आगमे ब्राह्मे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

The Book

A biography of Sri Sankara on modern lines is an impossible for want of exact data from contemporary writings. We have therefore to depend on the type of Sanskrit works called Sankaravijayas, the traditional lives of the Acharya, to know whatever is now possible to gather about this saintly philosopher who has left so vivid an impression on the Indian mind. As these Vijayas have a mythological bias, they have their obvious defect in respect of chronology and recording of facts and events, but they got their excellences too.

Among the Vijayas available in print, Madhava-Vidyaranya’s Sankara-digvi- jaya excels all others as a philosophical and biographical poem of remarkable literary beauty and depth of thought. The present book is a free and complete English prose translation of this work, aiming chiefly at a very lucid account of the Acharya’s life and his achievements, without however omitting the highly poetical panegyric and description of Nature with which it abounds.

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Page No.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE SELF

THE MEETING WITH VYASA

CONTROVERSY WITH MANDANA

ESTABLISHING THE CLAIM TO BE

INTRODUCTION

Canto No.

PROLOGUE
BIRTH OF SANKARA
THE EARTHLY MANIFESTATION OF DEVAS
BOYHOOD DAYS UP TO THE AGE OF EIGHT
EMBRACING SANNYASA

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PRISTINE

20

THE MASTER OF ALL LEARNING

ACQUIREMENT OF KNOWLEDGE OF SEX-LOVE

ENCOUNTER WITH THE FIERCE BHAIRAVA

THE COMING OF SOME DISCIPLES

105

117

130

136

PREACHING OF BRAHMA VIDYA

144

PILGRIMAGE OF PADMAPADA

151

TRIUMPHANT TOUR OF THE LAND

. 166

ACCESSION TO SARADAPITHA

186

श्रुतिनिगदितमार्गस्थापनायावतारं
जिननय-बहुवाद-भ्रान्तिमुन्मूलयन्तम् ।
भुवनविजयख्यातिं शङ्करं भाष्यकारं
विमलपरमहंसं रामकृष्णं भजामः ।।

To the Holy Being Ramakrishna, the Spiritual Swan
sporting in the lake of pious hearts,
Who embodied himself as the world-famous
\scriptural commentator Sankara,
By whose efforts the sophistries of
atheistic thinkers were uprooted
And the way of Vedic wisdom cleared
and well-established—
To that Universal Being as Sankara,
my Salutation !
— SWAMI ABHEDANANDA

INTRODUCTION

Problems Connected with a Biography of Sri Sankara

An Introduction to an English translation of Madhava- Vidyaranya’s Sankara-dig-vijaya, known also as Samkshepa- sankara-vijaya, requires in the first place an explanation as to why it is undertaken. We are presenting this translation not because we consider it a proper biography in the modern sense, but because there is nothing better, to offer on the life and achievements of Sri Sankara. Sri Sankaracharya is undoubtedly the most widely known of India’s saintly philosophers, both within the country and outside, and there is a constant enquiry for an account of his life. It is not that there are no lives, or rather life-sketches of his, in English, written by modern scholars, but they are extremely unsatisfactory in giving any adequate idea of the great Acharya or of his wonderful personality-of how he was able to make that great impact on the conscience of India, which has remained unfaded to this day. Like a rivulet starting with great promise but soon getting lost in a swampy morass, these modern writings end in learned date discussions and textual criticisms, which give the reader a sense of learned ignorance, but certainly no idea of what Sankaracharya was like.

The trouble does not actually lie with these scholars or the accounts they have given of Sankara’s life. It lies in the fact that there is absolute dearth of reliable materials to produce a biography of the modern type on Sankara, and the scholarly writer, if he is to produce a book of some respectable size, has no other alternative but to fill it with discussions of the various versions of the dates and of the incidents of Sankara’s life that have come down to us through that series of literature known as Sankaravijayas, which vary very widely from one another in regard to most of these details. The generally undisputed features of Sankara’s life seem to be the following: That he was born in Kaladi, Kerala, in a family of Nambudiri Brahmanas; that he left hearth and home as a boy to take to the life of a Sannyasin; that he was initiated into Sannyasa by Govindapada, the disciple of Gaudapada; that he wrote learned commentaries on the Vedantasutras and the ten principal Upani- shads and the Gita; that he led a busy life travelling all over India

SANKARA-DIG-VIJAYA

refuting non-Vedic doctrines and establishing non-dualism as the true teaching of the Vedas; that he left four principal disciples to continue his mission; that he rid the various Indian cults of the influence of debased sectaries and infused into them the purity and idealism of Vedic thought; that he established centres of Advaitic learning in many places; and that he passed away at the early age of thirtytwo at a place, the identity of which is yet to be established. When he was born; where he met his teacher; where he wrote his commentaries; what were the routes he took in his all-India journeys for preaching and teaching; who were all his opponents and where he met them; how and when he came across his disciples; what temples he visited or renovated; what Maths he founded or whether he founded any Math at all; where he passed away-all these are matters on which conflicting or widely differing views are expressed in the different traditional books concerned with him known as Sankara-vijayas.

In a situation like this, a modern writer on Sankara’s life can consider himself to have discharged his duty well if he produces a volume of respectable size filled with condemnation of the old Sankara-vijayas-which, by the way, have given him the few facts he has got to write upon-for their ‘fancifulness, unreliability, absence of chronological sense’ and a host of other obvious short- comings, and indulge in learned discussions about the date and the evidence in favour of or against the disputed facts, and finally fill up the gap still left with expositions of Sankara’s philosophy. In contrast to these are the traditional biographical writings on Sankara called Sankara-vijayas. All of them without an exception mix the natural with the supernatural; bring into the picture the deliberations held by super-human beings in the heavens; bring gods and dead sages into the affairs of men; report miraculous feats and occurrences; and come into conflict with one another in regard to many biographical details. Yet their very so-called fancifulness, the poetic approach of at least some of them, their mythological setting and descriptive details, have given some of them a fullness and impressiveness which are far more educative than the few bald details and the futile discussions on their obvious deficiencies that one comes across in the modern biographical writings on Sankara.

The contrast may be better illustrated by an analogy. Suppose

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a few bones of a rare species of animal that lived in bygone times are obtained. A very learned discussion about the evolutionary background and the probable biological features of the fossilised bones can be instituted by biologists and anthropologists. A clever artist, on the other hand, can try to reconstruct the probable appearance of that extinct species of animals in some plastic material, based on the clues from the bony structures recovered. Now, in spite of the great erudition behind the first way of approach, it is the reconstructed model, despite its obvious fancifulness and imagina- tive make-up, that can give some plausible idea to the common man about that rare animal to which the bones belonged. The flourishing of a few bones and the learned discussions on them will leave no im- pression on the minds of any but specialists in the field. The at- tempted historical biographies of Sankara are just like the rattling of the few bones of facts available along with abstruse discussions about them, while the Sankara-vijayas are like the reconstructed model of the animal which may be fanciful but impressive and mean- ingful to the ordinary man. If we approach the Sankara-vijayas with- out forgetting that mythological elements have entered into them, they would enable us to get a much more vivid and flesh-and-blood picture of Sankara than these learned discussions on dates and on the credibility of various texts and some of the details contained in them.

