The date of Adi Shankara - My dream!

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

advaitin, bhaskar.yr@i... wrote:

> praNAm prabhujis

> Hare Krishna

>

> Following is the very interesting observation by Prof.

SKR in his book

> Shankara & adyAsa bhAShya. I humbly request members of

this list who have

> more authentic knowledge of kAnchi tradition to shed more

light on this

> issue. My special request to Prof.VK prabhuji to look

into it.

>

 

Namaste, Bhaskar Prabhuji,

 

I am not aware of this book by Prof. SKR. Nor do I know who

Prof.SKR is. I would like to know more about both.

Regarding the five Shankaras mentioned in your quote, I am

hearing it for the first time. Thank you for telling me.

But the matter of the date of Adi Shankara is already a

very complicated one. Though I have read a few books on the

subject, I cannot speak with any authority because I feel

it is a matter for a life-time of research. It is time

that some one undertakes it as a life-time task either

individually or collectively. Actually a team-work is

needed for it. And each member of the team should have all

or most of the following qualifications:

 

1. Very good knowledge of Sanskrit and at least of one more

Indian language,

2. Professional training of the highest order in historical

research, connected with ancient India,

3. A sense of respect coupled with admiration for ancient

Indian traditions,

4. A good working knowledge of jyotish shastra,

5. Access to the inner secret documents of all the five

mutts; and

6. An open mind to accept whatever is revealed by the work

and also to question every point of history that is

current.

 

Given this team, and a time-period of probably 20 years,

and a very large amount of funds, something will happen, to

which posterity will be indebted for ever. Adi Shankara's

date is so intricately mixed up with several historical

perplexities of the Indian subcontinent, that the fixation

of this date on a basis acceptable to all historians and

religious organizations, is likely to clear the cobwebs of

ancient Indian history in several unforeseen directions.

Looked at from this angle your find about this quote about

five Shankaras and the book by Prof.SKR is just a straw in

the wind. My own dream and wish is that I should be a

member of the above team at least in my next janma!

 

PraNAms to all Guru ParamparAs.

profvk

 

 

=====

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.

Also see my webpages on Live Happily, the Gita Way at

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/gohitvip/contentsbeach11.html

[Guest guest]

Professor-ji,

 

I luved your 'scientific' response to Bhaskar Prabhuji's genuine

inquiry...

 

Here is what i Found on the net on Sankara's Date controversy ...

 

Sankara Acarya

 

Page 2–Date Controversy

 

Determining Sankara's Date

 

An Overview of Ancient Sources and Modern Literature

 

The Sources

 

Placing Sankara in a period according to the modern calendar is a

difficult problem. The official date accepted currently is 788-820

CE, and the Government of India celebrated the 1200th anniversary of

Sankara's birth in 1988. This date is largely based upon one

traditional view prevalent in India.[1] However, the date is still

open to question, as pointed out by Swami Tapasyananda in his

translation of the <Madhaviya-sankara-vijayam.[2] This difficulty is

experienced for almost all personalities in Indian history, due to

paucity of proper records and conflicting traditions current in

different parts of the country. As far as the problem of dating

Sankara is concerned, our sources of information are: internal

evidence from Sankara's works, the astronomical details recorded in

some of the Sankara-vijayams, and the traditional accounts kept in

the advaita mathas in India.

 

Internal Evidence

 

Of these three sources, a lot of scholarly work has been done in the

recent past, analyzing the internal evidence from Sankara's works.

The date now seems to be converging to the early 8th century CE.[3]

The most important internal evidence comes from Sankara's verbatim

quotation of Dharmakirti, the buddhist logician. Hsuan Tsang , the

Chinese pilgrim, who visited India in the time of Harshavardhana,

king of Thanesar (606 - 647 CE), gives clues to Dharmakirti's date.

He also mentions Bhartrhari , but not of Sankara. It follows that

Sankara is post-Dharmakirti, and possibly post-Hsuan-Tsang also.

Critical academic scholars are converging to a date near 700 CE for

Sankara's period.

