Atrocities in Shankaracharya Sanskrit University.

[V Subrahmanian]

From FB:

Islamic namaz held in Kalady Shankaracharya Sanskrit University with loudspeakers before Ifthaar party sponsored by jihadist groups - PFI & SDPI. This government run University named after Jagadguru Adi Shankaracharya has been notorious like JNU for Islamo-Leftism. Once the students even protested against installing a statue of Acharya in the university named after him. In their Shankara Jayanthi celebrations they often host people who go on to deride the Acharya in meetings held to celebrate his birth. Atleast Sanskrit department in JNU is pro-Hindu but this Sanskrit University is worse than JNU.

[Aravinda Rao]

Namaskars, 

About six years ago I was invited by the Sanskrit department of this University to give a talk on Shankaracharya and I went armed with my knowledge of vedanta and my new-found knowledge of Indological studies etc., but when I entered the hall I found the hall full of burkha clad women and boys (who could not be distinguished). I had to completely reframe my talk and say some innocuous things instead of going into any further details because it was not the proper time for an argument.  

I was shocked to see that the University has Shankaracharya's name for name's sake. Such is the power of demography. 

Aravinda Rao 

On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 4:04 PM V Subrahmanian <v.subra...@gmail.com> wrote:

From FB:

Islamic namaz held in Kalady Shankaracharya Sanskrit University with loudspeakers before Ifthaar party sponsored by jihadist groups - PFI & SDPI. This government run University named after Jagadguru Adi Shankaracharya has been notorious like JNU for Islamo-Leftism. Once the students even protested against installing a statue of Acharya in the university named after him. In their Shankara Jayanthi celebrations they often host people who go on to deride the Acharya in meetings held to celebrate his birth. Atleast Sanskrit department in JNU is pro-Hindu but this Sanskrit University is worse than JNU.

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[V Subrahmanian]

Dear Sir,

Very sad to hear the report of your direct experience.  I wonder if there is any way at all to redress the situation.

warm regards

subbu 

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[putran M]

Namaskaram Aravinda Rao-ji,

The info in their website (Academics, Faculties etc.) does not give any sense of this at all: https://ssus.ac.in Most of the faculty also seem to be Hindus and it seems a very nice environment to learn Sanskrit-related stuff. But you are right; when demography shifts, we can expect difficulties of this kind to show up since Muslims have a my-way-or-highway mentality and our people have convinced themselves that they should suck out the sanatana dharma out of Sanskrit so it is secular. Not to mention, a govt institution is controlled by people outside who have their own ideas.

But given that the University gave you the invitation (I know not why if they hoped you would not go into traditional vedanta), (this is strictly retrospective, not being critical of your pragmatism then): I think we have to be more mentally prepared going forward that we don't compromise what our tradition says when we speak about it to others. It is a Sanskrit University; it makes no sense that a talk in Vedanta has to be watered down to be acceptable to students from another religion (or our own, when it comes to things like varnashrama dharma, apaurusheyatva etc.). Let others take it or leave it. The platform is for you to speak your piece. Of course we can express it to a general audience from an intellectual/academic standpoint of what is the knowledge taught in Vedanta rather than as The Truth.

Do you know if the Muslim students in that Sanskrit dept. learn Sanskrit? If so how is Sanskrit taught to them in that environment? Typically I imagine if it was a Hindu audience, the instructor would feel it natural to refer to our scriptures copiously. Probably, they "secularized" the Sanskrit 

I also did not know this custom existed of boys also wearing burkha.

Subbu-ji: I could not google out the event that the FB mentions. It may not have been picked up in the news channels however.

thollmelukaalkizhu

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[Aravinda Rao]

Namaskars Putran ji, 

You are right. I could have told merely the philosophical/metaphysical aspects of Vedanta but I had gone there with some sociological aspects like the distortions by the western Indologists, the responsibility of Sanskrit students to know them and counter the distortions etc.

Those could not be discussed freely and so I briefly told about the non-dual philosophy, skipping the Indological distortions and such. 

It was the girls who wore burka, not the boys. May be, my sentence (burka clad women on one hand and boys whose religion I could not make out from their appearance) was not clear. 

The VC presented an elegant set of the complete works of Shankaracharya to me but I gave them to a serious student of Vedanta there.  

Aravinda Rao

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[V Subrahmanian]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 9:17 AM putran M <putr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Subbu-ji: I could not google out the event that the FB mentions. It may not have been picked up in the news channels however.