The word ‘mythological’ is not used here in any sense of dis- paragement. A highly poetic and mythological narration of the lives of individuals or events marks the measure of the tremendous impact that these individuals and events have made on the racial mind of a people in those ancient days when correct recording was not much in vogue, and impressive events easily took a mytho- logical turn. They are living traditions that transmit a little of their original impact to the generations that have come later, whereas pure historical productions are only like dead specimens and curios preserved in the corridors of Time’s museum. The trouble comes only when mythological accounts are taken as meticulously factual and men begin to be dogmatic about the versions presented in them. In the mythological literary technique, facts are often inflated with the emotional overtones and with the artistic expressiveness that their impact has elicited from human consciousness, and we have therefore to seek their message in the total effect they produce and not through a cocksure attitude

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towards the happenings in space and time. If we approach the Sankara-vijaya in this spirit, we shall understand more about Sankara and his way of life than through the writings of professors who disparage them for their defective chronology, their fanciful descriptions and their confusing statement of facts. Such being the position, a translation of a Sankara-vijaya is the only way to give some idea of Sankara, his doings, his personality and the times in which he lived.

Sankara-Vijaya literature

The translation given in this book is of Sankara-dig-vijaya or Samkshepa-Sankara-vijaya by Madhava-Vidyaranya. It is, how- ever, to be remembered that this is only one of the following ten Sankara-vijayas listed on p. 32 of T.S. Narayana Sastri’s The Age of Sankara: (1) Brihat-Sankara-vijaya of Chitsukhacharya; (2) Prāchina-Sankara-vijaya of Anandagiri; (3) Sankara-vijaya of Vidya Sankara alias Sankarananda, otherwise known as Vyāsā- chaliya-Sankara-vijaya; (4) Kēralīya-Sankara-vijaya by Govinda- natha, also known as Acharya-charita; (5) Sankaräbhyudaya of Chudamani Dikshita; (6) Sankara-vijaya of Anantanandagiri (to be distinguished from Anandagiri) known also as Guru-vijaya or Acharya-vijaya; (7) Sankara-vijaya of Vallīsahayakavi under the name Acharya-dig-vijaya; (8) Sankara-dig-vijaya-sāra of Sad- ananda; (9) Sankara-vijaya-vilāsa of Chidvilasa; and (10) Sankara- dig-vijaya or Samkshepa-Sankara-vijayá of Mädhava-Vidyāṛanya. Of these, the first two, the Brihat-Sankara-vijaya and Prāchina- Sankara-vijaya are supposed to be the products of the contem- poraries of Sankara, their authors being the Acharya’s disciples. Nothing can be said of this claim, as the texts are not available anywhere at present. Sri T. S. Narayana Sastri, the author of The Age of Sankara, claims to have come across what he calls a ‘muti- lated copy’ of the second section, called Sankarāchārya-satpatha, of Chitsukha’s work’ mentioned above. There is, however, nó means to assess the authenticity of the claim on behalf of this mutilated copy, as it is not available anywhere.

Regarding the remaining Sankara-vijayas, while some of them might be lying in some obscure corners of manuscript libraries, there are only five of them available in printed form, and even most of them can be got only with considerable difficulty. These

INTRODUCTION

are Sankara-vijaya of Anantanandagiri (quite different from the now defunct Anandagiri’s work with which it is confused even by scholars), Āchārya-charita of Govindanatha, Sankara-vijaya of Vyasachala, Sankara-vijaya-viläsa of Chidviläsa, and Sankara-dig- vijaya of Madhava-Vidyaranaya.

The Authorship of Sankara-dig-vijaya

We are taking up for translation the last of these, namely, Madhava-Vidyaranya’s work, with the full awareness of its limita- tions, which may be listed as follows: It is not a biography but a biographical and philosophical poem, as the author himself calls it. There are many obviously mythological elements in it, like reports of conferences held in heavens, appearance. of Devas and dead sages among men, traffic between men and gods, thunder- ing miracles, and chronological absurdities which Prof. S. S. Sur- yanarayana condemns as indiscriminate bringing together of writers of very different centuries among those whom Sankara met and defeated.’ But these unhistorical features, it shares with all other available Sankara-vijayas, including that of Anantanandagiri. Though Wilson and Monier Williams find Anantanandagiri’s writing to be more authentic and ’less fanciful’, it seems so only because, being a rather scrappy writing, more of the nature of a synopsis in modern Sanskrit prose, such fanciful features do not look highlighted in the way in which they do in a poetical and elaborate piece of literature like the work of Madhava-Vidyaranya, to which people will have to turn for the present to get some clear idea of Sankara and his doings. Ever since it was first printed in Ganapat Krishnaji Press in Bombay in the year 1863, it has con- tinued to be a popular work on Sankara and it is still the only work on the basis of which ordinary people have managed to get some idea of the great Acharya, in spite of the severe uncharitable criticism1 directed against it by several scholars. But it has survived

1 The motives behind the criticism of Madhviya-sankara-vijaya and the scurrilous nature of the criticism will be evident from the following extract from page 158 of The Age of Sankara by T. S. Narayana Sastri (1916): “We know from very reliable sources that this Madhaviya-Sankara-vijaya was compiled by a well-known Sanskrit scholar who passed away from this world just about eight years ago, under the pseudonym of ‘Madhava’-a’ synonym for ‘Narayana’-specially to extol the greatness of the Sringeri Math, whose authority had been seriously questioned by the Kumbhakonam Math, the Acharyas of the latter Math claiming exclusive

SANKARA-DIG-VIJAYA

all these criticisms, and will be studied with interest for all time as a unique historical and philosophical poem in Sanskrit on one of the greatest spiritual luminaries of India.

The criticism of it is uncharitable because it is mainly born of prejudice, and it has extended beyond finding fault with the text, to the question of its authorship itself. The critics somehow want to disprove that this work is, as traditionally accepted, a writing of the great Madhava-Vidyaranya, the author of the Panchadasi, and a great name in the field of Indian philosophical- and theological literature. For, if his authorship is accepted, the book will receive a high status, which some schools of thought do not like for reasons of their own. In fact, except in the eyes of a few such biassed scholars, it has actually got that status at present, especially in the eyes of the followers of Sankaracharya in general; but this position is sought to be undermined by disputing its author- ∙ship on all kinds of flimsy and far-fetched grounds. Besides the support of tradition, the colophon at the end of every chapter of the book mentions its author’s name as Madhava, that being the pre-monastic name of Vidyaranya. Before he adopted Sannyasa under the monastic name of Vidyaranya, he was known as Madha- vacharya, and was the chief minister of the great Vijayanagara kingdom under its first three rulers. He was born in the year 1295 in a poor Brahmana family near Hampi in the region of the river Tungabhadra. His father’s name was Māyana and mother’s, Srimati. He had two brothers by name Sayana and Bhōganatha. Though brought up in poverty, all the brothers became versatile privilege of being entitled to the title of the ‘Jagadgurus’ för the whole of India as being the direct successors of Sri Sankara Bhagavatpada’s own Math established by him at Kanchi, the greatness of which had been unnecessarily extolled by Raja- chudamani Dikshita, Vallisahaya Kavi and Venkatarama Sarman in their respective works, Sankarabhyudaya, Achraya-dig-vijaya and Sankara-bhagavatpadacharitra.

