Janamejaya and sudhanva inscriptions

[Veeranarayana Pandurangi]

dear all

1. there is a mention of Janamejaya inscriptions in the "age of mahabharata war" by Kota Venkatachelam.

in this link

http://trueindianhistory-kvchelam.blogspot.in/2009/08/gift-deed-of-janamejaya-early.html

an image of printed version of Janamejaya's inscription is exhibited. it is said as "An inscription (plate) of a gift deed by Emperor Janemejaya. (Indian Antiquary P. P. 333-334) runs thus:-" [image of inscription]

it is also found in this link. 

http://ancientindians.wordpress.com/geography/archaeological-connections/king-janamejayas-dana-sasana-patram-letter-of-gift/

But we have to verify in which volume of Indian Antiquary it appears.

here is the link for index for indian antiquary. but somehow it is not opening for me.

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=9yHkAAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_similarbooks

2. one insription of sudhanva is said to be found in Dvaraka Shankara math is mentioned in the below link 

http://mahabharathascience.blogspot.in/p/material-evidence-supporting-time-of.html

"the copper plate inscription of Emperor Sudhanva who ruled over Gujarat. It was a memorandum presented by Emperor Sudhanva to Sri Sankara was inscribed on copper-plate dated the year 2663 on the Yudhishtira Saka. The copper plate inscription of Emperor Sudhanva proves that the year of the demise of Sri Sankara is 2663 of the Yudhishtira Era or B.C. 477-76. The beginning of Yudhishtira Era is the time of the Mahabharata war. It had already proved to be B.C. 3138. So Sri Sankara’s life works out to be B.C. 509 to B.C.477-476, Yudhishtira Era 2662+476=3138 B.C."

full version of this inscription is found in the below link

http://www.sanskrit.nic.in/SVimarsha/sv.htm

needs to be verified.

below link quotes it to be available in Dvaraka peeth.

http://vanitha.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/home.do?thisPage=%2Fep%2Ftheweek%2Fcontent%2FprintArticle.jsp%3FBV_ID%3D%2540%2540%2540%26com.broadvision.session.new%3DYes%26articleTitle%3DFirst%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bmutts%26language%3Denglish%26contentOID%3D10650715

"Mahamahopadhyay J.N. Dwivedi, director of Dwarakadheesh Sanskrit Academy and Indology Research Institute, tells us that the current Shankaracharya of Dwaraka is 78th since the time of Adi Shankara. “There has not been a single day when Dwaraka Peetha did not have a Shankaracharya,” he says. “There is an interesting copper plate inscription at the peetha which was issued by King Sudhanva in 477 BC.” (The peetha puts Adi  Shankara’s birth at around 507 BC.) There are no other records available."

please help me to get it verified.

Veeranarayana N.K. Pandurangi

Head, Dept of Darshanas,
Yoganandacharya Bhavan,
Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Rajasthan Samskrita University, Madau, post Bhankrota, Jaipur, 302026. India

अथ चेत्त्वमिमं धर्म्यं संग्रामं न करिष्यसि। ततः स्वधर्मं कीर्तिं च हित्वा पापमवाप्स्यसि।।

तस्मादुत्तिष्ठ कौन्तेय युद्धाय कृतनिश्चयः। निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)

http://jrrsanskrituniversity.ac.in/

http://jrrsanskrituniversity.ac.in/acd1.asp

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!forum/bvparishat

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Namaste,

The deatils of the text of  Sudhanva's inscription is available at the Dwaraka math but the actual Copper plate inscription is no longer there at present. I had been to the Dwaraka math personally and could not see the original inscription. I could only find the copy of the Inscription. I was told that  the inscription was handed over to the Government (i.e., probably to Mr. Cunningham the then head of  the Archaeology department of the British Government). It would have been good if at least a photograph of that inscription could have been obtained. It is quite possible that the British could have sent the copper plate to the British Museum or could have even destroyed it (the copper plate), for the reason that a proof of the 6th century BCE date of Shankaracharya would have challenged the Aryan Invasion Theory. Sometime back I wrote a letter to Dr. Gautam Sen Gupta,  the Director general of the Archaeological Survey of India with a request to help find the record of Sudhanva's copper inscription the records of his department but it seems my request has fallen in deaf ears and I did not even get any acknowledgement of my letter.

Regards,

Sunil KB

--

निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)

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[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

The so-called sudhanva grant has never been made available for study. The text provided in Jayanta Misra's article is the same as what has been produced before in a host of publications, for more than a century now. A very clear and at-times-entertaining, at-times-infuriating read of the matter can be found in Varanasi Rajagopal Sharma's Hindi book, jagadguru SAnkara maTha vimarSa. We can construct conspiracy theories of why it has never been possible for anyone to produce the original inscription or we can take a broad look at the entire situation and judge whether a copper-plate inscription from before 500 BCE existed to begin with. Anyone familiar with the documented history of brAhmI and kharoshThI scripts should enquire into the original script in which the deed by this sudhanvan was recorded, how it was deciphered and what else can be gleaned from it about the language used for royal gifts 2500 years ago. 

