date (time, age) of Shankaracharya?

[Guest guest]

> > In fact, strong interest in Samkara, advaita etc is a general

20th

> > century, urban phenomenon.

 

It is getting to be a practice for LS to make such uninformed

statements - it is a known fact that without exception every school

of philosophy which came out after the Advaita only set itself up

criticizing Advaita. Visishtadvaitins, Dvaitins, Saiva Siddhaantis -

for all of them the main opponent is only Advaita.

 

It is also to be noted that even for dravidianists like LS and NG, it

is only Advaita which is big enough to take pot shots at :-)

 

> Samkara's dating has been in public eye

> > since the same time also because of some rather public washing of

> > dirty linen by the various maTha's.

 

Now we're turning to gossip?

 

> > It may come as a surprise but most advaita scholars at least in

the

> > South are not very comfortable in the mother tongue. Many

primarily

> > write or wrote in English. Good examples would be Sarvepalli

> > Radhakrishnan, TMP Mahadevan etc ...

 

But these are english educated Advaitins. It is to be noted that the

most popular Shankara matha in India is in TamilNadu. And

historically there's a huge amount of Advaita literature in Tamil

itself. I actually know people from other parts of the country who

have expressed a desire to learn Tamil just to study these texts.

 

> > You can see this even today in discussion lists on the Net on

> > Advaita. The discussion is primarily in English, using English

> > translations of a sort (full of words the English themselves may

> have

> > forgotten like 'nescience', 'verily' etc ) and most references

are

> to

> > English texts.

 

But why are these people to be taken as the sole representatives of

Advaita in South India?

 

> BTW, in another post you mentioned that none of the traditional

> biographical accounts on Sri Ramanujacharya mention Muslims.

 

Maadhvaachaarya who is dated only a few years later than Raamaanuja

definitely had encountered muslims according to Maadhva literature.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "vishalsagarwal" <vishalagarwal@h...> wrote:

> But is there not a tradition that he went north to retreive

> an icon from the daughter of a Muslim ruler ('of Delhi') and >

re-installed it in the original site in South India?

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Vishal Agarwal

 

This is something new to me atleast. Is there a Srivaishnava

source?

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "vishalsagarwal" <vishalagarwal@h...> wrote:

> INDOLOGY, "lsrinivas" <lsrinivas> wrote:

> > INDOLOGY, "vishalsagarwal" <vishalagarwal@h...> wrote:

> BTW, in another post you mentioned that none of the traditional

> biographical accounts on Sri Ramanujacharya mention Muslims. But is

> there not a tradition that he went north to retreive an icon from

the

> daughter of a Muslim ruler ('of Delhi') and re-installed it in the

> original site in South India?

>

 

This is actually the legend associated with the icon. As you might

recall, Prithviraja Chauhan was in Delhi until 1192 while the first

Muslim raid in Karnataka was ca. 1320's. So what original raid and

what Muslim princess this legend talks of is not clear.

 

This has been discussed in M.R. Sampatkumaran,

"History and Ramanuja's Biography", Sri Ramanuja Vani (inaugural

issue), 20 May 1977, (publ.) Sri Ramanuja Vedanta Centre, Triplicane

Madras.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Lakshmi Srinivas

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "vpcnk" <vpcnk@H...> wrote:

>

> > > In fact, strong interest in Samkara, advaita etc is a general

> 20th

> > > century, urban phenomenon.

>

> It is getting to be a practice for LS to make such uninformed

> statements - it is a known fact that without exception every school

> of philosophy which came out after the Advaita only set itself up

> criticizing Advaita. Visishtadvaitins, Dvaitins, Saiva Siddhaantis -

 

Plse read Agehananda Bharati for a deconstruction of the modern

English educated Indian's attitudes towards Vedanta esp. Advaita. In

particular you may want to recall his remark that it is the the

Advaitin's pet delusion that he must punch the ticket on the last

flight (to Nirvana). I forget the exact words but you will get the

import.

> > Samkara's dating has been in public eye

> > > since the same time also because of some rather public washing

of

> > > dirty linen by the various maTha's.

>

> Now we're turning to gossip?

 

I think a traditionalist in India is not very interested in knowing

when exactly his guru was born etc. The Samkara maThas alone however

seem to have had to deal with this problem because each accused the

other of being a latter day phenomenon and were very keen to show

that there is no continuity in the other maTha's lineage from a

putative date for Samkara. Thus the Kanchi maTha argues that

Samkara's date is 2nd or 3rd century BC (I forget which) but the

Sringeri maTha feels it is 788-820 AD. I am sure you are familiar

with this polemic. Wonder where the Puri maTha stands on this issue.