Putran ji, I reported the incident based on this FB post of my friend Shyamakrishnan Kamat:  https://www.facebook.com/DurgaDeviDasa/posts/3199501763628344

The image in the original post:

There in the comments section he gives a link to a Newspaper report in Malayalam, with this comment:

Shankaracharya solidified Chaturvarnyam & made Brahmin domination unquestionable in Hinduism. He did not have the greatness of Narayana Guru or EMS Namboothirippad (founder of CPM). He failed to see the great humanity of Buddhism...

The minister went on ranting against Acharya inaugurating Shankara Jayanthi event by the university

http://www.evartha.in/.../kerala-pwd-minister-g...

regards

subbu

  

thollmelukaalkizhu

On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 10:17 PM Aravinda Rao <karav...@gmail.com> wrote:

Namaskars, 

About six years ago I was invited by the Sanskrit department of this University to give a talk on Shankaracharya and I went armed with my knowledge of vedanta and my new-found knowledge of Indological studies etc., but when I entered the hall I found the hall full of burkha clad women and boys (who could not be distinguished). I had to completely reframe my talk and say some innocuous things instead of going into any further details because it was not the proper time for an argument.  

I was shocked to see that the University has Shankaracharya's name for name's sake. Such is the power of demography. 

Aravinda Rao 

On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 4:04 PM V Subrahmanian <v.subra...@gmail.com> wrote:

From FB:

Islamic namaz held in Kalady Shankaracharya Sanskrit University with loudspeakers before Ifthaar party sponsored by jihadist groups - PFI & SDPI. This government run University named after Jagadguru Adi Shankaracharya has been notorious like JNU for Islamo-Leftism. Once the students even protested against installing a statue of Acharya in the university named after him. In their Shankara Jayanthi celebrations they often host people who go on to deride the Acharya in meetings held to celebrate his birth. Atleast Sanskrit department in JNU is pro-Hindu but this Sanskrit University is worse than JNU.

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[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Subbuji, Aravinda Raoji, Putranji and friends,

It is a highly laudable that we have one university named after one of the greatest teachers of India, Sree Adi Sankaracharya. Please correct me if I am wrong, to my knowledge the Sringeri Math made a good donation of Rs. 2 (two) crores to finance the establishment of the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit (SSUS) in Kalady,  and the land for the same on the banks of the river Poorna was given on long lease by another follower of Adi Shankaracharya, and the State Government of  Kerala took care of the rest of the financial need. There could have been other named and unnamed individual donors too, I am not aware of. The SSUS is a government unversity and it started in 1993, and after initial teething problems/issues, it appeared that everything is fine there. Being a non-profit public higher-education institution, it is open to all communities, subject to meeting the admission requirements.

If the Muslim women and men came to attend the lectures of Dr. Aravindaji, it is a very good sign that they want to know about the teachings of the great teacher, Adi Shankaracharya. I read long back that even the prophet Muhammad (in the 7th century) admired India, by saying "cool breeze comes from India". Adi Sankaracharya was born in 509 BCE, which is about 11 (eleven) centuries before prophet Muhammad, who was born in c. 570 CE(AD). The Sankara-mathas in Dwarka, Puri, Kanchipuram and Kudali - Sringeri have their Guruparampara from the 5th century BCE time of Adi Sankaracharya. I was privileged to see all these guruparampara lists. BTW, the guru-parampara list of the Kudali-Sringeri math was published from Tirupati.

If I may share with my Advaitin brothers and sisters, it is that, to my knowledge the Quran speaks of God having  His place on His throne and that He has two hands. Islam does speak of Nirguna Brahman.  Further I understand that one who touches the holy black stone in Kaba, is considered to have touched the right hand of God. You may be surprised to hear that In the oldest Shiva temple in the west-coast of India (said to have been originally erected by the Pandavas), near Mumbai, I have seen the devotees touching the black Shiva-linga in Shiva temple, and I also followed suit.

In view of the above, if there be Muslim listeners to a talk on Advaita, the speaker may have some difficulty (though not insurmountable)  to make them understand what Advaita is.

My 2 cents

Sunil K. B.

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[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear friends,

There was a serious typo,  and kindly excuse me for this.  I wrote as follows:

Islam does speak of Nirguna Brahman.

Kindly read this as follows:

Islam does not speak of Nirguna Brahman.