 

Re: the Janamejaya grant, Sri Kota Venkatachalam claims that there was a Jangama Matha headed by one Goswamy Anandalinga Jangama with a disciple named Jnanalinga Jangama at the time of Janamejaya, great-grandson of Arjuna, the Pandava, managing the Kedarnath temple from Ushamath (Ukhimath?). He provides text in Devanagari script. The ancientindians blog site gives the text in Telugu script and mentions the gotra of janamejaya as vaiagrani vayaghra (vaiyAkaraNa? vyAghra?). Note that there is a vyAghra gotra among the Paliwal Rajputs, whilch underlies the modern surname Waghela.

 

Perhaps the next date to be revisited is that of Basava, the leader of the vIraSaiva-s and Siva-SaraNa-s? He had to have lived in the Treta or Dvapara Yuga if there were already Jangama Mathas this early in the Kali yuga! Prudence demands that one should ask, is it not possible that the Jangamwadi Math that has managed the Kedarnath temple for a few centuries is laying claim to a far-fetched history of 5000+ years? And again, shouldn't one enquire into the original script in which the deed by Janamejaya was recorded, how it was deciphered and what linguistic features can be gleaned from 5000 years ago? 

 

Best regards,

Vidyasankar

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear friends.,

One thing is for sure that the mathas have no reason to lie. The Shringeri matha has not been luing when it said  that Adi Shankara was born on the 14th year of the reign of Vikramaditya and there was indeed one Vikramaditya, who died in 457 BCE and there was the Vikrama Era, which was superceded by the latter Vikrama Era of 57 BCE. AlbEruni does mention that. That Vikramaditya  was known to Hala or Purnavarman, who lived in the junction of the 5th and the 6th century BCE.

The Dwaraka math is also not lying when it speaks of the grant by Sudhanva. The accusing finger can go to the British authorities, who had every reason to gain by hiding the copper grant, for the reason I mentioned in my last mail. In fact there is every reason to agree that the Dwarka Matha authorities were persuaded to part with the copper inscritption, in favour of safe-keeping by the archaeological authorities of the day.

It would have been of great interest if that copper plate  inscriptions would have been available so that the script could have been studied by the linguists. But here also one thing is sure that the Linguists have never been known to say emphatic yes to anything. Lord Buddha's texts are in Shuddha Magadhi or Pali, which became the classical language in order to preserve the purity of the many Buddhist scriptures, which have been written in that. Lord Mahavira's texts are in Ardhamagadhi, which evolved from Shuddha-Magadhi over several centuries and that itself shows that Lord Mahavira was born centuries later than Lord Buddha, but no linguist woth his salt ever poited that out. But it is very clear now that Lord Buddha lived 13 centuries before Lord Mahavira.

Regards,

Sunil KB

--

निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)

[Ashok Aklujkar]

On 2013-10-28, at 10:18 PM, sunil bhattacharjya wrote: >One thing is for sure that the mathas have no reason to lie. ... The accusing finger can go to the British authorities, who had every reason to gain by hiding the copper grant, for the reason I mentioned in my last mail. In fact there is every reason to agree that the Dwarka Matha authorities were persuaded to part with the copper inscritption, in favour of safe-keeping by the archaeological authorities of the day. ... one thing is sure that the Linguists have never been known to say emphatic yes to anything.<

Will you please explain how you arrived at the certainty of all these conclusions?

And, *after you have done the above (take your time),* will you please clarify (a) why history writing should proceed on the basis of some modern person's certainty instead of some objective or relatively objective evidence going near the relevant time, (b) why imputation of a motive should take the place of evidence, (c) why there should be no need to prove the motive itself on the basis of some objective or relatively objective evidence going near the relevant time, and (d) how you reconcile your statements in this thread with your statement "Not all that comes in the name of Shankaracharya are by Adi Shankaracharya" (with which I agree) under the Kundalini thread -- what makes you certain in one thread and not certain in the other?

a.a.

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Dear Bhattacharyaji,

 

I think one should not invest maTha-s with personalities capable of lying or speaking the truth. They are not individual people, but a collection of people, each with their own agendas, virtues and failings.

 

We should also remember that a maTha is not just a forest dwelling of a saMnyAsin. They have become institutions with recorded histories, finances, debts, land ownership and tenants, administrations, administrators and employees, lay followers, champions and detractors. This situation generates its fair share of problems and a saMnyAsin maThAdhipati often has little say over these matters. Indeed, if a saMnyAsin wants to maintain his personal focus on saMnyAsa and sAdhana, he has to remain padmapatram ivAmbhasA, ensuring that he does not get entangled in the saMsAra caused by the maTha. Some maThAdhipati-s succeed, some fail, others have mixed records. All of this is par for the course.

 

Therefore, we need to develop an element of viveka here - an ability to separate fiction from fact and to separate reasonable self-accounts from far-fetched claims. We can accuse our past British colonial rulers of many faults indeed, but let us accuse them for the right reasons. We would do a disservice to ourselves if we start tilting at the windmills of Aryan Invasion/Migration theories and tie those in to the date of Adi Sankara, Mahavira and Buddha. The actual dates, histories and legends associated with these religious leaders had really very little to do with the search for a proto-Indo-European homeland or the dates of invasions/migrations into or out of the India.