 

Astronomical Details

 

The astronomical details in the various Sankara-vijaya texts are not

of much use. More often than not, the details in one work contradict

those in another, and one cannot rely on any of them unless one is

preferentially biased to accept one of the Sankara-vijayas as more

authoritative than the others. Dates ranging from the 5th cent BCE to

8th cent CE have been calculated on the basis of such astronomical

details. One further complication is that some astronomical

information is said to have been obtained from works which are not

available anywhere in India. So it is difficult even to authenticate

the astronomical details from their supposed sources. Also, not all

the currently available texts titled Sankara-vijaya are accepted as

authoritative within the living advaita tradition. Under the

circumstances, it should be noted that the astronomical references in

one text is only as good or as bad as all the other such details in

other texts, and no firm conclusion can be drawn about their

validity.

 

Records of Mathas:

 

Whether Sankara established any mathas at all has been questioned in

the modern literature. Thus, Paul Hacker attributes the tradition of

four amnaya-mathas at Sringeri, Puri, Dvaraka and Joshimath to

Vidyaranyasvamin. The native oral tradition, however, takes the

history of these four mathas, each associated with one of the four

geographical directions and one of the four vedas, to Sankaracarya

himself. The dasanami sannyasi-sampradaya, with its various akhadas

in northern India, accepts affiliation only with these four mathas,

though such affiliation is largely nominal. There seems to be some

historical evidence for the existence of the oldest dasanami akhadas

as early as the 9th cent. CE. [4] However, as Swami Tapasyananda

points out, the evidence of the dasanami sannyasi tradition has never

been properly taken into account in the modern literature. It seems

very likely that the tradition of four amnaya-mathas reflects

historical fact. It is immaterial whether Sankara established them

himself or whether these four mathas developed naturally at the

places where the four famous disciples of Sankara lived and taught.

It is clear that even if they were not actually established by

Sankara himself, the four amnaya-mathas came into existence early in

the history of post-Sankaran advaita-vedanta.

 

Of these four mathas, the Joshimath title had long been vacant, till

it was revived in 1940 CE. Consequently, it does not have many

ancient records. The Dvaraka and Puri mathas have, in the past,

claimed a date of 5th century BCE for Sankara. This is partly based

upon a dating of a grant by a king named Sudhanva who is supposed to

have been a contemporary of Sankara. Nothing else is known about this

king, and the grant itself has not been dated with any accuracy. In

any case, it should be remembered that the records of the Dvaraka and

Puri mathas are rather fragmentary, because they have had patchy

histories, with periods when there were no presiding Sankaracaryas.

This is also accepted by the administrations of these institutions,

and they do not hold to the 5th century BCE date with absolute

certainty. Meanwhile, Sringeri has been the only matha of the

original four which has had an unbroken succession of mathadhipatis.

This may be no more than an accident of history, as southern India

has not experienced as many political upheavals as the north. Given

these facts, among the traditional sources, only the Sringeri records

seem to lend themselves to critical historical analysis.

 

The Sringeri matha's record states that Sankara was born in the 14th

year of the reign of Vikramaditya. The record does not give any clue

about the identity of this king. Some 19th century researchers

identified this king with the famous Vikramaditya of the Gupta

dynasty, thereby postulating a date of 44 BCE for Sankara. A period

of more than 700 years was then assigned to Suresvara, because the

later successors in the Sringeri list can all be dated reasonably

accurately from the 8th century downwards. This is rather anomalous,

and can be resolved quite neatly, as pointed out by Mr. B. Lewis Rice

in his Mysore Gazetteer. [5]

 

If one identifies the Vikramaditya as a member of the Western Calukya

dynasty, which ruled from Badami in Karnataka, one gets a much more

reasonable date for Sankara. The Calukya dynasty reached its greatest

fame in the time of Pulakesin II, a contemporary of Harshavardhana.

According to historians, there were two kings named Vikramaditya in

this Calukya dynasty - Vikramaditya I ruled in the late 7th century

CE, while Vikramaditya II ruled in the early 8th century. [ 6]

However, there is still some ambiguity with respect to which of these

two Vikramadityas is actually meant, but as with most Indian

historical records, this is the best one can do. It is more

reasonable to identify the Vikramaditya of the Sringeri record with

one of these two Calukyan kings, who ruled from Karnataka, rather

than the northern gupta king, whose empire did not include southern

India. This interpretation of the Sringeri record is also consistent

with the internal evidence from Sankara's works. In either case, this

implies that the earliest date that one can postulate for Sankara has

to be in the late 7th century CE. Swami Tapasyananda also quotes a

letter from Sringeri, which makes it clear that this matha claims

nothing more than what its record states, interpretation of dates

being the historian's job. [7] This is the sensible approach to take,

given the fact that traditions in India tend to be rather ambiguous

in their chronology.