“About fifty years ago, in the very city of Madras, as many may still remember, a fierce controversy raged between the adherents of the Kumbhakonam Math on the one hand, and those of the Sringeri Math headed by Bangalore Siddhanti Subrah- manya Sastri and two brothers-Kumbhakonam Srinivasa Sastri and Kumbha- konam Narayana Sastri-sons of Ramaswami Sastri, a protege of the Sringeri Math, on the other. We have very strong reasons to believe that this Sankara-dig- vijaya ascribed to Madhava, the Sankara-vijaya-vilasa ascribed to Chidvilasa, the Sankara-vijaya-sara ascribed to Sadananda, had all been brought into existence by one or other of these three scholars, about this period, in answer to the Sankara- vijayas ascribed to Rajachudamani Dikshita and Vallisahaya Kavi.”

and

INTRODUCTION

scholars in all branches of learning. Bhoganatha took to the Order of Sannyasa in early life. Sayana and Madhava were the authors of many works on religion and philosophy. The famous commentary of Rig Veda, though a work of Sayana, was probably a combined work of theirs, for it is said in its Introduction: “Kripälur-mādha- vācāryaḥ vedārthaṁ vaktum udyataḥ” and at the conclusion: “iti Sayanācārya vìracite mādhavīya” etc.

For relief from poverty, Madhavacharya is said to have per- formed austerities at the shrine of Devi Bhuvaneswari at Hampi, but the Devi revealed to him that in that life he was not destined to be rich himself, but he would be able to help others to become rich. This was an indication of the great part he was to play in the political life of his times. In his fortieth year he became asso- ciated with the founders of the Vijayanagara empire-Hari Hara I and his brother Bhukka I-who began the consolidation of that State by 1336. He served under three successive kings as chief minister and built up the greatness and prosperity of that kingdom until he retired in about 1380 to take to the life of Sannyasa at the age of 85. He became the head of the Sringeri Math for a few years and passed away at the age of 91 in the year 1386.

The identity of Madhava, the author of Sankara-dig-vijaya, with his Madhava-Vidyaranya is further established by the first verse of the text, wherein he pays obeisance to his teacher Vidya- tirtha. Vidyatirtha was the head of Sringeri Sankara Math during 1228 to 1333. He was succeeded by Bhāratikrishna Tirtha (1333- 1380), the immediate predecessor of Vidyaranya, who in turn

Not satisfied with the above indictment, Sri T. S. Narayana Sastri gives the follow- ing bazaar gossip as proof of his contention on page 247 of his book, “The reader is also referred to an article in Telugu with the caption Sankara-vijaya-karthavevaru by Veturi Prabhakara Sastri of Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras, published in the Literary Supplement of the Andhra Patrika of Durmathi Margasira (1921-22) where an interesting note about the author of the above mentioned ‘Sankara Vijaya’ (Sanakara-dig-vijaya of Madhava) is given. Here is an English rendering of a portion of that article: ‘I happened to meet at Bapatla, Brahmasri Vemuri Narasimha Sastri, during my recent tour in the Guntur District, in quest of manuscripts. I mentioned casually to him my doubts regarding the authorship of Madhaviya- sankara-vijaya: He revealed to me some startling facts. When he was at Madras some fifteen years ago, he had the acquaintance of the late Bhattasri Narayana Sastri who wrote the Sankara Vijaya published in the name of Madhava i. e., Vidya- ranya, and that four others helped him in this production. The importance of the Sringeri Mutt is very much in evidence in this Sankara Vijaya (not correct). Taking

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succeeded him as the head (1380-1386) at a very advanced age. Thus, though not the immediate successor of Vidyatirtha, Madhava- Vidyaranya must have had his spiritual initiation from him in his pre-monastic life. The identity is further established by the poet Madhava’s reference to his life in the royal court in the following touching introductory verses of his work: “By indulging in insincere praise of the goodness and magnanimity of kings, which are really non-esistent like the son of a barren woman or the horns of a hare, my poesy has become extremely impure. Now I shall render it pure and fragrant by applying to it the cool and fragrant sandal paste fallen from the body of the danseuse of the Acharya’s holy fame and greatness, as she performs her dance on the great stage of the world.”

Besides, the text is a masterpiece of literature and philosophy, which none but a great mind could have produced. But there are detractors of this great text who try to minimise its obvious literary worth by imputing plagiarism and literary piracy to its author. They claim that they have been able to show several verses that have entered into it from certain other Sankara-vijayas like Prāchīna- Sankara-vijaya and Vyasachala’s Sankara-vijaya. Though Prā- china-Sankara-vijaya is nowhere available, T. S. Narayana Sastri claims to have in his possession some mutilated sections of it; but such unverifiable and exclusive claims on behalf of mutilated texts cannot be entertained by a critical and impartial student of these texts, since considerations other than the scholarly have entered into these criticisms, and manuscripts, too, have been heavily tampered with by Sanskrit Pandits. It can as well be that the a copy of the Vyasachala Grantha; available at Sringeri Mutt, Bhattasri Narayana Sastri made alterations here and there and produced the Sankara-vijaya in question. That he was an expert in such concoctions, is widely known among learned men. The reader can easily grasp from this the scurrilous nature of the criticism, and the motives of the critics of this great work.

As a general criticism of these remarks, we would like to point out that a perusal of Vyasachala’s work, (printed copies of which, published by the Madras University in 1954, afe still available in a few liberaries), will clearly show that there are quite many verses common to both the works, but at the same time a comparative study will also show that Madhava’s work is a much more elaborate and well-planned poem (with 1840 verses) while that of Vyasachala (with 1190 verses), though poetic, is scrappy and truncated in many of its descriptions and even incomplete in the narra- tion of the main events of Sankara’s life. While there are some common features, there are great variations also in respect of the subject matter treated in the two books. Under the circumstances a critic who makes the irresponsible statement2

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other Vijayas have taken these from the work of Madhava.. Next, even if such verses are there, and they are demonstrably present in regard to Vyasachala’s work, the author can never be accused of plagiarism, because he acknowledges at the outset itself that his work is a collection of all the traditions about Sankaracharya and that in it all the important things contained in an extensive literature can be seen in a nutshell as an elephant’s face in a mirror. Is this not a general acknowledgement of dependence on earlier texts, and if quotations from them are found, where is the justification for accusing the author of plagiarism, unless the prejudice of such critics is accepted as sufficient reason?

Besides, it is forgotten by these critics that it is a literay technique of Vidyaranya, as seen from his other works also, to quote exten- sively from recognised authorities without specially mentioning their names, and that this feature of the present work goes only to establish the identity of its authorship with Vidyaranya. Com- paring the text with Vyasachala’a work, it is obvious that many verses are common to both the texts. The author of the present work, however, seems to imply Vyasachala as one of the recognised authorities on this theme in the 17th verse of the 1st chapter.

There is also the view that the author need not necessarily be Madhava-Vidyaranya but Madhavacharya, the son of the former’s brother Sayana and the author of Sarvadarsana-Samgraha, a masterly philosophical text. To make this hypothesis even plausible, it has to be established that this Madhava was the disciple of Vidyatirtha, which the author of Sankara-dig-vijaya claims to be in the very first verse of the text.

The authorship of the book is questioned also from the point of view of style. Now views on style can be very subjective, and when one wants to dispute the authorship of any work, the easiest way is to adopt this line of criticism. In Sanskrit there are various types of style, and accomplished men of letters can vary the style

that Madhava’s work has been made by culling out verses from Vyasachala’s must not have even seen the latter text, or prejudice must have obscured his power of judgement. All that can be claimed legitimately is that Vyasachala’s work was one of the source books of Madhava’s Sankara-vijaya. There is nothing derogatory in this to the literary credentials of the author, because he has at the beginning itself admitted his indebtedness to all the literature on Sankara known at that time. See also footnote to Verse 17 of Canto 1.