Regards

Sunil KB

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 12:32 PM sunil bhattacharjya via groups.io <skbhattacharjya=gmai...@groups.io> wrote:

Dear Subbuji, Aravinda Raoji, Putranji and friends,

It is a highly laudable that we have one university named after one of the greatest teachers of India, Sree Adi Sankaracharya. Please correct me if I am wrong, to my knowledge the Sringeri Math made a good donation of Rs. 2 (two) crores to finance the establishment of the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit (SSUS) in Kalady,  and the land for the same on the banks of the river Poorna was given on long lease by another follower of Adi Shankaracharya, and the State Government of  Kerala took care of the rest of the financial need. There could have been other named and unnamed individual donors too, I am not aware of. The SSUS is a government unversity and it started in 1993, and after initial teething problems/issues, it appeared that everything is fine there. Being a non-profit public higher-education institution, it is open to all communities, subject to meeting the admission requirements.

If the Muslim women and men came to attend the lectures of Dr. Aravindaji, it is a very good sign that they want to know about the teachings of the great teacher, Adi Shankaracharya. I read long back that even the prophet Muhammad (in the 7th century) admired India, by saying "cool breeze comes from India". Adi Sankaracharya was born in 509 BCE, which is about 11 (eleven) centuries before prophet Muhammad, who was born in c. 570 CE(AD). The Sankara-mathas in Dwarka, Puri, Kanchipuram and Kudali - Sringeri have their Guruparampara from the 5th century BCE time of Adi Sankaracharya. I was privileged to see all these guruparampara lists. BTW, the guru-parampara list of the Kudali-Sringeri math was published from Tirupati.

If I may share with my Advaitin brothers and sisters, it is that, to my knowledge the Quran speaks of God having  His place on His throne and that He has two hands. Islam does speak of Nirguna Brahman.  Further I understand that one who touches the holy black stone in Kaba, is considered to have touched the right hand of God. You may be surprised to hear that In the oldest Shiva temple in the west-coast of India (said to have been originally erected by the Pandavas), near Mumbai, I have seen the devotees touching the black Shiva-linga in Shiva temple, and I also followed suit.

In view of the above, if there be Muslim listeners to a talk on Advaita, the speaker may have some difficulty (though not insurmountable)  to make them understand what Advaita is.

My 2 cents

Sunil K. B.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAKk0Te03emhAhiD1%2BVA3UQ_QRNnqRu4NT2HZtNJBHvhB8z2KFQ%40mail.gmail.com.

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[Aravinda Rao]

Dear sirs,

I again apologize for not giving more details in my original mail. The invitation was from the Sanskrit department but the meeting was held in the meeting hall of the university where, probably as a matter of practice, they invited all the students of the university. Along with me there were other persons, such as the VC, the minister etc., and hence it was a university function. It is not as though the students were from the Sanskrit department. Hence there were all types of students as I said earlier.

Aravinda Rao

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[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear VV

You wrote as follows:

As far as shRngeri maTha is concerned, you're wrong. You might find this paper interesting - https://archive.org/details/SundaresanShankaravijayaHistory_201706/page/n43/mode/2up?view=theater

I know Vidyasankar Sundaresan (VS) and he is a nice person and we met in Mumbai quite some years ago. The last time I tried to contact him, his wife told me that VS had some health issues and for that they are going to India. Later on Subbiji also told me the same thing about him. I guess he should be well by now, but I don't know if I should try to contact him before knowing that VS is fit and well for discussion with him on matters published by him, which is one-sided. VS is blindly  siding with the New Sringeri Math, which was started in the 14th century, during the regime of Hukka and Bukka of the Vijayanagara kingdom.  I read the above paper of VS long ago. It was published 22 years ago.

It is a pity that on the advice of VS, the Sringeri Math (on the bank of Tunga) had adopted a wrong timeline. Sringeri math is confused about their guru-parampara and time-line of the math. For example :

(i) In the beginning of the 20th century the Swamiji of the new Sringeri math, on the bank of the river Tunga,  stated that Adi sankara was  born during the reign of Vikramaditya, but the math has been unable to identify that king Vikramaditya so far.

(ii) When Sureshvaracharya got defeated in the debate with Adi Sankara, he took Sanyasha and became a disciple of Adi Shankara. Adi Sankara made Sureshvaracharya the Mathadhipati of the Dvarka math. As regards Bharati Devi (an avatara od Sharada Devi) the wife of Sureshvaracharya, Adi Sankara did not leave her to go to her divine abode and took her to South India. When they reached Kudali Sringeri, Bharati Devi opted to stay at the confluence of the rivers Bhadra and Tunga. Adi Sankara established the Original Shringeri math at this place. The Sarada Devi 's Murti (in the standing position) is at this place on the bank of the river, where there is the confluence of the rivers Bhadra and Tunga.

These two points alone show that VS is completely wrong. Adi Sankara did not make Surashvacharya the , first mathadhipati of the Tunga Sringeri math. Later on Adi Sankara called Sureshvaracharya to Kanchipuram and at that time Sureshvaracharya had installed another person as the Mathadhipati of the Dvaraka math , before his leaving for Kanchipuram.

