Sloka on Sankaracharya [1 Attachment]

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Dear and respected Sastriji,Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful sloka by Vidyaranya Swami. I have seen a calender with the picture of  Dakshinamurthy sitting with closed eyes and Sanakaadis sitting near Guru, also with closed eyes. This story gives life to that picture. I wondered about he story behind this picture because Sanakaadis are always depicted as Vishnu Bhakthaas.

With respectful regards and prayersSavitriOn Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 7:59 AM, Nilakantan sastri <snsastri wrote:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Attachment(s) from Nilakantan sastri included below]

Dear Gurudevs,

The following is a sloka from the Sankara Digvijayam of Swami Vidyaranya, about the greatness of Sri Sankara:--

ajnaanaantar gahanapatitaan aatmavidyoadesaih

traatum lokan bhavadavasikhaa taapa paapachyamaanaan|

muktaa maunam vatavitapinor moolato nishpatanti

sambhor murtih charati bhuvane sankaracharyaroopa||

 

Meaning—

“Lord Siva Himself is now moving about in the world in the form of Sankaracharya, in order to save those who have fallen into the forest of ajnaana (ignorance) and are being roasted in the forest fire of worldly existence, by imparting to them Atmavidya. He has given up silence, which he had adopted as the means of teaching as Dakshinamurti and has come down from the foot of the banyan tree”.

Note- Lord Siva Himself was Dakshinamurti. He had the four sages, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana, and Sanatkumara as disciples. He taught them through silence, sitting under a banyan tree. It is Lord Siva Himself who has incarnated as Sankaracharya. Since the people of the world are not capable of understanding through silence, he has given up silence and teaches through speech.

It is to be noted that this sloka says that Sankaracharya is moving about, in the present tense, though the sloka was written long after Sankaracharya left his mortal coil. The implication is that, though he is not present in physical form, he is always there, imparting knowledge.

As the sloka in Roman script may be difficult to read, I am giving the same in Devanagari and Malayalam scripts in the attachment.

S.N.Sastri