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according to the topic they deal with. According to the scholarly traditions of ancient India most of the philosophic, theological and even scientific subjects were expounded in metrical forms, but the styles employed for these have necessarily to be different from that for pure literary and poetical productions. Most of Vidyaranya’s other works are on high philosophical and theological themes, and if he has used methods and styles in such works differing from that of a historicai poem like Sankara-dig-vijaya, it is only what one should expect of a great thinker and writer. That the author of this work has poetic effect very much in view can be inferred from his description of himself as Nava-Kalidasa (a modern Kalidasa) and his work as Navakalidasa-santana (offspring of the moder.. Kalidasa). So, difference in style, even if any, is not very relevant to the question of authorship, especially when the identity of the author is plainly mentioned in the book itself.

In place of taking the poet’s description of his work as a produc- tion of a Nava-Kalidasa in the proper light, these hostile critics have in a facile manner concluded that the name of the author must be Nava-Kalidasa, though such a conclusion is against all internal evidence. No one has heard of the name of such a Sanskrit poet. They also safely forget the highly metaphysical doctrines couched in cryptic but very attractive style in the discussions of Sankara with Mandana, the upholder of Purvamimamsa doctrine, and with Bhatta Bhaskara, the exponent of the Bhedabheda philo- sophy. These discussions have drawn the unstinted praise of an independent critic like Telang. If Nava-Kalidasa, who forged this book and imposed it on Vidyaranya, was a mere poet-and an unknown poet at that-an explanation has to be given for the impressive metaphysical wisdom, the dialectical skill, and the Vedantic technique of exposition displayed in these chapters. The genius of the author of Panchadasi is clearly reflected in them. In philosophical profundity, in literary excellence and in non- partisan outlook, it is far superior to all other Sankara-Vijayas. In the light of all this internal evidence, the disparaging criticism of this text, questioning its authorship itself, can be attributed only to the prejudice of the critics.

Acceptance of Vidyaranya’s authorship does not, however, in any way mean the denial of the mythical elements and the fanciful

contemporaneity of various Indian philosophers found in it. These

INTRODUCTION

features it shares with all the other Sankara-vijayas. Chronology and historicity did not receive much attention from even the greatest of Indian writers in those days.

Date of Sankara

Regarding the biographical details contained in different Sankara- vijayas, there are wide variations, as already pointed out. There is no way now of settling these differences, although they can give fertile ground for endless and inconclusive discussions for learned men. Under the circumstances, Madhava-Vidyaranya’s Sankara- dig-vijaya, which has already stood the test of time and received recognition, may be taken as sufficient authority to give the layman much of the available information about Sankara. There are, however, three details of his life, which are highly controversial in nature, but to which we shall bestow some attention, not in the hope of arriving at any final conclusion, but to be appraised of the wide variations of views on them and the need, therefore, of avoiding dogmatic adherence to any particular view. The three- points that are taken for a brief and inconclusive discussion here are: (1) the date of Sankara (2) what institutions he founded and (3) where he passed away.

Every date in ancient Indian history, except that of the invasion of Alexander (326 B.C.), is controversial, and Sankara’s date is no exception. Max Muller and other orientalists have somehow fixed it as 788 to 820 A.D., and Das Gupta and Radhakrishnan, the well-known writers on the history of Indian Philosophy, have accepted and repeated it in their books. To do so is not in itself wrong, but to do it in such a way as to make the layman believe it to be conclusive is, to say the least, an injustice to him. It is held by the critics of this date that the Sankara of 788–820 a.d. is not the Adi-Sankara (the original Sankara), but Abhinava Sankara (modern Sankara), another famous Sannyasin of later times (788-839), who was born at Chidambaram and was the head of the Sankara Math at Kanchipuram between 801 and 839. Hé was reputed for his holiness and learning and is said to have gone on tours of controversy (Dig-vijaya) like the original Sankara.

It is found that not only modern scholars, but even the authors of several Sankara-vijayas have superimposed these two personalities mutually and mixed up several details of their lives.

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The author of the concept of adhyasa himself seems to have become a victim of it! The cause of much of this confusion has been the custom of all the incumbents of the headship of Sankara Maths being called Sankaracharyas. To distinguish the real Sankara, he is therefore referred to as ‘Adi-Sankara’- an expression that ́is quite meaningless. For, Sankaracharya was the name of an individual and not a title, and if the heads of the Maths of that illustrious personage were known only by their individual names like the heads of religious institutions founded by other teachers, probably much of this confusion could have been avoided.

In the light of the Abhinava-Sankara theory, much of the data on which Adi-Sankara’s date is usually fixed by modern scholars lose their validity. The Cambodian inscription of Indravarman (878-887) which mentions the name of his preceptor as Sivasoma, the pupil of ‘Bhagavan Sankar’, can have reference only to Abhina- va-Sankara. Next the ‘Dravida-sisu’ referred to in the Saundar- yalahari, meaning Thirujnana-sambandhar, the great Saiva Saint who lived towards the middle of the 7th century, also loses its significance; for the Soundaryalahari could have been the com- position of this later Sankaracharya, an obvious parallel to which may be found in the Devyaparādha-Kshamāpana-stotra, a work generally attributed to Adi-Sankara, wherein the poet speaks of himself as over eighty-five years of age- a fact that cannot be true of Sankara who lived for 32 years only. This confusion most probably extends to many minor works attributed to Sankara- charya, chiefly because of the custom of all heads of Sankara Maths being called as Sankaracharyas, a point discussed already in the previous paragraph. Another objection to the 788 A.D. theory is that Sankara refers to the city Pataliputra, as if it were a city then existing. But this city, which was one of the very ancient capitals of India, had been submerged by the neighbouring river long before 750 A.D. All these data show that the modern scholars’ fixing of Sankara’s date as 788 A.D.,2 cannot be accepted as an unchallengeable certainty.

The modern scholars in fixing Sankara’s date as 788 have totally rejected the traditional date derived from Sankara Math records

2 Ullur S. Parameswara Iyer has pointed out in his great work Keralasāhitya that the sole support for the modern scholars’ view on Sankara’s date as being 788 A.D. is the following incomplete verses of unknown authorship:

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and from Sankara-vijayas. Traditional Indian dates are suspect because of the multiplicity of eras, of which about fortyseven have been enumerated by T. S. Narayana Sastri in his book, The Age of Sankara. So unless the era is specifically mentioned, it is difficult to fix a date in any understandable way. Two of these eras are famous- the Kali era, which started in 3102 B.C., and Yudhishthira Saka era which started 37 years after, i.e., in 3065 B.C. The calculation according to the latter era is, however, complicated further by the fact that, according to the Jains and the Buddhists, the latter era started 468 years after the Kali era, that is, in 2634 B.C.