 

In addition to these four original mathas, a number of other advaita

mathas have come into being over the centuries, some of which are

quite well-known. These mathas either started out as branches of the

original institutions, or were set up as independent monasteries by

notable sannyasis of the dasa-nami order. With the proliferation of

such mathas came a number of "traditions," many of them conflicting

with one another in details. For example, some of these mathas also

claim to have been established by Sankara himself. [8] Some of them

also claim 5th century BCE to be the date of Sankara.

 

Conflicting Traditions

 

Historically, such claims often resulted in serious conflicts with

the traditions of the undisputed four. The propagation of such

conflicts was helped by the fact that the various advaita mathas had

become politically influential institutions, with access to land and

revenue donated by various rulers at different times. It is a fact

that this has led to fierce rivalries in the past among the followers

of different mathas. Such rivalries are not unknown in northern

India, but they have particularly been the cause of many problems in

southern Indian sources. This is probably because of the intimate

connection of the founders of the Vijayanagara empire with the

Sringeri matha, and the competition by other mathadhipatis in the

south for similar honors as traditionally accorded to the Sringeri

matha. Every southern matha with a claim to be the "original" one

wants to deny Sringeri's chronological primacy. This denial only has

the effect of reinforcing the fact that Sringeri has been the most

important advaita matha for centuries before any of the other matha

even came into being. As such, their conflicting claims about

Sankara's date have to be evaluated in the context of their political

motivations in putting forth such dates.

 

While most of the conflicts among the various mathas can be dismissed

as petty polemics, or as "bazaar gossip," as Swami Tapasyananda does,

a serious historian needs to be aware of these problems among the

traditional sources. No "tradition" about chronology should be

accepted without critical analysis. For example, I find Swami

Tapasyananda unwittingly contradicting himself in his introduction to

the translation of the Madhaviya, because he tries to concede as much

as possible to all kinds of contrary "traditional" dates. There is no

need to consider seriously the claim that 788 CE is the date of

one "abhinava Sankara," and to conclude that Sankara's date must

therefore be much earlier. Firstly, the name abhinava Sankara is

mostly used only as a title of respect. Thus, one such abhinava

Sankara, the author of the Srirudra-bhasya , was called Rama

Brahmananda Tirtha, but he lived much later than the 8th century. [9]

Even in the 20th century, various sannyasins have been

titled "abhinava Sankara" by their followers [10 ]. There may have

been many such abhinava Sankaras over the centuries, but there is no

independent evidence for the existence of someone named "abhinava

Sankara" in the 8th cent. CE. Secondly, Sankara, the writer of

bhasyas to the Brahma-sutras and Upanisads, is the Sankaracarya who

is relevant for the history of advaita-vedanta. When internal

evidence from the bhasyakara's undisputed works shows that he lived

not earlier than the 8th century CE, it follows that this "abhinava

Sankara" theory is not sufficient reason for positing a date much

earlier than the 8th century CE for Sankara himself.

 

Similarly, I find some of Prof. Karl Potter's statements to be quite

misleading. [3] That a fifth advaita matha at Kancipuram is very

active today, does not mean that it has always been so, nor does such

activity lend any special credibility to its claims to antiquity. The

political influence and prestige that a matha enjoys today also do

not confer any legitimacy to such claims. It is inconceivable that

the dasa-nami-sampradaya would have overlooked a fifth matha in

choosing its affiliations. Claims to historicity that are made in a

spirit of political one-upmanship seldom stand up to serious

scrutiny. There is no necessary correlation between the modern

activity of an advaita matha and its claimed antiquity. Prof. Potter

has also not consulted available historical evidence that enables us

to date the origin of this fifth mathas. [11 ] There will be no cause

for confusion if such independent evidence is also taken into

account. Moreover, in addition to the four amnaya-mathas and a well-

known fifth institution at Kancipuram, there are numerous other

mathas in India, whose traditions are at least as valid as those of

the Kanci matha. To be really impartial, the traditions of all these

other minor mathas in India should also be taken into account, but

such a study has not attracted any scholarly attention.

