lakshmi-nrsimha-karAvalamba-stOtram-22

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Dear bhAgavatOttamA-s,

 

Verse#8 of the LNKS … and the poetic metaphor of "samsAra-vruksha" in it…

can be understood better if we take a fleeting glimpse into the biography of

Sankara bhagavathpAdA.

 

Sankara, by all accounts lived at a time of great social, political, moral

and ideological decay. For over 5-6 centuries before his birth, across the

length and breadth of the Indian sub-continent, Buddhism had gained

ascendancy over the Vedic ethos of the people. Although in the rural areas

the mass of ordinary people still clung to the vestiges of Vedic tradition

and life-style, the influential middle and upper classes of Indian urban

society had all been weaned away into un-Vedic modes of life and thought.

Mainstream intelligentsia of Indian society had embraced un-Vedic ideas

bordering on unabashed epicureanism on the one hand or had been drawn to the

pretentious claptrap of neo-"nirvAnA-ism" on the other. Sankara certainly

had a very difficult time rejuvenating the old fire of the Vedic spirit in

India enveloped as it was then in the dark and suffocating smog of a

multitude of non-Vedic, alien ideologies.

 

In Sankara's time there were broadly two classes of Vedic antagonists … one,

the "Anti-Vedantins" and the other, the "Pseudo-Vedantins".

 

The anti-Vedantins held Vedic revelation of Truth to be outright execrable.

They simply rejected the "sruti" as "pramANam". To this group belonged both

proto- and neo-Buddhists of those times. Also included in this group were

certain adventitious offshoots of Buddhist thought … viz. Jainism, atheists,

agnostics, materialism, "chAruvakA-s" and a few others on the extreme,

sometimes lunatic, fringe of Indian religious and philosophic thought.

 

The pseudo-Vedantins were stout adherents of Vedic "pramANa" but for all the

utterly wrong and most perverted of reasons. They were called

"pUrva-meemAmsakA-s" against whom Sankara waged a life-long running feud as

bitter as those he is said to have had with the more pernicious

anti-Vedantins like the "chAruvAkA-s", for example.

 

The "chAruvAkA-s" or anti-Vedantins, Sankara considered them to be "open

enemies" of the Vedic society. They could be dealt with "openly" as

adversaries in an all-out ideological war.

 

But the "psedo-Vedantins" or "purva-meemamsakA-s", Sankara considered them

to be more dangerous than "anti-Vedantins" for they were "internal enemies"…

"Vedic saboteurs and guerrilla-artists"… He regarded them as "the secret

enemy " who kills softly and silently but no less surely than the "open

enemy". He regarded them as parasitic vermin gnawing away into the wood and

entrails of the very tree on which they lived and fed upon… and who would

eventually destroy the great Vedic Tree too from within society.

 

We will continue in the next post.

 

adiyen dAsAnu-dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

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Sri Sudarshan wrote:

> Dear bhAgavatOttamA-s,

>

> Verse#8 of the LNKS and the poetic metaphor of "samsAra-vruksha" in it

> can be understood better if we take a fleeting glimpse into the biography of

> Sankara bhagavathpAdA.

 

I realize this was a "fleeting" glimpse, and Sankara's biography

is indeed interesting, but this post tends to praise Sankara as

a revitalizer of *the* Vedic faith. At least according to

Yamuna, Ramanuja and successive Sri Vaishnava acharyas, Sankara's

philosophy did not revitalize the original and proper interpretation

of the Vedanta. In fact, Sankara's Advaita itself was seen as

an "attack from within" (to quote Sri Sudarsan) by other Vedantins,

striking at the very heart of the teaching of the Upanishads.

 

Perhaps it is better that on this List, dedicated as it is to

Sri Vaishnava topics, that we stick to discussing Sankara's praise

of the Lord, rather than a praise of Sankara himself?

 

Mani