Sri T. S. Narayana Sastri, in his book, The Age of Sankara, argues the case for the traditional date, on the basis of the list of succession kept in Kamakoti Math and Sringeri Math, and what he has been able to gather from ‘mutilated copies’ of Brihat- Sankara-vijaya, Prāchīna-Sankara-vijaya and Vyāsāchalīya-San- kara-vijaya. Until authentic copies of these works are available, the information they are supposed to give is not acceptable. Never- theless, he maintains that, according to Brihad-Sankara-vijaya and Prächīna-Sankara-vijaya, Sankara was born in 2593 of Kali era (509 B.C.) and passed away at the age of 32 in 2625 of Kali era (477 B.C.). He also maintains that this is more or less corroborated by the succession list of heads maintained at the Kamakoti, Dwaraka, Sringeri and other Maths, with, however, one compli- cating factor intervening. The complication is that in the Sringeri Math list the date of Sankara’s demise. is given, according to Sri T. S. Narayana Sastri himself, as 12 B.C. and, therefore, his birth must have been in 44 B.C., or in 48 B.C., if he lived upto 36 years, as some hold. This one difference is sufficient to dismiss the evidence of the Maths, but Sri Sastri points out that the posteriority of the Sringeri version of the date can be accounted for by the confusion between the Kali and Yudhishthira Saka eras. (The Yudhishthira

Nidhi nägebha vahnyabde vibhave sankarodayah Kalyabde candranetrāṁka vahnyabde prāvisad guhām Vaišākhe pūrṇimāyām tu šankaraḥ śivatāmagāt

Here the words of the first verse are the code words for the year 3889 of the Kali era, which is equivalent to 788 A.D. (It is derived as follows: nidhi: 9; naga:8; ibha: 8; vahni: 3. Since the numbers are to be taken in the reverse order, it gives 3889 of the Kali era as the date of Sankara’s birth, its conversion into Christian era being 788 A.D. Kali era began 3102 years before the Christian era.)

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Saka era, according to Hindus, began 37 years after the com- mencement of the Kali era, while the Jains and the Buddhist writers calculate it as having begun 468 years after the start of Kali era i.e. in 2634 B.C.) It is held by Sri- Sastri that in Mysore and the regions round about, the Jain influence was very great and the confusion between eras in this respect might have been widely prevalent also. Now, 44 B.C., the supposed date of the birth of Sankara according to Sringeri Math, might have been the result of the confusion of eras and calculations based on them. 2625 of the Kali era, the date of his death, must have been taken as referring to Buddhist-Jain era and then converted into Kali era by adding 468 to it, thus arriving at 3093 of Kali era (9 or 10 B.C.) as the

· date of Sankara’s death. He accounts for the small discrepancy of 3 or 4 years by referring to a tradition in Mysore that Sankara lived till the 36th year. While this is an ingenious way of reconciling the difference, one has to admit that there are too many ‘buts’, ‘ifs’ and other suppositions to make it credible.

It is rather surprising to note that, while, as stated in T. S. Nara- yana Sastri’s work, in the Kamakoti list Sankara occupied that Gaddi for three years (from 480 B.C. to 477 B.C.) and was followed by Sureswara for 70 years (477 B.C. to 407 B.C.), the Sringeri list maintains that Sankara occupied that Gaddi for six years (from 18 B.C. to 12 B.C.), and was followed by Sureswara for 785 years (from 12 B.C. to 773 A.D.).3 During these 785 years, the Kamakoti list shows that about 33 Acharyas adorned that Gaddi. Such unbelievable inconsistencies have made modern historians totally

3 After the publication of the first edition of the book, the following letter was received from the Private Secretary to the Head of Sringeri Math, Sarada Peetham, on the present view held by that Math’ about the date of Sri Sankaracharya: “Nowhere have the Sringeri Math authorities themselves given the B.C. or A.D. period. The record of the Sringeri Math says that Sankara was born in the 14th year of the reign of Vikramaditya. Compilers wrongly referred this to the era of Vikramaditya of Ujjain, which was originally called Malava Samvat and later in the eighth century A.D. called the Vikrama Samvat. This took Sankara to the first century B.C..and necessiated the assignment of around 800 years to Sureswaracharya - to agree with the later dates. Mr L. Rice points out that the reference is not to the Vikramaditya of Ujjain but to the Chalukya king Vikramaditya who ruled in Badami near Sringeri. Historians opine that Chalukya Vikramaditya ascended the throne during the period 655 to 670 A.D. This reference seems reasonable, as Badami is not very far off from Sringeri. Further as Sankara and Sureshwara quote Dharma- kirti, and as Kumarila Bhatta quotes Bhartrhari, the dates of Dharmakirti and

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reject the evidence provided by the chronological lists of the Maths. So Sri Ullur Parameswara Iyer, himself a pious Brahmana, maintains in his History of Kerala Sahitya (Vol. 1 p. 111) that it is easy to prove that most of these Math lists have been formulated so late as the 16th century A.D.

But a still greater difficulty posed for such an early date as 509 to 476 B.C. for Sankara is the proximity of this to the generally accepted date of the Buddha (567-487 B.C.). Sankara has criticised Buddhism in its developed form with its four branches of philo- sophy. A few centuries at least should certainly be allowed to elapse for accommodating this undeniable fact. Sri T. S. Narayana Sastri is, however, remarkably ingenious, and his reply to this objection is that the Buddha’s date was certainly much earlier. Vaguely quoting Prof. Wheeler, Weber and Chinese records, he contends that the Buddha must have flourished at any time between the 20th and the 14th century B.C. He challenges the fixing of the date of Buddha on the basis of the dates of Kanishka or of Megasthenes. 3a The reference to Megasthenes, the Greek ambas- sador, who refers to the ruler to whom he was accredited as Shandracotus, need not necessarily be to Chandragupta Maurya

Bhartrhari being known, it is incorrect to assign Sankara to the B.C. period and to misquote the Sringeri Math record.”

3a Kanishka’s date is variously stated as 1st century B.C., 1st century A.D., 2nd century A.D. and 3rd century A.D. The relevancy of his date to the Buddha’s date is that Hsuan Tsang, the Chinese traveller, states that the Buddha lived four hundred years before Kanishka. Some historians try to fix the date of the Buddha on the basis of this information as 5th century B.C. This view is not currently accepted, and the Buddha’s date is settled on other grounds as 567-487 B.C. It is fixed so on the basis of Asoka’s coronation in 269 B.C., four years after his accession. According to the Ceylon Chronicles, 218 years separate this event of Asoka’s coronation from the date of the Buddha’s demise. Thus we get 487 as the date of the Buddha’s demise, and as he is supposed to have lived 80 years, the date of his birth is 567. According to R. Sathianatha Ayyar, the date of 487 B.C. is supported by “the dotted record” of Canton (China). The traditional date according to the Buddhist canonical literature, however, is 623-543 B.C.

Megasthenes comes into the picture, because he was the Greek Ambassador of Selukos Nickator at the court of Chandra Gupta Maurya (325′B.C.), who is described by him as Shandracotus. Now Sri T. S. Narayaną Sastri, with a view to push back the Buddha’s date, challenges this identification, and opines that this reference could as well be to Chandra Gupta, or even to Samudra Gupta of the Gupta dynasty (300-600 A.D.), in which case the Mauryan age (325 to 188 B.C.) will have to be pushed

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but to the king of the Gupta dynasty (300-600 A.D.) with the same name, or even to Samudra Gupta. If this line of argument is accepted, the present dates of Indian history will have to be worked back to about three to four hundred years, which will land us in very great difficulties, as shown in the foot note. Besides, arguments of this type are never conclusive; they can at best throw doubts on other theories accepted on uncertain grounds.