 

The 5th cent. BCE date can be rejected without much discussion. It is

much too early, and Sankara cannot be reasonably held to have been a

contemporary of the Buddha. The only objection to this rejection of

such an early date comes from those who believe that the actual date

of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, should be earlier than the 9th

cent. BCE, possibly as early as the 18th cent. BCE. Based on such an

early date for the Buddha, it is argued that the possibility of a 5th

cent. BCE date for Sankara should be taken seriously. However, all

the available evidence points to the 5th cent. BCE as the best

possible period for dating the Buddha. In any case, the proponents of

the 5th cent. BCE date for Sankara also seem to forget that the

evidence of Hsuan Tsang with respect to dharmakIrti is too strong to

be neglected. That Sankara has quoted from Dharmakirti's work is

confirmed by Suresvara. Therefore, even if the Buddha's date were to

be drastically re-evaluated, and an 18th cent. BCE date accepted,

this will simply not affect Sankara's date at all. It must remain in

the 8th cent. CE (near 750 CE, with a window of around 50 years on

either side), as held by the major tradition and confirmed by

internal evidence from Sankara's own works.

 

It must also be remembered that the 5th cent. BCE date does not

really come from any ancient tradition, notwithstanding the high-

pitched rhetoric of those who claim otherwise. This date has been

proposed only in the last two centuries or so, during British times.

In the post-Independence period, some people champion the 5th cent.

BCE date because it helps bolster a unique kind of national pride:

any great Indian should have necessarily lived before Jesus Christ!

[12, 13] Part of this is a modern backlash against some of the early

Indologists, whose belief in Biblical chronology colored their

perception of Indian history. Still, these modern proponents of the

5th century BCE date perhaps forget that the date of Christ has

little relevance to events in Indian history, except for fixing dates

according to international convention. Surely, Sankara's greatness is

not increased by an early BCE date, nor is it lessened by a date much

later than Christ's.

 

It should also be remembered that what is said to be tradition is

often very misleading. The traditions of the four mathas at Sringeri,

Puri, Dvaraka and Joshimath may disagree about the date of Sankara,

and also about who was the successor of Sankara. Notwithstanding

this, the fact remains that each recognizes the other three

paramparas to be its equal in age and origin. The dasa-nami sannyasis

also accept affiliation only with these four mathas. There can be no

doubt that these four are the original mathas, dating close to

Sankara's times, and that all other mathas are later ones. When

traditional accounts conflict (and they do so more often than not),

it is necessary to test each source for internal consistency, and

then for compatibility with independent external sources. If a

matha's claimed list of gurus is not historically verifiable, its

traditions about Sankara's date and life must not be accepted

uncritically. This is all the more imperative in cases where even

recent personalities, who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, are

dated to impossibly early times. It is quite easy to make up

a "tradition" and a list of mathadhipatis, much like the royal

genealogies of some of India's erstwhile kings. Any source that does

not meet the criteria of internal consistency and independent

external confirmation should not be accepted. This applies as much to

the traditions of the powerful and influential mathas as to those of

the less well-known ones.

 

The following articles about Sankara Acarya were

obtained with permission from: http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp

 

http://www.sanskrit.org/Shankara/shankar2.html

 

Prabhuji! yesterday was Guruvaar! and i was all day thinking how can

there Be five shankaras when all along i have been worshipping the

ONE ane ONLY JAGADGURU ADI SHANKARA BHAGVADAPADA?

 

Totakashtakam , verse 7

 

GURUPUNGAVA PUNGAVA KETANA TE SAMATAM AYATAM NAHI KO'PI SUDHIH

SARANAGATAVATSALA TATTVINIDHE BHAVA SANKARA DESIKA ME SARANAM ||7||

 

O THE BEST OF THE TEACHERS! THE SUPREME LORD HAVING THE BULL AS

BANNER! NONE OF THE WISE IS EQUAL TO THEE! THOU WHO ART COMPASSIONATE

TO THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN REFUGE! THE TREASURE TROVE OF TRUTH! BE THOU

MY REFUGE O MASTER, SANKARA!