 

Finally, speaking as a south Indian, I think those of us interested in history should also get rid of the fixation with the vikramAditya who ruled from Ujjain. There are plenty of vikrama-s, Aditya-s and vikramAditya-s to choose from in the Chola, Pandya, Calukya and Rashtrakuta dynasties. And from the time of gautamIputra SAtakarNI of the Satavahana dynasty, south India has largely chosen to record its significant events in SakAbda, not as per the vikrama samvat. The vikrama mentioned as the king in whose 14th year Sankara was born could have well been a vikrama from the Calukya dynasty, which ruled for many centuries over the land that comprised most of today's Maharashtra, Andhra and Karnataka.

 

Best regards,

Vidyasankar

[Ashok Aklujkar]

Dear Shri Bhattacharjya,

On 2013-10-29, at 3:17 PM, you wrote:

>,,, the Dwarka Math stated in their article in "Vimarsh" published in the 19th century (i.e. during the British regime) that the copper plate inscription was with the Government. It obviously went to the Archaeology department of the British Government. Most likely Mr. Cunningham was the Head of that department in those days.<

(a) Pl give me an exact reference to the article and, when you can, a copy of it. In such matters, a historian much study the wording closely.
(b) If the claim of handing something over to the (essentially British) government is sufficient to attribute a very specific motive (something like 'suppression of the greater antiquity of Indian culture/history'), why should we not attribute, to the claimant, the motive 'he/they would not have been able to prove the antiquity of the inscription and, therefore, they are finding ways of arguing for the inscription's loss or disappearance'?
(c) Should a historian be satisfied with "obviously" and "most likely"? Is there not a story of a historian who saw two persons attacking each other right in front of him and found, after going to the court as a witness, that he had totally misunderstood the situation and convicted a wrong person in his mind?
(d) If Mr. Cunningham turned over the inscription to the Archaeology department, there would be some entry in the acquisitions register of how, when and from where it came to the Department. If Mr. Cunningham was so prejudiced and biased as to destroy the inscription or not hand it over to the Archaeology department, at least a few other cases of this kind of behaviour on his part, *proved beyond a reasonable doubt by competent historians with clear documentation,* should be pointed out.
(Incidentally, were all these foreigners traveling to difficult-to-reach places and occasionally living in uncomfortable conditions year after year only because they wished to deny India something or deprive India of its valuables? Were all of them persons without any genuine thirst for knowledge? If at least a few had this thirst, would they not have criticized or complained about the others lacking that thirst and having sinister motives? Evidence exists of some of the foreign researchers' Indian helpers not getting due credit or opportunity to publish their own views, but has it been proved that the malaise was so widespread or routine that it can be used as a reason without getting into any specifics of the case at hand?)

You further wrote:
>As regards the role of the linguists I showed that they are not infallible and in support of that I mentioned about the times of Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira and of the languages used for recording their teachings, i.e., the Shuddha-Magadhi (or Pali) and ArdfhaMagadhi (or Jaina-Prakrt). The Mahayana literature was, of course in Sanskrt. Now I will give you another example as to how the linguist had been unable to help the historians whereas the historians are able to help the linguists. Linguists have pointed out the similarities in the literary style etc. of Ashvaghosha and Kalidasa and the linguists are baffled as to who preceded whom but one who knows ancient Indian history well would affirm that Ashwaghosha (a contemporary of Kanishka) of the 13th century BCE preceded Kalidasa. Here I am not talking of only one Kalidasa but of the Kalidasa-trayee.<

Failure in respect to a particular case ('Is the language of the inscription under consideration like Sanskrit in the 13th century B.C. or a later period?') needs to be established. A very general claim of fallibility can be made about any specialization. Do you know a specialist of Sanskrit, well-informed about Vedic Skt, Classical Skt etc. -- having a historical view of Skt language and literature, who has concluded that the language of the inscription is like some other text or group of texts that can reasonably be dated to the 13th century B.C. or an earlier period? If you do, kindly present his/her analysis. If you yourself are that kind of specialist, pl make a detailed case for the antiquity of the inscription text. And if you cannot meet these expectations either change your view (at least to 'no resolution is possible; the case must be left undecided') or discontinue this discussion.

In the remainder of your response, you agree with the principles of good historical research to which I wanted you to agree. I hope you will check if what you wrote (and will be writing) is in conformity with them.

Just to share with you and the forum what I have learned so far on some of the side issues you allude to (I will not be discussing these points in any future exchanges with you for want of time and because they are not really germane to the inscription issue):

(a) >Shuddha-Magadhi (or Pali) and ArdfhaMagadhi (or Jaina-Prakrt). The Mahayana literature was, of course in Sanskrt.<
(a1) Any language in use at any given time is a mixture of the old and new, of what it is native to it -- what it seems to have naturally inherited and what it seems to have taken over from other languages -- usually neighbouring languages. The historical classifications in such terms as ';suddha or pure is only relative.
(a2) Respectable linguists do not speak of Pali as Vi;suddha Maagadhii. In fact, several of them are uncertain about whether Paali is an Eastern Pkt or a Western Pkt. (I suppose you know that "Paali" is originally not a language name.) The 'ardha" in "Ardhamaagadhii" itself indicates that a mixed form of language is meant. No linguist sees the Skt of Mahaayaana literature as Skt in the same sense as in "Classical Skt." Scholars spoke of it as "hybrid" and some still employ the term in referring to it.