Without going so far as to challenge the accepted date of the Buddha, there is another opinion that assigns Sankara to the 1st century B.C. This view is held by Sri N. Ramesam in his book Sri Sankaracharya (1971). His argument is as follows: Sankara is accepted in all Sankara-vijayas as a contemporary of Kumarila. Kumarila must have lived after Kalidasa, the poet, because Kuma- rila quotes Kalidasa’s famous line; Satām hi sandeha padeșu vastuṣu pramāṇam antaḥkaraṇasya vrittayaḥ. Now Kalidasa’s date has not been firmly fixed (first half of the 5th century A.D. according to some), but it is contended that it cannot be earlier than 150 B.C., as Agni Mitra, one of the heroes in a famous drama of Kalidasa, is ascribed to that date. So also, it cannot be later than the Man- dasor Inscription of 450 A.D. So on the basis that Sankara and Kumarila were contemporaries and that Kumarila came after Kalidasa, we have to search for Sankara’s date between 150 B.C. and 450 A.D. Now to narrow down the gap still further, the list of spiritual preceptors that preceded Sankara is taken into con- further back into the 7th to 5th century B.C. and the Buddha (567-487 B.C.) too, into the 9th century B.C. at least. But Sri Sastri forgets that these contentions cannot stand, as the date of Megasthenes and of Chandra Gupta Maurya have necessarily to be related to the firm and unquestionable date of Alexander’s invasion of India (326 B.C.). Megasthenes was the ambassador at the Pataliputra court sent by Selukos Nickator (305 B.C.), the Satrap who succeeded to the Indian region of Alexander’s empire, which he had to give up to Chandra Gupta by a treaty.

T. S. Narayana Sastri’s attempt to shift the Gupta period of India history, to the time of Alexander’s invasion (326 B.C.) by equating Shandracotus with Samudra Gupta of the Gupta period, is a mere chronological guess-work without any support- ing evidence, as against several historical synchronisms which compel the acceptance of the currently recognised chronology. For example, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fahien was in India in the Gupta age, from 399-414 A.D., and his description of India can tally only with that period and not with the Mauryan period. Besides, the Hun invasion of India was in the reign of Skanda Gupta, about 458 A.D., and this event cannot be put on any ground into the B.C.’s when Mauryans flourished, even with an out-stretched poetical imagination. So we have got to maintain that

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sideration. Patanjali, Gaudapada, Govindapada and Sankara- form the accepted line of discipleship. Patanjali, Sri Ramesam contends, lived in the 2nd century B.C., a conclusion which, if accepted finally (?), gives much credence to his theory. Now, not less than a hundred years can be easily taken as the distance in time between Sankara and Patanjali in this line of succession, and thus we derive the time of Sankara as the 1st century B.C., which has the merit of being in agreement with the Kumarila- Sankara contemporaneity and the Kumarila-Kalidasa relation- ship. The 1st century hypothesis has also got the advantage of tallying with the Sringeri Math’s teacher-disciple list, according to which, as already stated, 12 B.C. is the date of Sankara’s demise. Sri Ramesam finds further confirmation for his theory in the existence of a temple on a Sankaracharya Hill in Kashmir attributed to Jaluka, a son of Asoka who became the ruler of Kashmir after Asoka’s demise, according to, Rajatarangini. Asoka passed away in 180 B.C. and it is very credible that Jaluka could have been in Kashmir when Sankara visited that region, provided Sankara’s life is fixed in the 1st century B.C. Further, Cunningham and General Cole are stated to assign the temple architecturally to the times of Jaluka.

Like Sri Sastri, Sri Ramesam also refutes the modern scholars’ view of Sankara’s date being 788-820 A.D. on the ground that this has arisen due to confusion between Adi-Sankara and Abhinava- Sankara (788-840 A.D.).

the Shandracotus who visited Alexander’s camp (326 B.C.) and who later received about 305 B.C. Megasthenes as the ambassador of Selukos Nickator, the successor to Alexander’s Indian province, can be none other than Chandra Gupta of the Mauryan dynasty (325 B.C. to 188 B.C.)

Further, historical synchronisms, the sheet-anchor of the chronology of Indian history give strong support to the accepted date of Asoka (273-232 B.C.), the greatest ‘of the Mauryan Emperors. His Rock Edict XIII mentions, as stated by. Sathianatha Ayyar, the following contemporary personalities: Antiochus Teos of Syria (261- 246 B.C.); Ptolemy Philadelphos of Egypt (285-247 B.C.); Antigonos Gonates of Macedonia (278-239 B.C.); Magas of Cyrene (285-258 B.C.), and Alexander of Epirus (272-258 B.c.). They are referred to as alive at the time of that Rock Edict. In the face of such historical synchronisms all attempts to push back the time of the Buddha by several centuries in order to substantiate the theory of 509 B.C. being Sankara’s date, is only chronological jugglery.

So the Buddha’s date has to remain more or less as it is fixed today (568-487 B.C.). Sankara came definitely long after the Buddha.

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Now this theory, unlike Sri Sastri’s, has the merit of not dis- turbing the accepted date of the Buddha. It has also the support of Rajatarangini and the Sringeri tradition. But its credibility depends largely on the theory of 200 B.C. being the time of Patanjali and the acceptance of the Kumarila-Kalidasa relationship. If these are questioned, the whole theory falls. This is the case with most dates in Indian history, where the rule is to fix the date of one person or event on the basis of the date of another person or event, which itself is open to question. There are, however, several pieces of internal evidence that go against even this date in B.C.’s, as will be seen from the succeeding paragraphs.

Yet another, and in fact an entirely new, clue based on internal evidence and in contradiction to the above theories of a B.C. anti- quity to Sankara, is given by Dr. A. G. Krishna Warrier, Professor of Sanskrit (Rtd) in the Kerala University, in his learned Introduc- tion to his translation of Sankara’s Brahma-sutra-bhāshya into Malayalam. He states that the Buddhist author Kamalasila has pointed out that Sankara has quoted in his Brahma-sūtra-bhāshya (B. S. II. 2-28) the following passage from the Alambanapariksha by Dingnaga, the celebrated Buddhist savant: Yadantarjneyarūpam tat bahiryadavabhāsate’. Dingnaga’s date; which Dr. Warrier links with those of Vasubandhu (450 a.D.) and Bhartrhari, is fixed by him as about 450 A.D. But that is not all. The following verse of Dingnaga’s commentator Dharmakirti is quoted by Sankara in his work Upadesa-sahasri: Abhinnopi hi buddhyātmā viparyāsitadaršanaiḥ grāhyagrāhaka-samvitti bhēdavāniva lakṣyate (ch. 18, v. 142). This reference is from Dharmakirti’s Pramāṇa- vinischhaya. Dr. Warrier points out that Dharmakirti is described as a ‘great Buddhist logician’ by the Chinese pilgrim-traveller, It-sing, who was in India in 690 A.D. The implication is that Dhar- makirti must have lived in the first half of the 7th century or earlier, and that Sankara came after him. It means that Sankara’s date cannot be pushed back beyond the 5th century A.D., or even beyond the 7th century A.D., if the Upadesasahasri is accepted as a genuine work of. Sankara. As in the case of most dates in Indian history, the credibility of the view, too, depends on the acceptance of the dates of Dingnaga and Dharmakirti as 5th century and 7th century respectively, and that Upadesasahasri is really a work of Sankara, as traditionally accepted. Fixing dates on the basis of other dates,

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which are themselves open to question, can yield only possibilities and not certainties.