 

Jaya jaya shankara!

 

Hara hara shankara!~

[Guest guest]

Very interesting. The message I got from this

is that Shankara could have existed anywhere

from the 5th century BCE to the 8th century CE.

 

I guess the truth IS eternal! :-)

 

What does it say about Hindus that

they don't know the answer better

than this? Now I am not being

critical. I find it all rather fascinating.

In a way, it may say something good.

They care more about the vision than

the personality.

 

Anyhow, Shankara's message has been

having its soothing and illuminating effect,

and that is what matters, right?

 

Ben

 

 

 

 

 

advaitin, "adi_shakthi16" <adi_shakthi16> wrote=

:

> Professor-ji,

>

> I luved your 'scientific' response to Bhaskar Prabhuji's genuine

> inquiry...

>

> Here is what i Found on the net on Sankara's Date controversy ...

>

> Sankara Acarya

>

> Page 2–Date Controversy

>

> Determining Sankara's Date

>

> An Overview of Ancient Sources and Modern Literature

>

> The Sources

>

> Placing Sankara in a period according to the modern calendar is a

> difficult problem. The official date accepted currently is 788-820

> CE, and the Government of India celebrated the 1200th anniversary of

> Sankara's birth in 1988. This date is largely based upon one

> traditional view prevalent in India.[1] However, the date is still

> open to question, as pointed out by Swami Tapasyananda in his

> translation of the <Madhaviya-sankara-vijayam.[2] This difficulty is

> experienced for almost all personalities in Indian history, due to

> paucity of proper records and conflicting traditions current in

> different parts of the country. As far as the problem of dating

> Sankara is concerned, our sources of information are: internal

> evidence from Sankara's works, the astronomical details recorded in

> some of the Sankara-vijayams, and the traditional accounts kept in

> the advaita mathas in India.

>

> Internal Evidence

>

> Of these three sources, a lot of scholarly work has been done in the

> recent past, analyzing the internal evidence from Sankara's works.

> The date now seems to be converging to the early 8th century CE.[3]

> The most important internal evidence comes from Sankara's verbatim

> quotation of Dharmakirti, the buddhist logician. Hsuan Tsang , the

> Chinese pilgrim, who visited India in the time of Harshavardhana,

> king of Thanesar (606 - 647 CE), gives clues to Dharmakirti's date.

> He also mentions Bhartrhari , but not of Sankara. It follows that

> Sankara is post-Dharmakirti, and possibly post-Hsuan-Tsang also.

> Critical academic scholars are converging to a date near 700 CE for

> Sankara's period.

>

> Astronomical Details

>

> The astronomical details in the various Sankara-vijaya texts are not

> of much use. More often than not, the details in one work contradict

> those in another, and one cannot rely on any of them unless one is

> preferentially biased to accept one of the Sankara-vijayas as more

> authoritative than the others. Dates ranging from the 5th cent BCE to

> 8th cent CE have been calculated on the basis of such astronomical

> details. One further complication is that some astronomical

> information is said to have been obtained from works which are not

> available anywhere in India. So it is difficult even to authenticate

> the astronomical details from their supposed sources. Also, not all

> the currently available texts titled Sankara-vijaya are accepted as

> authoritative within the living advaita tradition. Under the

> circumstances, it should be noted that the astronomical references in

> one text is only as good or as bad as all the other such details in

> other texts, and no firm conclusion can be drawn about their

> validity.

>

> Records of Mathas:

>

> Whether Sankara established any mathas at all has been questioned in

> the modern literature. Thus, Paul Hacker attributes the tradition of

> four amnaya-mathas at Sringeri, Puri, Dvaraka and Joshimath to

> Vidyaranyasvamin. The native oral tradition, however, takes the

> history of these four mathas, each associated with one of the four

> geographical directions and one of the four vedas, to Sankaracarya

> himself. The dasanami sannyasi-sampradaya, with its various akhadas

> in northern India, accepts affiliation only with these four mathas,

> though such affiliation is largely nominal. There seems to be some

> historical evidence for the existence of the oldest dasanami akhadas

> as early as the 9th cent. CE. [4] However, as Swami Tapasyananda

> points out, the evidence of the dasanami sannyasi tradition has never

> been properly taken into account in the modern literature. It seems

> very likely that the tradition of four amnaya-mathas reflects

> historical fact. It is immaterial whether Sankara established them

> himself or whether these four mathas developed naturally at the

> places where the four famous disciples of Sankara lived and taught.