(b) >Linguists have pointed out the similarities in the literary style etc. of Ashvaghosha and Kalidasa and the linguists are baffled as to who preceded whom but one who knows ancient Indian history well would affirm that Ashwaghosha (a contemporary of Kanishka) of the 13th century BCE preceded Kalidasa. Here I am not talking of only one Kalidasa but of the Kalidasa-trayee.<
(b1) You presuppose what you need to prove ('A;svagho.sa lived in the 13th century B.C.') to make your point.
(b2) Pointing out similarity of style linguistically is not the same as pointing out similarity in literary terms. The similarity of style pointed out between A;svagho.sa and Kaalidaasa is mostly of the latter kind (e.g, it has been noted that the two authors employ similar tropes, details etc. in describing such scenes as that of a wedding procession).
(b3) I am personally not convinced that Kaalidaasa as the author of the works in which similar scene descriptions occur is later than A;svagho.sa, but this is beside the point. I mention it only to suggest that the issue should not be treated as closed as you and several historians of Classical Skt literature have done. The question, 'Is there anything in Kaalidaasa's personality that would make him a Buddhist author?' needs to be asked.
(b3) I do not know what your understanding of the three Kaalidaasas (a possibility suggested by a verse of Råja-;sekhara in the 9th-10th century A.D.) is, but I would be surprised if one could prove all of them to be post-A;svagho.sa without associating them with certain surviving texts on irrefutable grounds.

(c) >The Rajatarangini gives the chronological details, which the colonial historians rejected. Those historians also rejected the chronologies given in our Itihasa and Puranas. That itself shows that in the colonial times there were efforts to suppress the facts of ancient Indian history.<
(c1) Yes, in some cases the early historians were wrong in rejecting the chronology indicated by the Raaja-tara:ngi.nii, but, as far as I know, they generally did so under the influence of the historical understanding that was then prevailing, not because they wanted to suppress something or because they were colonial. Again, to say so would be an imputation of motive or of a consciously entertained bias. It will have to be proved through their wording or the testimony of their contemporaries. Scholars are not born or do not become omniscient. Their mistakes can be honest, too, and, like all of us, they can also be misled by what is known in their time or be imperfect in their knowledge. Only when these possibilities are ruled out and some kind of confirming objective evidence exists, we should accuse them of bias or such actions as suppressing.
(c2) I do not know of any historian of ancient India who has unqualifiedly rejected the chronologies found in the Itihaasa and Puraa.nas. They do reject them where the text is uncertain, is contradicted by other Puraa.nas, flies in the face of common-sense (e.g., 'King K ruled for a thousand years') or the number given is a conventional round number. Some do occasionally commit the error of setting aside an Itihaasa or Puraa.na statement simply because it does not agree with the conclusion of modern historian. However, on the whole, the work of scholars like Pargiter is still taken seriously. The more critical editions we get of the Puraa.nas, the better their use probably will be. The problem ultimately is that very little material has survived and significant gaps exist.

Time for me and my keyboard to rest.

astu diipaavali.h ;subhaa.

a.a.

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Vidyashankarji,

I have not invested maTha-s with personalities capable of lying or speaking the truth. In company law a company may have many people but it is considered to be a person. I extended that sort of representation to the Matha. If you do not approve of it it is okay. I shall not say the shringeri matha had not lied. I will restate that as follows. One of the Mathadhipatis disclosed the fact as per the Matha records Adi Shankaracharya was born on the 15th year of the reign of Vikramaditya and that has not been contested so far. As the fact, that Adi Shankaracharya was born on the 15th year of the reign of Vikramaditya, emanated from no other source other than the Shringeri Math itself, it is incumbent on the Matha to find out that particular Vikramaditya.

Your said that "the Vikrama mentioned as the king in whose 14th year Sankara was born could have well been a vikrama from the Calukya dynasty". It appears to me that all such attempts must have failed, as till date no scholar could produce any valid information so far to relate the 788 CE date for Adi Shankaracharya with any of the  Vikramadityas of the Chalukya dynasty. Quite sometime ago I also looked at this aspect but I could not find a single Vikramadiutrya of the Chalukya dunasty to fit the bill. I am very sure there is no such Vikramaditya of the Chalukya dynasty to support the 788 BCE date. May be you would like to give it try yourself.

It will be nice if you can tell us since which date the Shringeri math had accepted (I mean publicly proclaimed)  the  788 CE as the birth year of Adi Shankaracharya.

Regards,

Sunil KB

--

[Ajit Gargeshwari]

Dear Sunil Bhattachrya,

You are participating discussions on 3 threads. Please give us some tangible and concrete evidence to the views you are proposing.  If you have given such evidence it is fine. 'Tit of Tat" replying is not going to help any one. If you are prolonging threads without any further evidence nothing fruitful can be gained.

Let us treat views expressed by math's with sensitivity. Their views are their views.

No modern researcher with any historical sense if ever going to believe or accept " That Vikramaditya  was known to Hala or Purnavarman, who lived in the junction of the 5th and the 6th century BC."