Probable dates suggested by other scholars are also the 6th century and the 7th century A.D. Sankara refers in his writings to a king named Purnavarman who, according to Hsuan Tsang, ruled in 590 A.D. It is, therefore, contended that Sankara must have lived about that time or after. Next Telang points out how Sankara speaks of Pataliputra in his Sutra-bhashya (IV. ii. 5) and that this will warrant Sankara having lived about a century before 750 A.D., by which time Pataliputra had been eroded by the river and was non-existent. Such references to names of persons, cities, rivers, etc. in philosophical writings can also be explained as stock examples, as we use Aristotle or Achilles in logic, and need not necessarily have any historical significance. Dr. T. R: Chintamani maintains that Kumarila lived towards the latter half of the 7th century A.D. (itself a controversial point) and Sankara, being a contemporary of his, must have lived about that time (655-684 A.D.). It is also pointed out by him that Vidyananda, the teacher of Jainasena, who was also the author of Jaina-harivamsa (783 A.D.), quotes a verse4 from the Brihadaranyaka-vartika of Sureswara, disciple of Sankara. This is impossible to conceive without granting that Sankara and Sureswara lived about a hundred years earlier to Jainasena who lived about the second half of the 8th century A.D.

Thus vastly varied are the views about Sankara’s date, ranging from 509 B.C. to 788 A.D., i.e., more than a millennium and a half. Sri S. S. Suryanarayana Sastry’s contention that “for dis- carding the date generally assigned, viz., 788-820 A.D., no sufficient grounds have yet been given,” cannot stand today, since this date is proved to be the time of Abhinava Sankara. Nor have the upholders of this view given sufficient justification for their view, or disproved the objections raised against it. Under the circums- tances, all these complicated discussions of Sankara’s date culminate only in a learned ignorance. We have to admit that we have no certain knowledge, and it is, therefore, wise not to be dogmatic but keep an open mind. Most probably he must have lived some- where between the 5th and the 7th century A.D., certainly much

4 Ātmāpi sadidam brahma mohät pāroṣyadū șitam

Brahmāpi sa tathaivātmā sadviṭīyatayêṣate

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earlier than the end of the 8th century, his generally, accepted date by modern scholars.

Maths founded by Sankara

Which are the Maths or monastic institutions that Sankara founded? This is another question on which there has been much dispute. Traditionally, four Maths are supposed to have been founded by Sankara at the four regions of India- at Sringeri in the south under Sureswara, at Dwarka in the west under Hasta- malaka, at Badari in the north under Totaka, and at Puri in the east under Padmapada. It is pointed out in the monograph of P. Rama Sastry on The Maths Founded by Sankara that this four-Math theory has been propounded first in Chidvilasa’s Sankara-vijaya which, along with some other Sankara-vijayas, is, according to T. S. Narayana Sastri, a recent production and of little authority. It finds no support in the other Vijayas of its kind and perhaps not even in the more ancient Sankara-vijayas. Of course this view cannot be verified now, as the most ancient of these Sankara-vijayas are not available now. Leaving aside the unavailable Sankara- vijayas even most of the available ones, including those of Madhava, Anantanandagiri, Vyasachala and Govindanatha, do not hold any such restricted view like the four-Math theory. Madhava’s Sankara- vijaya, though a butt of criticism by a large number of people who dislike its popularity, seems to be non-partisan, and maintains only that Sankara in his last days sent several of his disciples to preach the doctrine at ‘Sringa-giri and other centres’. Though it gives special importance to Sringeri by naming it, it admits the existence of many other centres. Whether these were all Maths with resident Sannyasins is anybody’s guess. Anantanandagiri, as also texts like Sivarahasya, mention Kanchi as one of the centres he founded in fact, as the Math where he finally settled down and passed away, thus giving it special importance.

Under the circumstances how the theory of four Maths came to have such popularity has to be explained. It cannot be merely because of the mention of it in Chidvilasa’s Sankara-vijaya. On the other hand, that text must have merely recorded the popular notion existing at the time. The theory seems to have originated from the fact that the Orders of Dasanami Sannyasins recognise and accept affiliation with only these four Maths- the Orders

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known as Puris, Bharatis and Saraswathis with Sringeri Math; Giris, Aranyas and Vanas with Jyothi Math; Ashramas and Tirthas with Dwaraka Math; and Parvatas and Sagaras with Puri Math. No other Math is recognised by them. Now, if there were more Maths of Sankara, why have the Dasanami Sannyasins limited their affiliation to these four Maths only? None of the protagonists of different Sankara Maths have answered this ques- tion. The affiliation, no doubt, is only a nominal one, and these Sannyasins neither take Sannyasa from these Maths nor follow any direction or control emanating from them. Still the question of how they came to be thus affiliated has to be answered. The advocates of more-than-four-Maths have given no explanation. In fact, they have not at all taken into account the evidence of Dasa- nami Sannyasins, who have played a more active role in propa- gating the institution of Sannyasa and the Advaita philosophy than the Sankara Maths. From what time- whether it was from the time of Sankaracharya himself or in later times- the Dasanamis came into existence, cannot be ascertained now. Even assuming they came later, and also that Sankara started more than four Maths, their affiliation with these four Maths above mentioned establishes at least that, at the time these Sannyasin Orders took shape, only these four Maths were functioning effectively. The functioning of the Maths as also their popularity must have depended largely on the eminence of the Heads at particular times. But this does not preclude the possibility of other genuine Maths, unnoticed and unrecognised by Sannyasins, functioning among non-Sannyasin communities. Nothing more precise than this can be said about the question as to which are the Maths originally founded by Sankaracharya, or even whether he founded any Math at all. Different sectaries having varying traditions can stick to them with justification, provided they do not become too cocksure and dogmatic and deny a similar right to others who differ from them.

Where did Sankara attain Siddhi

The birth place of Sankara being at Kaladi is the one biographical fact accepted uniformly by all Sankara-vijayas except one in one of its editions. But the place where he passed away is disputed. There are four views on the question. According to Madhaviya-

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Sankara-vijaya he went to Kedar via Badari after ascending ’the Throne of Omniscience’ in Kashmir, and from there he entered into Kailasa, the realm of Siva, transfiguring himself into Siva’s form. There is also a monument to Sankaracharya in that region to commemorate this event.

But this version is questioned by other authorities. On this controversy, it is interesting to read the following statement issued by Sri T. N. Ramachandran, Rtd. Joint Director-General of Archaeology of India:5 “At Kedarnath, on the way to Badrinath, there is a monument associated with the great Adi-Sankaracharya which His Holiness Sri Sankaracharya of Dwaraka Pith visited some time ago and expressed a desire to renovate (the memorial). His Holiness issued instructions to scholars of all parts of our country to ascertain the place of the Samadhi of the great Adi- Sankaracharya. On this Sri Sampurnanand, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and myself bestowed some thought.

“After having arrived at some conclusion on the point by mutual correspondence, we are of the opinion, that Kedarnath cannot be said to be the Samadhisthan (the final resting place) of the great Acharya. Yet it is a unique place connected with the life of the Acharya inasmuch as the great Adi-Sankara disappeared from amidst his followers while at Kedarnath. Traditions recorded in some works dealing with Adi-Sankaracharya point out to the fact that Sri Sankara went to Kailas from Kedarnath, brought the five Sphatika Lingas (Sivalingas made of crystal) and a portion of the Soundaryalahari Stotra, and repairing to the South, attained ́Siddhi (final end) at Kanchi,6

“The Memorial at Kedarnath should at any rate be kept intact, and it is the duty of all who profess any interest in the hoary Religion

5 The matter that is quoted above is found as Appendix C in Sri N. Ramesam’s Sri Sankaracharya (1971), and as Appendix II in the Life of Sankara in Malayalam by T. C. Narayana Sastri of Alathur.