 

This polemic has been running for a 100 years now. But for a most

recent episode of this on the Net, plse consult the Liverpool

Indology archives.

 

>

> > > It may come as a surprise but most advaita scholars at least in

> the

> > > South are not very comfortable in the mother tongue. Many

> primarily

> > > write or wrote in English. Good examples would be Sarvepalli

> > > Radhakrishnan, TMP Mahadevan etc ...

>

> But these are english educated Advaitins. It is to be noted that

the

> most popular Shankara matha in India is in TamilNadu. And

> historically there's a huge amount of Advaita literature in Tamil

> itself. I actually know people from other parts of the country who

> have expressed a desire to learn Tamil just to study these texts.

 

You may know better about this but to my knowledge scholars like

Radhakrishnan, TMP Mahadevan etc have written only in English. The

Ramakrishna Mission has translated most traditional Samkarite works

into English and these run to many reprints. There are not all

correspondingly rendered in Tamil. Chinmaya Mission's school texts

on advaita are in English although some of Swami Chinmayananda's

works are available in Tamil and other languages.

 

This is really a side issue but somebody made the point that only

Advaita is pan Indian, everything else is regional. Although he

sounded like a 70's Congress party speechmaker, he had a point of a

sort. It stands to reason then that the demands of mass marketing

might entail availability of works in English and may be now in

Hindi. Availability in other languages might be of secondary

importance.

 

In any case why should Dravidianists or Tamilists compete with

Advaita as a tradition? There does not seem to be much of a

connection.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Lakshmi Srinivas

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "lsrinivas" <lsrinivas> wrote:

> I think a traditionalist in India is not very interested in knowing

> when exactly his guru was born etc. The Samkara maThas alone

however

> seem to have had to deal with this problem because each accused the

> other of being a latter day phenomenon and were very keen to show

> that there is no continuity in the other maTha's lineage from a

> putative date for Samkara. Thus the Kanchi maTha argues that

> Samkara's date is 2nd or 3rd century BC (I forget which) but the

> Sringeri maTha feels it is 788-820 AD. I am sure you are familiar

> with this polemic. Wonder where the Puri maTha stands on this

issue.

>

 

 

VA: The Dwaraka, Puri and Kanchi Acharyas trace their lineage all the

way back to around 500 BCE. The tradition of Jyotirmatha is broken as

the matha was defunct for a long time and revived just 300 years or

so ago. The Sringeri acharyas say that their tradition dates Adi

Sankara to 788-820 AD but would not root for it.

The 4 main mathas have no real dispute amongst themselves, and they

are generally pitted against the Kanchi matha, considering it to be

spurious.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "lsrinivas" <lsrinivas> wrote:

 

> In fact, strong interest in Samkara, advaita etc is a general 20th

> century, urban phenomenon. Samkara's dating has been in public eye

> since the same time also because of some rather public washing of

> dirty linen by the various maTha's.

>

> It may come as a surprise but most advaita scholars at least in the

> South are not very comfortable in the mother tongue. Many primarily

> write or wrote in English. Good examples would be Sarvepalli

> Radhakrishnan, TMP Mahadevan etc ...

>

> You can see this even today in discussion lists on the Net on

> Advaita. The discussion is primarily in English, using English

> translations of a sort (full of words the English themselves may

> have forgotten like 'nescience', 'verily' etc ) and most

> references are to English texts.

 

That has been my observation too. For example, don't

know if advaitins like V. Sundaresan, Nanda can read Tamil.

Now that e-lists operating in Tamil language and script

are available for almost for 10 years, only very

few posts in Tamil are seen from those who write about tamil

here. Only recently I see Mr. Vijayaraghavan venturing

into tamil writing.

 

Those who know Tamil say even India Today edition in Tamil

is hard to understand, because they think in english but

write in tamil.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

> The Sringeri acharyas say that their tradition dates Adi

> Sankara to 788-820 AD but would not root for it.

 

Shringeri seems to be guided by modern Indological opinion - what

their own view was regarding this issue is not clear.

 

> The 4 main mathas have no real dispute amongst themselves, and they

> are generally pitted against the Kanchi matha, considering it to be

> spurious.