Copper plates produced as evidences might be spurious unless it is given into the hands of historians for examination it is never any evidence at all.

Some orthodox tradition fix the date of Shankara at 5 century BC. Such an obviously observed date does not require any serious considerations at all. Attempts to fix the date of shankra on the Basis of positions of planets given in the biogrphies is of no use as all the biographies are late and not dependable.

Some historians have tried to find historical personages is his sutra bhashya. All such identifications are arbitrary; there is no evidence to show any historical person was intended. Has Shankara explicitly an clearly said so? No he has not.

Many works are attributed Shankara and one can clearly see many of them are late works and are not works Shankara the Sutra Bhashya authors. Arguments based on doubtful works cannot be taken as historical evidences.

In this scenario a reasonable way of arriving at his date is to closely considers Shankara's thought in relation other philosophers such as Mandana Mishra, Vachaspati, Bhaskara, Kamalasila, Dharmakirti, Kumarila and arrive at a relative chronology not an absolute date till we have conclusive and undisputed evidence to prove one date or the other.

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Ajitji,

I have no desire to prolong the discussions. What I said is that from my research I have come to the conclusion that Adi Shankaracharya was born in 509 BCE and I wish to apprise the scholars of the salient features of the new work.  To my knowledge more and more people are accepting this date and I understand that even Kengo Harimoto is in the process of revising his paper on the date of Adi Shankaracharya, in view of the recently acquired data.

Regards,

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Let me begin with a caveat. Contrary to appearances, I am not an official spokesperson for the Sringeri Matha. Here, I am only sharing my own conclusions, after having conducted my own study of the advaita vedAnta texts and traditions. If you are interested in an official statement, please write a letter to Sri V R Gowrishankar, the current chief administrator of the Sringeri Peetham. The Matha authorities continue to be very old-fashioned about these matters and letters, written with the proper, traditional respect and decorum in their content and tone, have a better chance of getting a response than emails and mailing list or blog discussions.

 

Also, please note that the old Sringeri record does NOT say vikramAditya. It only says vikrama. The difference in name may or may not be significant, but I note it here, as elsewhere for the sake of the record. A similar statement, that Sankara was born in the 14th (not 15th, as far as I know) year of a king named vikrama, is also found in a Tamil text called kongudeSa rAjAkkaL (an account of the kings who ruled over kongudeSa, i.e. modern Coimbatore and its neighbourhood).

 

I think that you have a diametrically opposite view from the Sringeri Mathadhipatis/administrators in recent times with respect to what level of historical detail about this vikrama is incumbent upon them to find out. Prior to around the year 1800, none of the advaita sampradAya maThas in India really bothered about such details. It was the colonial context and a peculiarly non-Indian preoccupation with historical dates of religious leaders that created this problem in the first place. For that matter, prior to the early 1900s, there was really no tradition of observing Sankara Jayanti every year. This tradition was started by the then Sringeri Sankaracharya and all the other institutions of advaita vedAnta have followed suit since then. And the way this Sankaracharya fixed the date for Sankara Jayanti was based not upon shaky and mutually contradictory astrological details found in various texts (or claimed to be found in one or the other dubious text), but by simply applying the kaTapayAdi saMkhyA to the name Sankara, resulting in the vaiSAkha month (ra = 2), Sukla paksha (ka = 1), pancamI tithi (Sa = 5).

 

In my very first response to you on this topic, I had pointed you to Swami Tapasyananda's preface to the translation of the mAdhavIya Sankaravijaya. The letter quoted there specifically states that the Sringeri authorities have disclosed their record and left the job of interpretation and identification to historians. This was something that you seemed to approve of, a few posts ago. Part of leaving a job of historical research to historians also means that there needs to be a willingness to engage with the conclusions of such research in a rational and logical manner and a willingness to accept them where appropriate. At one point of time, more than a hundred years ago, some thought it referred to the vikramAditya of the vikrama samvat, and so some of the old maTha publications mention the 1st cent BCE date. This then resulted in an improbable period of 700+ years being assinged to sureSvarAcArya. Close to the beginning of the 20th century, others pointed out that the vikrama of this record could have been a southern king, while other evidence came to light with respect to the 788 CE date, such as the manuscript quoted by Pathak in his Indian Antiquary article, the Kerala tradition relating Sankara with the origin of the Kollam era, etc. Note that the identification of the vikrama in whose time Sankara was supposedly born with a Chalukyan king named Vikramaditya was a proposal by independent researchers. Tthe earliest to make this identification, to my knowledge, was B. Lewis Rice, compiler of Epigraphia Carnatica, an archaeologist and epigraphist in the then Mysore state. So the Sringeri administration gave up the 1st century BCE date and adopted the 8th century CE date, simply because this resulted in a more realistic time period that could be assigned to sureSvara and later successors in the lineage. That is about the gist of it.