> It is clear that even if they were not actually established by

> Sankara himself, the four amnaya-mathas came into existence early in

> the history of post-Sankaran advaita-vedanta.

>

> Of these four mathas, the Joshimath title had long been vacant, till

> it was revived in 1940 CE. Consequently, it does not have many

> ancient records. The Dvaraka and Puri mathas have, in the past,

> claimed a date of 5th century BCE for Sankara. This is partly based

> upon a dating of a grant by a king named Sudhanva who is supposed to

> have been a contemporary of Sankara. Nothing else is known about this

> king, and the grant itself has not been dated with any accuracy. In

> any case, it should be remembered that the records of the Dvaraka and

> Puri mathas are rather fragmentary, because they have had patchy

> histories, with periods when there were no presiding Sankaracaryas.

> This is also accepted by the administrations of these institutions,

> and they do not hold to the 5th century BCE date with absolute

> certainty. Meanwhile, Sringeri has been the only matha of the

> original four which has had an unbroken succession of mathadhipatis.

> This may be no more than an accident of history, as southern India

> has not experienced as many political upheavals as the north. Given

> these facts, among the traditional sources, only the Sringeri records

> seem to lend themselves to critical historical analysis.

>

> The Sringeri matha's record states that Sankara was born in the 14th

> year of the reign of Vikramaditya. The record does not give any clue

> about the identity of this king. Some 19th century researchers

> identified this king with the famous Vikramaditya of the Gupta

> dynasty, thereby postulating a date of 44 BCE for Sankara. A period

> of more than 700 years was then assigned to Suresvara, because the

> later successors in the Sringeri list can all be dated reasonably

> accurately from the 8th century downwards. This is rather anomalous,

> and can be resolved quite neatly, as pointed out by Mr. B. Lewis Rice

> in his Mysore Gazetteer. [5]

>

> If one identifies the Vikramaditya as a member of the Western Calukya

> dynasty, which ruled from Badami in Karnataka, one gets a much more

> reasonable date for Sankara. The Calukya dynasty reached its greatest

> fame in the time of Pulakesin II, a contemporary of Harshavardhana.

> According to historians, there were two kings named Vikramaditya in

> this Calukya dynasty - Vikramaditya I ruled in the late 7th century

> CE, while Vikramaditya II ruled in the early 8th century. [ 6]

> However, there is still some ambiguity with respect to which of these

> two Vikramadityas is actually meant, but as with most Indian

> historical records, this is the best one can do. It is more

> reasonable to identify the Vikramaditya of the Sringeri record with

> one of these two Calukyan kings, who ruled from Karnataka, rather

> than the northern gupta king, whose empire did not include southern

> India. This interpretation of the Sringeri record is also consistent

> with the internal evidence from Sankara's works. In either case, this

> implies that the earliest date that one can postulate for Sankara has

> to be in the late 7th century CE. Swami Tapasyananda also quotes a

> letter from Sringeri, which makes it clear that this matha claims

> nothing more than what its record states, interpretation of dates

> being the historian's job. [7] This is the sensible approach to take,

> given the fact that traditions in India tend to be rather ambiguous

> in their chronology.

>

> In addition to these four original mathas, a number of other advaita

> mathas have come into being over the centuries, some of which are

> quite well-known. These mathas either started out as branches of the

> original institutions, or were set up as independent monasteries by

> notable sannyasis of the dasa-nami order. With the proliferation of

> such mathas came a number of "traditions," many of them conflicting

> with one another in details. For example, some of these mathas also

> claim to have been established by Sankara himself. [8] Some of them

> also claim 5th century BCE to be the date of Sankara.