 

Actually the rivalry is restricted mainly between Shringeri and

Kaanchi - primarily between Tamil brahmins who patronize either of

these institutions.

[Guest guest]

> That has been my observation too. For example, don't

> know if advaitins like V. Sundaresan, Nanda can read Tamil.

 

I can read and write tamil pretty well.

 

But if I need to communicate Advaita in a native language I might as

well do it in Sanskrit - the deva baasha is specifically designed for

such a purpose. I'm not given to linguistic chauvanism whereby I

force myself to use a language just for the sake of itself.

 

I think chauvanistic Tamils should start looking for more worthwhile

subjects to venerate in Tamil heritage than the language itself.

There are many worthwhile things, you know?

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "vpcnk" <vpcnk@H...> wrote:

> > That has been my observation too. For example, don't

> > know if advaitins like V. Sundaresan, Nanda can read Tamil.

>

> I can read and write tamil pretty well.

>

> But if I need to communicate Advaita in a native language I might

as

> well do it in Sanskrit -

 

 

Are there any discussion lists which carry on business in Sanskrit?

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "vpcnk" <vpcnk@H...> wrote:

 

> But if I need to communicate Advaita in a native language I might as

> well do it in Sanskrit - the deva baasha is specifically designed

> for such a purpose.

 

I doubt this. Not just advaita, but saiva siddhanta, sri vaishnava

ubhaya vedanta have been expressed as well. Would love to see

the advaitins' tamil writings. After all, Kanchi Periyavar

spoke advaita (and, also against Srngeri claims) mostly in tamil.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "vpcnk" <vpcnk@H...> wrote:

> > That has been my observation too. For example, don't

> > know if advaitins like V. Sundaresan, Nanda can read Tamil.

>

> I can read and write tamil pretty well.

>

> But if I need to communicate Advaita in a native language I might

as

> well do it in Sanskrit - the deva baasha is specifically designed

for

> such a purpose.

 

 

 

While the intention is laudable, why it is not practiced? Does it

mean of all "native languages" - shades of Burra Sahib/ doraichani

one might add- only Sanskrit is on par with English?

 

 

 

 

I'm not given to linguistic chauvanism whereby I

> force myself to use a language just for the sake of itself.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "V.C.Vijayaraghavan" <vij@b...> wrote:

> Are there any discussion lists which carry on business in Sanskrit?

 

At least in the Nagari script, this cannot be done. That's

why no hindi and sanskrit lists like the tamil e-lists.

Taking a look at the slots occupied by Tamil characters

in TSCII 1.7 encoding for Tamil,

tsciicharset17_a.gif

(The sanskrit characters are just too many, and will

run out of the slots for 8-bit encoding).

 

The invention of the puLLi letter in TolkAppiyam, and the

use of separate letters (no conjuncts) makes Tamil's use

in computers pretty easy. The simplicity of tamil letters

is one of the reasons why printing, typewriters, computer

fonts, ocr have been achieved first for tamil among

Indian languages. E-lists have been exchanging tamil script

materials for about 10 years now.

 

Even in english we have lowercase and capital letters

totalling to 52 (26+26). In Tamil, it's just about 40

separate forms will do the job.

 

Especially, important is the need to get rid of

the present form of uyirmey letters with u & uu.

This has been suggested by Tamil experts like Dr. V. C. Kulandaisamy,

and even Periyar.

 

Here is a famous poem on Coimbatore city by Kannadasan,

and with a small modification for u-uu uyirmey.

Compare the printout from the two pdf files,

S_India/message/58

S_India/message/55

 

If implemented, with just about 40 or so characters,

Tamil will be one of the easiest languages to write

ocr codes anywhere.

 

N. Ganesan, PhD

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "naga_ganesan" <naga_ganesan@h...> wrote:

> INDOLOGY, "V.C.Vijayaraghavan" <vij@b...> wrote:

> > Are there any discussion lists which carry on business in

Sanskrit?

>

> At least in the Nagari script, this cannot be done. That's

> why no hindi and sanskrit lists like the tamil e-lists.

> Taking a look at the slots occupied by Tamil characters

> in TSCII 1.7 encoding for Tamil,

> tsciicharset17_a.gif

> (The sanskrit characters are just too many, and will

> run out of the slots for 8-bit encoding).

 

I am no expert in this area, but there are Hindi typewriters and 1

billion Chinese have Chinese typewriter and so do the Japanese.

Considering the fact that these two langauges are much more complex

than Sanskrit , scriptwise, I don't see any insurmountable problem

for sanskrit e-lists.

