact that all

modern and traditional scholars agree upn. I don't see it that way

given that Kanchi acharya himself saw it different. I see yours (and

Vidyasankar's) opinion as an alternate theory.

 

Let's leave this discussion at this. It is clear that you and I will

not agree on the "incontrovertibility" of the data presented.

 

sk

[Guest guest]

I see that this issue has built itself up on a lot of misunderstandings.

 

Let me clarify this the following way:

 

1. Was Vidyaranya involved in the foundation of the Vijaynagar empire? Yes.

 

2. In what capacity - guru or minister? Guru.

 

3. Is there a distinction between "guru" and "minister"? My opinion - yes.

 

4. Were Vidyaranya and Vedanta Desika contemporaries? Yes.

 

5. Were they friends? Can't say one way or the other.

 

6. Did Vidyaranya ask Vedanta Desika to go to Vijaynagar? SrIvaishNava tradition

says so.

 

I trust these are the only questions that the majority of the members of this

list are bothered about. There are other details -

 

7. Was Vidyaranya's original name Madhava? Advaita tradition says so.

 

8. Was this Madhava the brother of Sayana who wrote the Veda bhAshyas? Advaita t

radition is ambivalent. On the one hand, works of Madhava, the brother of

Sayana are frequently attributed to Vidyaranya in many sources. On the other

hand, Vidyaranya and Bharati Tirtha are also said to have directed Sayana

and Madhava to write expository works, including the Veda Bhashyas and the

dharmasastra text pArASara-mAdhavIyam. To further complicate matters, the same

advaita works are attributed to both Bharati Tirtha and Vidyaranya, and some

are said to be joint compositions of the two. Example - pancadaSI, which is

ascribed to Bharati Tirtha in some manuscripts and Vidyaranya in others, and

jIvanmuktiviveka, which is almost always said to be a joint composition.

Also, sometimes Vidyaranya is said to have written the Vedabhashyas, although

all manuscripts, including the ones preserved at Sringeri, reputedly the

original one, credit Sayana with their composition. This is usually explained

within advaita circles as referring to the fact that the Vedabhashyas were

written under the guidance of Vidyaranya, by Sayana and Madhava. This

explanation, of course means that Madhava, brother of Sayana, is different

from Vidyaranya, the sannyasi.

 

9. Was Madhava, brother of Sayana, also the same as Madhava, the author of the

Sankara-digvijayam? Advaita tradition has become sharply divided on this

question in recent times. Two commentaries to this digvijayam exist, both of

which say that this is a work of Madhava, disciple of Vidyatirtha. They are

silent about whether Madhava, author of the digvijayam, is also the brother

of Sayana and/or identical to Vidyaranya, the Mathadhipati. As for the mathas

themselves, Sringeri says Madhava, author of Sankara-digvijaya may be the

same as Vidyaranya, but they don't say it with 100% certainty. Then of course,

this Madhava becomes different from Madhava, brother of Sayana, to square off

with the explanation given to the previous question. Kanchi, on the other hand,

refuses to accept that the mAdhavIya Sankara-digvijayam even dates from the

14th century. According to them, this work was written by somebody partisan

to the Sringeri math, as late as the 18th century. Swami Tapasyananda touches

on this controversy in his footnotes, except that he refers to the Kanchi math

as the Kumbhakonam Math. It is well-known that the headquarters of this matham

were shifted to Kanchipuram from Kumbhakonam, only in the beginning of this

century. The maths at Puri, Dwaraka and Badrinath accept the Sringeri tradition.

 

That is all there is to it. Clearing out the various confusions in the

traditional accounts does not require either the SrIvaishNavas or the smArtas

to give up part of their own traditions regarding the lives of their AcAryas.

Vedanta Desikar's saintliness is well-known and attested to, even by the

smArtas. The only exception that I made in this connection was that it

was improbable that Vidyaranya was a minister or a court official at the

Vijayanagar court, for reasons of conflict with other more reliable evidence

in the form of early Vijayanagara inscriptions. A quite authoritative history

of the Vijayanagar empire has been written by K. A. Nilakanta Sastry. Quite

simply, the dates arrived at, after much archeological and numismatic research

do not tally with the assumption that Vidyaranya took sannyasa in 1380.

 

As for maThAdhipatis being away from their maThas for long periods of time,

it is not uncommon. They are supposed to be sannyasis with no permanent home,

so they keep travelling in their neighbourhoods, returning to headquarters

only to maintain continuity in the pAThaSAlas they run. Vidyaranya is supposed

to have been in Varanasi, when Bharati Tirtha passed away, and Harihara I

sent an emissary to inform him of the news, and request him to come back to

the south to take charge of the matha's activities. All this does not

say anything one way or the other, about whether Vidyaranya, the sannyasi, was

a minister at the Vijaynagar court or not. It does not seem consistent to

me. I don't think it is a title to be called a "minister" or even "chief

minister", when Vidyaranya was already saluted as the "pratishThApanAcArya".

Just think about it.

 

Regards,

 

S. Vidyasankar