 

At the time all this happened, the Sringeri Sankaracharya was Swami Chandrasekhara Bharati, a maThAdhipati who often remained antarmukha and who was least interested in any of this kind of activity. And you have no doubt visited the links to what Swami Abhinava Vidyatirtha, his successor, said about the matter in the year 1988 when the 1200th birth anniversary of Sankara was observed all over India under government patronage. These were provided by Sri V. Subrahmanian on the Advaita list earlier, but here is the top link again, http://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/greatness-of-shankaras-life-and-teachings-1/. Please note what this Sringeri Sankaracharya frankly said, right in the opening paragraph, "Historically, 1200-1300 years have passed since Bhagavatpada was born. ... the mere reason that 788 A.D. may actually not be the year of Bhagavatpada’s advent cannot debar or render censurable the current twelfth birth centenary celebrations." He was open to the idea that 788 CE may not be the exact year, but the 5th century BCE date was certainly not admitted as a possibility. This is as official as it can get from Sringeri, but if you choose to think of this acceptance of a certain fuzziness in historical conclusions while going with the generally accepted 788 CE date as a form of lying, that is your call.

 

Please also note that the Sringeri authorities have NOT changed their paramparA list at any point of time, except to realign the probable time periods to fit with indpendent evidence from other sources of history. They have been the only ones to admit that their solid, documented evidence dates from around the 14th century CE when the Vijayanagara empire was born and that everything in between Sankara and Vidyaranya is subject to the fine tuning of historical research and its conclusions. They have been the only ones not to pretend that they have records of details of every event in the lives of every single person in the reported paramparA. For about a hundred years now, what they have got in return for this intellectual honesty and an openness towards objective and independent research is a lot of flak from many different quarters, including leaders and followers of those institutions that have taken the opposite attitude towards history and Sankara's birth year. Yet, over the last century, whenever those institutions have needed to fix problems in their own backyards, their leaders have invariably turned to Sringeri for guidance. Such is the irony of the situation today.

 

Finally, let me reiterate that the Sringeri administration today reproduces the 788 CE date for Sankara, not because that was the 14th year of a king named vikrama who has been successfully identified, but because of other sources of evidence that pointed to this date. I won't go into detail here, but will leave it with a general statement that the evidence in support of 788 CE was sufficient to convince independent scholars like Dr. Kunjunni Raja, who had absolutely no stakes in supporting one maTha over another. Personally speaking, I think one can leave the issue as some time in the late 8th century CE, without having to get more specific, but I also think that the article by Kengo Harimoto that I cited could help narrow this window of about a century down to a 16 year period between 756 and 772 CE.

 

If you are still very keen to find out a specific Vikramaditya in the Chalukya dynasty and assign a date, you have many to choose from. There were Vikramaditya I (655-680) and Vikramaditya II (733-746) in the first dynasty, which lost power to the Rashtrakutas in the year 756. And there were Vikramaditya V (1008-1015) and Vikramaditya VI (1076-1126) in the second dynasty, which came back to power around 973 CE. These 11th century dates are certainly too late to be considered seriously for Sankara bhagavatpAda, but note that the last one was the hero of Bilhana's Vikramankadevacarita and was responsible for a Chalukya Vikrama era. We don't really know who were the Vikramaditya-s numbered III and IV in that family, but they certainly had to have lived in a two century timeframe after the year 756 CE.

 

Vidyasankar

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Aklujkarji,

It seems you are new to the controversy about the date of Adi Shankaracharya and that means I shall have to apprise you from the beginning and it will be a very time consuming job. If you want to delve into it you will have to be prepared to spend time and efforts. As you are new to it you will have endless questions. I am not discouraging you but if you want all the details from me you can have it, if and when I write a detailed paper or a book on it. It took me years of study and investigation on Adi Shankara's date to arrive at the conclusion I have reached. Of course, if you think that the Dwarka math could be lying and the British authorities are above board, then you don't need to go into this topic at all. That is because prof. Max Muller, working for the Britishers, had come to the conclusion that Adi Shankara was born in 788 CE.

Anyway I will give you brief details, more to serve as clues, as to how you can proceed if you like

If my memory serves me right the paper on Sudhanva's inscription as published in Vimarsh, was written by the 73rd Shankaracharya of the Dwarka math Sri Rarashwar Shankershram in 1897 CE. I read the details during my personal visit to the Dwarka math. My efforts to locate Sudhanva's copper plate inscription did not yield any fruit. You may try to find that if you so wish.

As regards Ashwaghosha I don't need to have to separately prove that Ashwaghosha was living in the 13th century BCE. That is because I showed that his contemporary Kanishka was living in the 13th century BC.

As regards Shuddha-Magadhi or Pali versus the Ardha-Magadhi or Jaina prakrit I have shown (on the basis of historical investigations) that the former was the spoken language of the 19th century BCE and the latter of the 6th century BCE. I have drawn my conclusions as it appeared logical to me and you can draw your own conclusions. No quarrel on that. 

You are a well known Sanskrit scholar, yet it appears to me that you are unable to accept that chronologically the classical Sanskrit was later than the Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit. Historical studies have shown that Panini was living at a later period than Ashvaghosha. Seeing the unwelcome changes in the Sanskrit starting from the Vedic Sanskrit, the great stalwart Panini very well could have got motivated to take up the cudgel to write his Ashtadhyayi.

As regards the rejection of the pauranic chronology by the historians you referred to the the cause is crystal-clear. They did not pauranic chronology to contests the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) chronology.