>

> Conflicting Traditions

>

> Historically, such claims often resulted in serious conflicts with

> the traditions of the undisputed four. The propagation of such

> conflicts was helped by the fact that the various advaita mathas had

> become politically influential institutions, with access to land and

> revenue donated by various rulers at different times. It is a fact

> that this has led to fierce rivalries in the past among the followers

> of different mathas. Such rivalries are not unknown in northern

> India, but they have particularly been the cause of many problems in

> southern Indian sources. This is probably because of the intimate

> connection of the founders of the Vijayanagara empire with the

> Sringeri matha, and the competition by other mathadhipatis in the

> south for similar honors as traditionally accorded to the Sringeri

> matha. Every southern matha with a claim to be the "original" one

> wants to deny Sringeri's chronological primacy. This denial only has

> the effect of reinforcing the fact that Sringeri has been the most

> important advaita matha for centuries before any of the other matha

> even came into being. As such, their conflicting claims about

> Sankara's date have to be evaluated in the context of their political

> motivations in putting forth such dates.

>

> While most of the conflicts among the various mathas can be dismissed

> as petty polemics, or as "bazaar gossip," as Swami Tapasyananda does,

> a serious historian needs to be aware of these problems among the

> traditional sources. No "tradition" about chronology should be

> accepted without critical analysis. For example, I find Swami

> Tapasyananda unwittingly contradicting himself in his introduction to

> the translation of the Madhaviya, because he tries to concede as much

> as possible to all kinds of contrary "traditional" dates. There is no

> need to consider seriously the claim that 788 CE is the date of

> one "abhinava Sankara," and to conclude that Sankara's date must

> therefore be much earlier. Firstly, the name abhinava Sankara is

> mostly used only as a title of respect. Thus, one such abhinava

> Sankara, the author of the Srirudra-bhasya , was called Rama

> Brahmananda Tirtha, but he lived much later than the 8th century. [9]

> Even in the 20th century, various sannyasins have been

> titled "abhinava Sankara" by their followers [10 ]. There may have

> been many such abhinava Sankaras over the centuries, but there is no

> independent evidence for the existence of someone named "abhinava

> Sankara" in the 8th cent. CE. Secondly, Sankara, the writer of

> bhasyas to the Brahma-sutras and Upanisads, is the Sankaracarya who

> is relevant for the history of advaita-vedanta. When internal

> evidence from the bhasyakara's undisputed works shows that he lived

> not earlier than the 8th century CE, it follows that this "abhinava

> Sankara" theory is not sufficient reason for positing a date much

> earlier than the 8th century CE for Sankara himself.

>

> Similarly, I find some of Prof. Karl Potter's statements to be quite

> misleading. [3] That a fifth advaita matha at Kancipuram is very

> active today, does not mean that it has always been so, nor does such

> activity lend any special credibility to its claims to antiquity. The

> political influence and prestige that a matha enjoys today also do

> not confer any legitimacy to such claims. It is inconceivable that

> the dasa-nami-sampradaya would have overlooked a fifth matha in

> choosing its affiliations. Claims to historicity that are made in a

> spirit of political one-upmanship seldom stand up to serious

> scrutiny. There is no necessary correlation between the modern

> activity of an advaita matha and its claimed antiquity. Prof. Potter

> has also not consulted available historical evidence that enables us

> to date the origin of this fifth mathas. [11 ] There will be no cause

> for confusion if such independent evidence is also taken into

> account. Moreover, in addition to the four amnaya-mathas and a well-

> known fifth institution at Kancipuram, there are numerous other

> mathas in India, whose traditions are at least as valid as those of

> the Kanci matha. To be really impartial, the traditions of all these

> other minor mathas in India should also be taken into account, but

> such a study has not attracted any scholarly attention.

>

> The 5th cent. BCE date can be rejected without much discussion. It is

> much too early, and Sankara cannot be reasonably held to have been a

> contemporary of the Buddha. The only objection to this rejection of

> such an early date comes from those who believe that the actual date

> of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, should be earlier than the 9th

> cent. BCE, possibly as early as the 18th cent. BCE. Based on such an

> early date for the Buddha, it is argued that the possibility of a 5th

> cent. BCE date for Sankara should be taken seriously. However, all

> the available evidence points to the 5th cent. BCE as the best

> possible period for dating the Buddha. In any case, the proponents of

> the 5th cent. BCE date for Sankara also seem to forget that the

> evidence of Hsuan Tsang with respect to dharmakIrti is too strong to

> be neglected. That Sankara has quoted from Dharmakirti's work is

> confirmed by Suresvara. Therefore, even if the Buddha's date were to

> be drastically re-evaluated, and an 18th cent. BCE date accepted,

> this will simply not affect Sankara's date at all. It must remain in

> the 8th cent. CE (near 750 CE, with a window of around 50 years on

> either side), as held by the major tradition and confirmed by

> internal evidence from Sankara's own works.