 

But hats off to Tamil enthusiasts for their interest in computer

Tamil.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "naga_ganesan" <naga_ganesan@h...> wrote:

> INDOLOGY, "V.C.Vijayaraghavan" <vij@b...> wrote:

> > Are there any discussion lists which carry on business in

Sanskrit?

>

> At least in the Nagari script, this cannot be done. That's

> why no hindi and sanskrit lists like the tamil e-lists.

 

It is also ironic that Indology has invested so much in the study of

sanskrit but Indologists, given their undoubted intellectual prowess

and tech-savvy, have not bothered to advance computer sanskrit.

 

Perhaps, unlike Tamil, there was no grassroots demand and the

suppliers i.e. Indologists are content with English and other non-

Indian languages in discussions

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "V.C.Vijayaraghavan" <vij@b...> wrote:

> It is also ironic that Indology has invested so much in the study of

> sanskrit but Indologists, given their undoubted intellectual prowess

> and tech-savvy, have not bothered to advance computer sanskrit.

>

 

It's not so. One of the questions from Indologists periodically is

"is there a OCR for Nagari". Dr. D. Wujastyk and other Indologists

have pursued computer sanskrit (fonts, ocr, etc.,) to a great extent.

[Guest guest]

> > in TSCII 1.7 encoding for Tamil,

> > tsciicharset17_a.gif

> > (The sanskrit characters are just too many, and will

> > run out of the slots for 8-bit encoding).

>

> I am no expert in this area, but there are Hindi typewriters and 1

> billion Chinese have Chinese typewriter and so do the Japanese.

> Considering the fact that these two langauges are much more complex

> than Sanskrit , scriptwise, I don't see any insurmountable problem

> for sanskrit e-lists.

 

 

Not just Sanskrit.

 

Take the case of Hindi. The available slots are not sufficient for

having hindi 8-bit encoded bilingual fonts.

 

OTOH, tamil bilingual fonts and e-lists on the net

do exist for a decade.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "naga_ganesan" <naga_ganesan@h...> wrote:

> This view is erroneous, and has been demonstrated by

> Indologists long ago. Vaacaspati lived at the end of

> 10th century. Paul Hacker wrote years ago that vAcaspati

> lived in late 10th century (p. 30, Wilhelm Halbfass,

> Philology and Confrontation, Paul Hacker on Tradional and Modern

Vedanta).

 

VA: However, Paul Hacker later also came to the conclusion that

Vachaspati lived quite after Shankaracharya. He held that

Shankaracharya lived before or around 700 AD. See fn 44 of pg. 100 of

the book cited by you above.

 

>BTW, the Tamil scholar, R. Raghavaiyangar was the first one to

>write about Sankara's birthplace, KaalaDi. This has been used

>by mutts, but we don't find mention of Sri RR.

 

VA: Didn't he also uphold specifically that shankaracharya lived

around 925 AD or later? If yes, then these views are specifically

contoverted by A. B. Kieth in his 'Karma Mimamsa' almost 90 years ago.

 

Regards

 

Vishal

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "vishalsagarwal" <vishalagarwal@h...> wrote:

> BTW, in another post you mentioned that none of the traditional

> biographical accounts on Sri Ramanujacharya mention Muslims. But is

> there not a tradition that he went north to retreive an icon from the

> daughter of a Muslim ruler ('of Delhi') and re-installed it in the

> original site in South India?

 

 

I have not read or heard from Srivaishnava scholars a story

of Ramanujar's encounter with a Delhi sultan.

Reading Kaa. Sri. Sri's (himself a Srivaishnava) translation

of Sri Ramanuja biography by Swami Ramakrishnananda (1869-1911)

written in Bengali, after consultation with several ubhaya vedanta

scholars. This does not refer to this Muslim encounter at all.

 

The Srirangam utsavar was taken to Delhi, and a Muslim princess

was praying to it. There is a temple inside Srirangam complex

for her, she is called "tulukka naacciyaar". When Madurai, Srirangam.,

Chidambaram, ... were ransacked in 13th century, there was no worship

for decades in those temples. This is told in Madura Vijayam.

and in modern historical fiction (Srivenugopalan, tiruvarangan ulaa,

mathuraa vijayam). All these, later than Ramanujar's time.

 

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

>>BTW, the Tamil scholar, R. Raghavaiyangar was the first one to

>>write about Sankara's birthplace, KaalaDi. This has been used

>>by mutts, but we don't find mention of Sri RR.