Regards,

Sunil KB

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Vidyashankarji,

Yes I have great respect for the Shringeri mathadhipati, Unfortunately I had not been able to have his darshan soi far. Once I had been to Shringeri in 1989 or so but Swamiji was away from Shringeriat that time. .I also had been to Kudali Shringeri and the mathadhipati there was very kind to give an audience.,

The old Sringeri record, to my knowledge, says that it was in the 14th year of the reign of Vikramarka that (Adi) Shankaracharya was born.

Offhand I cannot tell you the name of the particular mathadhipati but what I remember reading is that in the beginning of the twentieth century one Mathadhipati of Shringeri opened the special box, where the matha records are in the custody of the Mathadhipati. and that he passed on the details that (Adi) Shankaracharya was born on the 14th year of Vikramarka..

You may be aware that Dr. Hutzch also could find some record of Shankara-mathas in Karnataka going back to the 6th century BCE.. Are you sure that there is no chance of the old record of the Shringeri math being destroyed by the Muslim invaders particularly when Malik Kafur.even said to have managed to break the idol of Saradamnma there?

Finally it is good to hear that the Shringeri authorities finally disowned the fact that Adi Shankaracharya was born oj the 14th year of the reign of Vikramarka.

Regards,

Sunil KB

[Ajit Gargeshwari]

Dear Sunil Bhattacharya,

I am new here and would like to seek your guidance on this. I am encouraged from you mails and would like to know further details you have with you.

Dwarka Math may not be lying that doesn't mean what they say based on a secret copper plate inscription should be accepted as a historical fact.

As I have said before let us not go into Mathas and their chronology as it is a sensitive issue.

There are  so many Vikramas, heads of Shankra maths who called themselves as Shankaracharyas , finally  Kanishka 1 and 2 known to history.

Placing Asvagosha in 13 century BC goes against all accepted chronology as history is known to historians.

Which historical studies that have shown Panini lived after Asvagosha? Which studies have shown Asvagosha to be a contemporary of Kanishka? How do you say Shuddha-Magadhi was spoken during 19th century BCE and Ardha-Mgagadhi was spoken during 6th century BCE?

Where has Panini said he has seen" unwelcome changes in the Sanskrit starting from the Vedic Sanskrit" and hence he is writing new system of grammar. I would like to be pointed to the precise reference of Panini.

Do you have any published papers reviewed in an peer to peer journal or any books you have written on your claims or is it a theory you are proposing? You have answered this question,  as of now since no book or paper of yours is not published scholars can exercise the discretion of accepting or rejecting such a theory . I would like to be pointed towards published books and articles for these dates not hypothesis and I am ready to wait.

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

[Ajit Gargeshwari]

=====Mod Note========

All The 3 threads which Link to the date of Shankara is closed.

An exhaustive discussions on these points have already been made in advaita-L mailing list. I think Vidyashankar and Sunil Bhattacharya have placed their views already on that mailing List.

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

[Ashok Aklujkar]

Honouring the moderator's wish, I am not going to continue this thread. However, I need to bring clarification to the posts I have already made on the topic specified above:

On 2013-10-30, at 9:00 PM, sunil bhattacharjya wrote: >It seems you are new to the controversy about the date of Adi Shankaracharya< 

No, I am not. I have known the controversy for at least thirty years and read about it whenever I could. Although in several areas of ancient Indian history I am in favour of taking the dates back in time, the date of Aadi ;Sa:nkaraacaarya is not one of them. In proper historical research, definite documentary evidence (true copies will do in certain cases) and objective evidence (arising in a manner close to literal and contextually justifiable meanings of words found in relevant texts) should carry greater weight. 'Who of modern personalities said what' should not matter much. I was expecting you to go back to primary evidence, which you unfortunately did not or could not. Even in referring to your own conclusions, you did not reproduce. the relevant parts of your writings or direct me to the precise locations of the relevant writings (By this I do not mean earlier reiterations of what you said in the thread on this forum. I mean only the parts in which an argumentation *based on definite documentation interpreted or analysed rigorously* is offered). Shri Gargeshwari has already spoken of this.  

On the contrary, you wrote: > if you want all the details from me you can have it, if and when I write a detailed paper or a book on it.< I can understand waiting for a few details, but if none of the crucial details about which I asked are not with you, why did you participate in the discussion at this time and on what real basis did you assert what you did?

You have also given evidence of misunderstanding me. For example, you remarked: > if you think that the Dwarka math could be lying and the British authorities are above board, then you don't need to go into this topic at all.< 

Where did I say that " the Dwarka math could be lying and the British authorities are above board,"? In fact, my point has been that we do not impute motives *as far as possible* and, when we have to impute them, we must have at least some *directly applicable* documentary proof. We should leave room for the possibilities (a) na hi sarva.h sarva.m jaanaati -- even otherwise learned people can commit errors, especially in some areas and disciplines with which they are not familiar -- and (b) there can be genuinely honest mistakes or formations of wrong judgements. Shri Vidyasankar Sundaresan has already brought the scope for such possibilities to your attention. 

Lastly, you wrote: >You are a well known Sanskrit scholar, yet it appears to me that you are unable to accept that chronologically the classical Sanskrit was later than the Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit. Historical studies have shown that Panini was living at a later period than Ashvaghosha. Seeing the unwelcome changes in the Sanskrit starting from the Vedic Sanskrit, the great stalwart Panini very well could have got motivated to take up the cudgel to write his Ashtadhyayi.< 

It is not a 'yet' case. It is a 'because' case. Precisely because I know a thing or two about Sanskrit and the proper methodologies for the relevant fields, I, like Shri Gargeshwari, cannot accept any of your conclusions listed here. (To say this is not to say that historians should not consider different possibilities or that one should not disagree with the conclusions of predecessors in the field. What I am saying is that one should not do so unless one really has good, precise evidence.) 

If I remain silent on any expansion of the above-mentioned issues that you may make on this forum, pl do not attribute anything to me that my words above do not convey. 

1. In my last post, the following typos need to be corrected (the correction is shown in brackets or rectangular parentheses):

(a)  In such matters, a historian much [--> must] study the wording closely. 

(b) The question, 'Is there anything in Kaalidaasa's personality that would make him [imitate] a Buddhist author?' needs to be asked.

(c) Some do occasionally commit the error of setting aside an Itihaasa or Puraa.na statement simply because it does not agree with the conclusion of modern historian[s].

a.a.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Ajit Gargeshwaiji,

I am happy that you have asked a few basic questions. At the outset I wish to make it known to you and the other friends that I am just giving my views and my line of reasoning and I also find that all your questions fall in line. However you are free to reject my reasoning if you consider that unacceptable to you and there should not be any quarrel on that.

From Pauranic data I found that Lord Buddha lived in the 19th century BCE.  Dr. Narahari Achar's astronomical dating supports that. My work on the Dotted Records also favours that. A paper on that was presented to WAVES conference in 2008. Buddhists accept that Lord Buddha taught in the language of the people at his time and Pali was the language and there are canonical Buddhist literature in that language. Lord Buddha gave more than one promulgation. In his second promulgation in the Vulture-peak,  he taught the Mahayana principles and he had Brahmin disciples who recorded those in the Sanskrit and that is the starting time  of the use Buddhist-Hybrid Sanskrit. Buddhists accept that Lord Buddha's Mahayana teaching were not disclosed immediately and it was only 500 years after Lord Buddha's demise those were disclosed by Nagarjuna.  Buddhists also Nagarjuna and Ashvaghosha were contemporary of Kanishka. Kanishka lived in the 13th century BCE. From Rajatarangini we find that Gonanada III was ruling Kashmir from 1919 of Kali Era, which is 1182 BCE.Prior to Gonanda III Kashmir was ruled by Abhimanyu and prior to Abhimanyu the rulers were  Hushka, Jushka and Kanishka. Dr. Narahari Achar's astronomical dating of Kanishka in the 13th century BCE  is quite in order, though it challenges the view of the present day historians.

Now coming to Panini I never challenged the date pf Panini. No Scholar gave the date of Panini before the 19th century BCE date of Lord Buddha. As Panini lived after Lord Buddha, he indeed saw the Sanskrit as used in those days and he  was indeed oppressed by the state of the Sanskrit language in his time. The highest antiquity given to Panini by the scholars is around the 13th century BCE. and that makes Panini at most a contemporary of Ashvaghosha.

I am a scientist by profession and took to Indological studies when I found that the main line of academic scholars are interested only in producing quick publications and they did not have time and inclination for certain  serious issues, which demanded more time andthose works may even be considered thankless. It may also be that their academic responsibilities restricted their scope and freedom. For me no such restrictions apply.

That is why I took up (a) the task of working on the original Bhagavad Gita of 745 Verses and the book will be published soon. (b) I also took up the date of Mahabaharata war, at first through historical studies followed by astronomical studies and I found that the war indeed took pl;ace towards the end of 3139 BCE. I could find the three consecutive eclipses within which there was an eclipse pair meeting the 13-days interval. No scholar could find hese eclipses in 3139 BCE  so far.  Here I have differed from Dr. Achar. (c) I worked towards establishing  the dating of Lord Buddha and my paper on Dotted Records was for that. The paper is freely available in the Internet. (d) I worked on the Chaturyuga scale as given in the Suryasiddhanta and the Puranas, which have been misinterpreted by most of the scholars. (e) I  worked on the date of Adi Shankaracharya. (f) I also worked on the dating of Lord Ram, as that issue also remains unsolved till this day as the dates found by Dr. Vartak, Pushkar Bhatnagar and others had been challenged by scholars and shown to be wrong. God willing I should be able to publish some of these works in course of time, but unlike other authors I began sharing my views in advance as my reserach progressed.

Regards,

Sunil KB

[Ajit Gargeshwari]

Thanks to all scholars who participated in this discussion with their remarks If there are any other important issues which have got side tracked please start separate threads and discuss. Our moderation team is open to all discussions .

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

[Haresh Gala]

This all copper plates were written in what Script ?

We find only Brahmi Script from Ashokan Period. Kharosthi also little bit earlier. similarly Tamil Brahmi

Earliest Indus-Harappan/Sindhu-Saraswati Script is yet to be fully deciphered. The content is normally very few characters.

I m 100% doubtful abt  Janamejaya inscriptions !