Authorship of Viveka chudamani!

April 11, 2004

Namaste Shri Stig-ji,

I am somewhat ashamed to say that the life I lead is less

traditionally Hindu than yours!

BTW, I am happy to learn of your interest in History. Historiography

is a subject that has interested me immensely in recent years. Maybe

we can discuss (on this list sometime) about how history would appear

if constructed from an Advaitic metaphysic as the unfoldment of

Consciousness. Are you familiar with Eric Voegelin? Of course,

Voegelin is rooted to the Graeco-Judeo-Christian tradition, but his

philosophy of history is interesting (though not entirely agreeable).

Warm regards,

Chittaranjan

advaitin, "Stig Lundgren" <slu@b...> wrote:

> Namaste Sri Chittaranjan-ji,

> >

> > "I am sorry if I sound harsh, but I can't help it when I see

> that

> > modern scholarship itself is often harsh to truth."

> >

>

> I agree. There are certainly many weird things claimed by modern

> scholarship.

>

> By the way, I am afraid that some of you might consider me a

> typical Western scholar trying to put my knife into the heart of

> tradition. But I can assure you, nothing could be farther from

> truth. In fact, I have myself learnt Vedanta from strictly

> traditional exponents of Advaita Vedanta (both from books and

> from sampradayavits). I am regularly visiting the local Tamil

> temple here in Stockholm. I have undergone necessary initiations

> from traditional pundits and I perform sandhyavandanam and Shiva

> panchayatana puja daily. I try to the best of my ability to live

> my life in a traditional Hindu way. My guru in ritual matters is

> a pandit belonging to the Sringeri lineage (he was very close to

> the former Shankaracarya, H. H. Abhinava Vidyatirtha Swamigal).

>

> I do not say this in order to "show of" or anything. But I think

> the time has come to point out, that I am not any of those

> exclusively scholarly-minded people without love and respect for

> the Hindu tradition.

>

> Warmest regards

> Stig Lundgren (a.k.a. Shivashankar)

April 11, 2004

Hello Stig,

Your demonstration of the many issues surrounding the authorship of

V.C. is in the

rigourous spirit of Adi Sankara himself. Of course that doesn't depreciate

its value. As a

historian of ideas you will recall the case of Dionysius the Aeropagite, a

Greek convert of

St.Paul's, who wrote the influential 'Divine Names' and 'Mystical Theology'.

When later it was

shown to have been written by a Syrian monk in the 5th.century the author was

demoted to the

title of Psudo-Dionysius.

He initiated the idea of 'coincidentia oppositorum' which could without strain

be applied to the

line taken in the Isa Up. where conventional dyads as 'vidya' and 'avidya' are

paradoxically

united.

Best Wishes, Michael.

April 11, 2004

Vanakkam Stig -ji,

In your reply to one of my mails, you had addressed me with a vanakkam. Now I

understand wherefrom the vanakkam comes.

I very clearly remember your mail of two tears back on the subject. I also

remember Bhaskar Prabhuji's mail on the advaita - L list.It is mails such as

these (as also Swami Atmachaitanya's mails) that have made me observe a

self-imposed restraint on postings on the subject of Advaita in this or other

lists for I realised that I did not know what true Shankara Advaita was. So for

the past year or so, I am concentrating only on the Prasthana trayi and the

bhashyas of acharya on them. The only exception I make is reading the posts this

list and the advaita - L list. With my other preoccupations, completing the PT

is going to take a very long time. But that certainly should not matter.

I thought I should share all this with you just to tell you that your efforts

have not been vain.

And I have absolutely nothing against Viveka Chudamani for when I started on

this advaitic jouney 25 years back, Viveka Chudamani was the first book that I

read. I found and still find it's words lofty and poetry elevating.

namaskaram,

Venkat - M

Stig Lundgren <slu wrote:

I am regularly visiting the local Tamil

temple here in Stockholm. I have undergone necessary initiations from

traditional pundits and I perform sandhyavandanam and Shiva panchayatana puja

daily.

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April 11, 2004

Namaste Sri Shivasankar:

The list is blessed to have you as long-time member and your

credentials make you most qualified to be an advaitin and meet

almost all the qualifications for a seeker stated in Viveka

chudamani.

I believe that what we are witnessing are the outburst

of 'uncontrolled emotional reactions' to he message on your earlier

post regarding the authorship of viveka chudamani. The root cause of

all issues such as 'emotional outbursts,' 'authorship of

Vivekachoodamani' arise due to our 'IGNORANCE.'

Since the communication media from vedic times was 'oral' we can call

the vedic tradition as the 'oral tradition.' Consequently, the

historical documentation of authorship is less than perfect.

Consequently, the authorship of ancient texts became subject to

interpolation using all means of evidences gathered from various

sources. In addition, the same name, for example Sankara or Vyasa

may not necessarily represent the same person because scholars with

the same name existed at different points of time. This may partly

explain the ambiguities in the identification of authorship of a text

or the authencity of text itself. For example, some scholars claim,

the orginial Gita did not contain 700 verses and probably contained

much less than that number. Given these ambiguities, we have to rely

on the stand taken by esatblsihed Hindu Institutions on the

authorship of major works.

Now coming back to the authorship of Viveka Choodamani, let us

explore the possibilities:

(1) Sankaracharya was the author of text and text has been preserved

intact withour any change.

(2) Sankaracharya was the author of the original work but it was

published at a much later time with editorial changes that reflect a

different style. (For example, VedaVyasa was the first to assemble

all the Vedic Scholars with different background and to compile and

organize the Vedas.)

(3) A vedantic scholar at a much later time but well versed in the

works of Sankaracharya, collected and assembled the ideas and present

them as a treatise.

(4) A vedantic scholar at a much later time had independently written

his insights of Advaita Vedanta.

Given the above possibilites (or other potential possibilities), I

believe that it is impossible for anyone derive any definite

conclusion on the authorship of Viveka Choodamani. All that I can say

is that 'your explanation' comes from an honest enquiry and I don't

believe that you have asked everyone to accept it. As advaitins, we

should avoid getting 'emotional outbursts' as much as possible using

reasoning - the title of viveka choodamani demands us to do the same.

Sankaracharya's main emphasis was to use our 'viveka' to controll the

wandering mind!

Finally, what I have stated here are my understanding of the issues

related to the authorship and fully respect other opinions whether I

agree or disagree.

Warmest regards,

Ram Chandran

Note: At least for the time being, the consensus opinion is that

Sankaracharya is the original author of Viveka Choodamani. This

belief (just like all other beliefs) will likely be investigated and

a change of opinion is quite possible!