 

>VA: Didn't he also uphold specifically that shankaracharya lived

>around 925 AD or later? If yes, then these views are specifically

>contoverted by A. B. Kieth in his 'Karma Mimamsa' almost 90 years

>ago.

 

 

New information has come out pointing to Sankara (~ 900 CE) as well.

These have not been properly factored in the Sankara publishing industry.

 

1) It was said, for a long time in Sankara papers, no mention

about Sankara in India. But in the Indology list, one can refer

to 2 inscriptions in Tamil starting from 1065 CE.

 

2) Bhatta Bhaskara could well have lived in the 10th century,

INDOLOGY/message/2634

 

Now, Indologists, esp. from Germany, have shown Vacaspati

in the late 10th century.

 

Usually, people use Vachaspati's date (840 CE) as the clinching evidence

for Sankara. Now, it's rather 975 CE. The old date of 840 CE, see

two examples:

 

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9912&L=indology&P=R11828

[begin quote]

Sankaracharya was definitely before 850 C.E. because a subcommentator of his

Sariraka Bhashya namely Vacaspati Misra, wrote his Bhamati around 850 C.E.

[End quote]

 

p. 85, N. Isayeva, Shankara and Indian philosophy, SUNY, 1993

[begin quote]

On the other hand, the latest limit is usually determined

by the commentary of Vacaspatimishra on 'Sankara's work.

One of Vacaspatimishra's writings is definitely dated ca. AD 840;

and it is generally accepted that he is at least one generation

younger than 'Sankara - that is, the date should be placed

about AD 800.

[End quote]

 

The main lacuna, in the research about Sanskrit hagiography

(from 14th century & later) of Sankara created after the Muslim

onslaughts in the south, is that a comparison with Saiva legends

in tamil is not yet done.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

Tiru. Nanda Chandran wrote:

>Here it is to be noted that Gaudapaada was the paramaguru of

>Shankara - the teacher of his teacher. So how later can he be than

>Gaudapaada?

 

Paramaguru = supreme teacher, could also the meaning. A great

teacher, who lived centuries before and who inspired Sankara.

 

R. King, Early advaita vedAnta and Buddhism: The MahAyAna context

of the GauDapAdIya-kArikA, State univ. of NY, 1995, p. 16

" In the commentary on the Gaudapadiya-karika, which may

or may not be by 'Sankara, the author of the text is referred

to as the bhASyakAra's "grand (or supreme) teacher" (paramaguru,

GKBh. IV.100) The ambiguity of the term "paramaguru" however

should be noted. The term may be used to denote a "grand-teacher"

(that is the teacher of one's own teacher) or may be used in

a more figurative sense where it merely implies the primary

source of one's inspiration. In the latter sense, the term

does not imply membership of the same sampradAya or lineage

of tecahers. One cannot be certain, then, that the traditional

view that GauDapAda is the teacher of 'Sankara's teacher is

in fact an accurate interpretation of the texual evidence

available."

 

>Shantarakshita is known to have criticized Advaita in his

>Tarkasamgraha. But is he aware of Shankara?

 

K. Kunjunni Raja, On the date of "SaMkarAcArya and allied problems,

ALB, 1960, v. 24

 

"Conclusion:

A detailed examination of all the evidence leads us to the

following conclusion. "SaMkara is later than BhartRhari,

DiGnAga, GauDapAda, DharmakIrti and KumArila and cannot

be earlier than A.D. 650. Since VAcaspati wrote one of

his works in A.D. 841, and since he is later than

"SaMkara by one or two generations, "SaMkara has to be

placed before A.D. 800. The absence of any reference to

the philosophical system of "SaMkara in the works of

"SAntarakSita and KamalazIla, even when they discuss an

AdvaitavAda under the heading of UpaniSadvAda, and also

in the work of HaribhadrasUri shows that "SaMkara's

theories had not spread by the second half of the eigth

century. Hence the works of "SaMkara must have been

composed towards the close of the eigth century A.D."

 

Prof. K. Kunjunni Raja, in this and his later papers, goes with

the old date for 841 CE for Vacaspati Misra, like other

later examples in:

INDOLOGY/message/2723

 

It's possible we find 1 or 2 words from old vedantis' theories

in two or three different authors' works living at various

later dates. Being a conservative tradition, an author could

quote from the long line of his predecessors (without explicitly

refering to the ancient authors).

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan