Re: [advaitin] Atrocities in Shankaracharya Sanskrit University.

[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.

On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 11:27 PM V Subrahmanian <v.subra...@gmail.com> wrote:

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 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

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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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[विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)]

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

[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

[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?

[sunil bhattacharjya]

On the contrary, the new Sringeri] math on the bank of the river Tunga, had come out with different genealogies at different times. For example, at one time it claimed the year of Adi Sankara's birth to be 44 BCE, to show as if this meets the Tunga-Sringeri math's own ancient record that Adi Sankara was born on the 14th year of reign of King Vikramaditya. Can you please tell me one good reason why Tunga sringeri math had changed their genealogies from time to time. According to me, what they are doing is unethical or illegitimate, if you think the synonymous word criminal is too harsh.

[विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2022 at 21:39, sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tunga sringeri math had changed their genealogies from time to time.

Any evidence for this? Please note that a geneology is just a sequence of names of prior AchArya-s. Proposing dates for them is entirely separate exercise. The former, as far as I know, has remained constant.

Can you please tell me one good reason why

Better understanding about historical evidence (eg. first inscriptional reference to shankarabhAShya being about ~10th century CE) and who the "vikramAditya" might have been? Correcting oneself is a noble trait. I'd say fabricating cock and bull stories as "facts" to match fancies is ignoble.

[sunil bhattacharjya]

You appear to find  their changing the guru-paramapara lists with chronological details, from time to time, acceptable. So we may agree to disagree on this point.

[sunil bhattacharjya]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: [hinducivilization] [advaitin] Atrocities in Shankaracharya Sanskrit University.
To: <hinduciv...@groups.io>

Dear VV.

In case you are interested here is one more information as follows:

Shankara Bhagavatpada (509-477 BCE) has been to Kashmir. The Kashmir king Gopaditya

(417-357 BCE) built a temple for Shri Shankara Bhagavatpada in Shrinagar in view of the fact

that the Acharya had been to Kashmir only a short time before his rule. (Ref: A Short History of

Kashmir, Gwasha Lal, 1932. page 27)

skb

On Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 11:07 AM sunil bhattacharjya via groups.io <skbhattacharjya=gmai...@groups.io> wrote:

You appear to find  their changing the guru-paramapara lists with chronological details, from time to time, acceptable. So we may agree to disagree on this point.

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On Fri, 29 Apr 2022 at 06:12, sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: [hinducivilization] [advaitin] Atrocities in Shankaracharya Sanskrit University.
To: <hinduciv...@groups.io>

Dear VV.

In case you are interested here is one more information as follows:

Shankara Bhagavatpada (509-477 BCE) has been to Kashmir. The Kashmir king Gopaditya

(417-357 BCE) built a temple for Shri Shankara Bhagavatpada in Shrinagar in view of the fact

that the Acharya had been to Kashmir only a short time before his rule. (Ref: A Short History of

Kashmir, Gwasha Lal, 1932. page 27)

You mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankaracharya_Temple ? It is a temple for Jyesthesvara (Shiva Jyestharuda) as per kalhaNa. Dedication to a certain shankarAchArya of 417-357 BCE must have been the imagination of shrI gwasha Lal or his proximate predecessors.

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Vishvasji,

you wrote as follows:

"I'd go with mainstream historians whose dating best fits verifiable data."

If that is so, you have to name the references to the works of the mainstream historians, whose dating, according to your claim, best fits verifiable data.

As regards the work of Vidyasankar sundaresan he wrote as follows:

"Up to Vidya Tirtha (also called Vidyasankara), the guru of Vidyaranya, Srngeri's lineage  is based mainly upon oral tradition, there being very few historical records of Srngeri from pre-Vijayanagara times. Vidyaranya, whose association with the Vijayanagara kingdom has become legendary, was the head of the Srngeri matha in the fourteenth century. The pre-vidyaranya lineage of Srngeri receives independent confirmation from a fifteenth Marathi text of the oldest reliable  historical evidence for any matha in the Advaita tradition.

[excerpted from: "Conflicting hagiographies and history: The Place of Sankaravijayas texts in Avaita tradition", by Vidyasankara Sundaresan, Publishedin International Journal of Hindu Studies 4,2(August 2000): 109-84© 2003 by the World Heritage PressInc.]

Do you then agree to the fact that the Sringeri math (on the bank of the river Tundra) was not established by Adi Sankaracharya, but it was a math established only in the 14th century by Vidyaranya, as has been written by vidyasankar Sundaresan.

Thanking you,

Sunil K. Bhattacharjya 

On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 10:04 AM विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki) <vishvas...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 29 Apr 2022 at 22:28, sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh I see. What according to your judgement is the date of Adi Shankara and on what solid proof you got on that?

I'd go with mainstream historians whose dating best fits verifiable data.

 

Sent from my iPhone

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Vishvas /विश्वासः

[विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)]

On Sat, 30 Apr 2022 at 00:15, sunil bhattacharjya <skbhatt...@gmail.com> wrote:

Do you then agree to the fact that the Sringeri math (on the bank of the river Tundra) was not established by Adi Sankaracharya, but it was a math established only in the 14th century by Vidyaranya, as has been written by vidyasankar Sundaresan.

No - from what I glean from VS's paper. Reasons here - 

- a seal of Vidyāśaṅkara, dated to 1235 CE, has been found near Śr̥ṅgeri. Antonio Rigopoulos (1998: 236–37) reports that this inscription "salutes Gauḍapāda, Govinda, and Dattātreya and carries the impression of a boar." Thus, more than a century before Vijayanagara was born, Vidyāśankara must have already been a person of sufficiently advanced age and leadership status in order to have required a seal in his name.

- Ananda Tīrtha (Madhvācārya) began as a Daśanāmi monk, in charge of a maṭha at Uḍupi, before breaking away to form the Dvaita Vedānta tradition. His hagiographers mention debates with 'Śaṅkara' at Śr̥ṅgeri (Aiyangar nd: 233-36).

That said, I remain skeptical about Adi-shankara establishing "maTha-s" at all - just that the shRngeri maTha tradition predates Vijayanagara. As VS notes - 

Even if Śaṅkara did not deliberately set out to establish maṭhas, it is likely that such institutions developed in the places associated with these four disciples and their disciples in turn, thus coming to be known as the principal centers of the Śaṅkaran tradition.

(As an aside - The lack of such top-class objective scholarship is remarkable and speaks to a widespread corruption of honest pursuit of truth.)

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Anandatirtha was living in the 12th century. He was contemporary of Vidyasankara. Vidyasankara was born in the first half of the 12th century and passed away in the 13th century. Anandatirtha could not have met Adi Sankara.

So all evidences point to the fact that the Tunga Sringeri Math was established during the reign of Hukka and Bukka of the the Vijayanagara kingdom

.

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Sorry there was a slip in the previous mail.  Please read the corrected mail as follows:

Anandatirtha (Madhvacharya) was living in the 13th century. He was contemporary of

Vidyasankara. Vidyasankara was born in the first half of the 13th century and passed away in

the 14th century. Anandatirtha could not have met Adi Sankara.

So all evidences point to the fact that the Tunga Sringeri Math was established during the

reign of Hukka and Bukka of the the Vijayanagara kingdom in the 14th century.