>

> It must also be remembered that the 5th cent. BCE date does not

> really come from any ancient tradition, notwithstanding the high-

> pitched rhetoric of those who claim otherwise. This date has been

> proposed only in the last two centuries or so, during British times.

> In the post-Independence period, some people champion the 5th cent.

> BCE date because it helps bolster a unique kind of national pride:

> any great Indian should have necessarily lived before Jesus Christ!

> [12, 13] Part of this is a modern backlash against some of the early

> Indologists, whose belief in Biblical chronology colored their

> perception of Indian history. Still, these modern proponents of the

> 5th century BCE date perhaps forget that the date of Christ has

> little relevance to events in Indian history, except for fixing dates

> according to international convention. Surely, Sankara's greatness is

> not increased by an early BCE date, nor is it lessened by a date much

> later than Christ's.

>

> It should also be remembered that what is said to be tradition is

> often very misleading. The traditions of the four mathas at Sringeri,

> Puri, Dvaraka and Joshimath may disagree about the date of Sankara,

> and also about who was the successor of Sankara. Notwithstanding

> this, the fact remains that each recognizes the other three

> paramparas to be its equal in age and origin. The dasa-nami sannyasis

> also accept affiliation only with these four mathas. There can be no

> doubt that these four are the original mathas, dating close to

> Sankara's times, and that all other mathas are later ones. When

> traditional accounts conflict (and they do so more often than not),

> it is necessary to test each source for internal consistency, and

> then for compatibility with independent external sources. If a

> matha's claimed list of gurus is not historically verifiable, its

> traditions about Sankara's date and life must not be accepted

> uncritically. This is all the more imperative in cases where even

> recent personalities, who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, are

> dated to impossibly early times. It is quite easy to make up

> a "tradition" and a list of mathadhipatis, much like the royal

> genealogies of some of India's erstwhile kings. Any source that does

> not meet the criteria of internal consistency and independent

> external confirmation should not be accepted. This applies as much to

> the traditions of the powerful and influential mathas as to those of

> the less well-known ones.

>

> The following articles about Sankara Acarya were

> obtained with permission from: http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp

>

> http://www.sanskrit.org/Shankara/shankar2.html

>

> Prabhuji! yesterday was Guruvaar! and i was all day thinking how can

> there Be five shankaras when all along i have been worshipping the

> ONE ane ONLY JAGADGURU ADI SHANKARA BHAGVADAPADA?

>

> Totakashtakam , verse 7

>

> GURUPUNGAVA PUNGAVA KETANA TE SAMATAM AYATAM NAHI KO'PI SUDHIH

> SARANAGATAVATSALA TATTVINIDHE BHAVA SANKARA DESIKA ME SARANAM ||7||

>

> O THE BEST OF THE TEACHERS! THE SUPREME LORD HAVING THE BULL AS

> BANNER! NONE OF THE WISE IS EQUAL TO THEE! THOU WHO ART COMPASSIONATE

> TO THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN REFUGE! THE TREASURE TROVE OF TRUTH! BE THOU

> MY REFUGE O MASTER, SANKARA!

>

> Jaya jaya shankara!

>

> Hara hara shankara!~

[Guest guest]

Dear Ben-Ji:

 

By "BEN (George)" you "GOT" it.

 

It does not matter what was the exact "Time-Life Period" for

aacharya. What we have to try and understand is what he contributed.

 

All we need to understand if one word, "advita".

 

Problems always manifest themselves, when we try to differentiate

even during the attempts for integration because it is easier to

relate to differentiation. Ultimately the individual identity gets

dissolved with realization, wheather one follows dvita system to

start with.

 

Regards,

 

Yadunath

 

 

 

advaitin, "Benjamin" <orion777ben> wrote:

> Very interesting.

> Anyhow, Shankara's message has been

> having its soothing and illuminating effect,

> and that is what matters, right?

>

> Ben

>

>