This is so clear and easy to understand, but it is a pity that a scholar like VS failed to understand, and there is nobody in the Sringeri math, who can convince the Sungeri math authorities, that it is a crime to fiddle with the chronology/antiquity of a Shankara-math.

My 2 cents

On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 3:26 AM विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki) <vishvas...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 27 Apr 2022 at 01:02, sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com> wrote:

The Sankara-mathas in Dwarka, Puri, Kanchipuram and Kudali - Sringeri have their Guruparampara from the 5th century BCE time of Adi Sankaracharya. I was privileged to see all these guruparampara lists. BTW, the guru-parampara list of the Kudali-Sringeri math was published from Tirupati. 

As far as shRngeri maTha is concerned, you're wrong. You might find this paper interesting - https://archive.org/details/SundaresanShankaravijayaHistory_201706/page/n43/mode/2up?view=theater

[putran M]

Namaskaram Sunil-ji,

Keep it strictly academic. Take out personal narratives on non-members that do not add any essential value to the substance of your mail. Your para on Sri VS is out of bounds here and we don't want to see that.

The topics you are addressing are sensitive. Some of your assertions will be deemed scandalous. For instance, your casual comment of a "new Shringeri math" started in the 14th century. Or that the matha changed their timeline on the advice of one person. Or phrases like "Shringeri math is confused". On top of this, you also comment harshly on others not in our group like "VS is blindly following" etc. 

The language used and the lack of citations for such strong claims and opinions often seem to make your "history emails" out of place for our list. 

You need to filter out unsubstantiated claims that border slander, or back them with proper references that others know the basis of your convictions.

I would also request that you cease to tag our group to your conversations with others. That may mitigate some of these problems. 

This is my preliminary request as moderator.

thollmelukaalkizhu

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[sunil bhattacharjya]

Thank you Putranji. Occasionally the pain on seeing the sad situations, particularly when the dating of Adi Sankara comes up, becomes too much to bear. Thank you again for the caution

Sent from my iPhone

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[विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2022 at 03:48, sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com> wrote:

It is a pity that on the advice of VS, the Sringeri Math (on the bank of Tunga) had adopted a wrong timeline. Sringeri math is confused about their guru-parampara and time-line of the math.

shringeri maTha has had a geneology which was well known long before VS was even born. I quote :

However, it should not be assumed that all four āmnāya maṭhas always report the same traditions about Śaṅkara or are always pitted against the Kāñcī maṭha. There are many variant traditions, the most problematic being those regarding maṭha succession lineages and Śaṅkara's date. There are numerous gaps in the Badrināth lineage, showing repeated breaks in its history. The list of successors to the Śaṅkarācārya title at Dvārakā is very long, but the Puri list is even longer, with about twice as many names. These three maṭhas often claim a date of origin in the fifth century BCE, relying upon a grant supposedly given by a king named Sudhanvan to Śaṅkara. If such a grant exists and is genuine, it would have to rank as one of the earliest examples of writing in India, but it has never been made available for detailed analysis. [^19] The Śr̥ṅgeri maṭha does not accept this date, and its lineage gives only about half as many names as the Dvārakā list.[^20] Up to Vidyā Tīrtha (also called Vidyāśankara), the guru of Vidyāraṇya, Śr̥ṅgeri's lineage is based mainly upon oral tradition, there being very few historical records of Śr̥ṅgeri from pre-Vijayanagara times.

[^20]: The Śr̥ṅgēri list has thirty-six names, and its tradition gives Śaṅkara's date as the fourteenth year of Vikramāditya. If this were to be interpreted as fourteen Vikrama era, we would get a first-century date, but it has been suggested that the actual reference may be to a seventh- or eighth-century Cālukya king of the same name. Tapasyānanda (1980: xii-xiii) quotes a letter from the Śr̥ṅgeri maṭha that leaves the date and identity of this Vikramaditya open to historical analysis and interpretation.

So, it is incorrect to attribute this Śr̥ṅgēri tradition to "influence of VS".

 

These two points alone show that VS is completely wrong. 

Wrong about what exactly? 

 

Adi Sankara did not make Surashvacharya the , first mathadhipati of the Tunga Sringeri math.

I don't recall where he claims something about Sureshvara being first maThAdhipati of shRngeri (or any other place). He just notes various traditions and prior scholarship.

 

that it is a crime to fiddle with the chronology/antiquity of a Shankara-math. 

So medieval authors of various mutually inconsistent shankaravijaya texts are criminals?