6 It is difficult to understand how an archaeologist and scholar like Sri T. N. Rama- chandran suddenly changes his view about the Samadhisthan of Sankara, tradi- as such, and confirmed by an ancient monument. He merely

tionally accepted

whom? What are the weighty arguments against the accepted view? We are left says that it is on the basis of some correspondence that he changed his views. With

quite understandable. But Sri Ramachandran is definite in his conclusion without in the dark about all this. If it is the inconsistencies in the Sankara-vijayas, it is

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and Philosophy of our land to join hands in the sacred endeavour of renovating the Adi-Sankara Memorial at Kedarnath, as chalked out by Sri Sampurnanand, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, in his letter addressed to me: (Naini Tal, letter dated July 6, 1958). ‘Dear Sri Ramachandra, Recently I had occasion to discuss the matter with the Sankaracharya of Dwaraka Pith also. In the first place the word ‘Samadhi’ is a misnomer in this connection. There is nothing to prove that Sri Sankaracharya died at this spot. All that tradition says is that he came to Kedarnath and, in modern phraseology, disappeared thereafter. So, what is called Samadhi is really not a Samadhi but a Memorial. I myself do not treat it as Samadhi and such proposals as I am considering are based on this information. What I propose is that instead of the wretched struc- ture that passes as a Samadhi, a new Memorial should be built in memory of the great Acharya. It should not occupy the place of the present construction which is in danger of being overwhelmed by an avalanche any day. It should be built at a safer place some- where near the temple. I am getting a design prepared by our State Architect. The Sankaracharya of Dwaraka Pith has given me his support in the matter’. . . .

This theory of Sankara having attained Siddhi (final end) at Kanchi is supported, according to T. S. Narayana Sastri in his book The Age of Sankara, by the following texts: Brihat Sankara- vijaya, Vyasachala’s Sankara-vijaya and Anantanandagiri’s San- kara-vijaya, besides the Punyasloka Manjari, Jagat-guru-ratnamala and Jagat-guru-katha samgṛaha. On this it has to be remarked that from among the above-mentioned Sankara-vijayas one has only Anantanandagiri’s and Vyasachala’s works available for discussing the point at all. He merely accepts one of the traditions saying that Sankara disappeared from Kedara only to go to Sivaloka and return to the world of men with a number of Sivalingas to be established in several parts of India, and at last passed away at Kanchi. He also seems to be unaware of the fact that according to Markandeya Samhita and Sivarahasya, which are the authorities for this exploit of Sankara, it was from Varanasi and not Kedara that he disappeared to bring the Sivalingas. According to one of these texts, Sankarà did not go to Kailasa, but Lord Visweswara brought the Sivalingas and gave them to Sankara at Varanasi. Anantanandagiri also maintains that Sankara went by air to Kailasa from Varanasi and returned with the Sivalingas. So according to all traditions Sri Ramachandran’s surmise about the monument at Kedara is incorrect. So the mystery of that monu- ment remains unexplained.

•

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reference and corroboration. Sri T. S. Narayana Sastri, however, claims to possess some extracts of mutilated sections of the first of the texts mentioned, which is considered by some as the most ancient and authoritative text. But no one can be sure of, much less accept, the claims of these multilated manuscripts.

As far as Vyasachala’s work is concerned, it is very clear that it does not support this theory. All that it says is that Sankara ascended the “Throne of Omniscience’ in Kashmir, (which some think is identical with Kanchi, as Govindanatha interprets it), and then went away to some place ‘pleasing’ to him (ruciradesam). The narrative part of the work abruptly ends with this, followed by three or four evocatory verses. So, what that place is to which he went leaving Kashmir or Kanchi, is anybody’s guess. It is difficult to understand how Kashmir can be Kanchi. Even if Kashmir be Kanchi, it is sure that Sankara left it, according to Vyasachala. Among available Sankara-vijayas, only Anantanandagiri’s gives clear sup- port to this theory of Sankara attaining Siddhi at Kanchi. But whether that Sankara is Adi-Sankara or Abhinava-Sankara is again a matter of dispute in the light of the textual criticism of different editions of the work. The point is discussed in a later paragraph.

‘It is, however, to be noted that to the Madras University edition of Vyasachala’s work is pasted, at the end, an additional page containing a new discovery by Pandit Polagam Rama Sastri on the subject, forwarded to the editor after the printing of the book was over. It gives five additional verses to be added at the end. The editor of the work had not found them in any of the manuscripts he came across, but Pandit Rama Sastri had discovered these extracts in Atmabodhendra Saraswathi’s commentary on Jagad- gururatnamala. The main purpose of these verses is to omit San- kara’s leaving for ruciradesam (place pleasing to him) and make him stay at Kanchi. But strangely enough the interpolator forgot the whole context in Vyasachala’s work- the incongruity of suddenly speaking of Sankara, who was in Kashmir, the northernmost region of India, being at Kanchi in the far south. Probably there is a missing link to be supplied hereafter. It is perhaps this confused situation that makes Govindanatha interpret Kashmir as Kanchi unhesitatingly in his Acharyacharita, to which we shall be referring hereafter. Govindanatha, however, does not allow him to stop at Kanchi, but makes him go further south.

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Allusion has been made in a quotation given earlier to Sankara’s re-emergence from Kailasa. This is the version of Markandeya Samhita and Anantanandagiri, supported also by Sadasivendra Brahman. According to this version, disappearing from the world of men from Varanasi for sometime, he re-emerged from Sivaloka in Kailasa with five Sivalingas and the Soundaryalahari, one of the great works on the Divine Mother attributed to him. He travelled all over India again on another Dig-vijaya and established these Sivalingas in different places and finally settled in Kanchi, where he attained Siddhi.

Describing this great event, Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan says ip his Introduction to the Madras University edition of Ananta- nandagiri’s text: “In Kanchi, the mokshapuri, Sankara during the last moments of his life directed Sureswara of the Indra-saraswati Order to send the Moksha-linga to Chidambaram and then trans- formed his gross body through Yogic process to subtle form, finally culminating in omnipresent consciousness that is absolute bliss.” He quotes Anantanandagiri’s verse, the purport of which is “Sankaracharya, the grantor of liberation to spiritual aspirants, is there present even today as the all-pervading consciousness.’ Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan finds further proof for these events in the abundance of ancient sculptures of Sankaracharya in and about Kanchi as listed by him in the Introduction to the recently published Madras University edition of Anantanandagiri’s Sankara-vijaya.

The attainment of Siddhi at Kanchi is further corroborated by Sivarahasya, a voluminous text of the Siva cult dealing with all the devotees of Siva, which is also quoted in the Madras University edition of Anantanandagiri. It has, however, to be remarked that, as pointed out by T. S. Narayana Sastri (pp. 287 of his work The Age of Sankara), there are conflicting readings on this point in different manuscripts of the text of Sivarahasya. In one it is: misrän tato lokam avāpa saivam. In another it is: misrān sa kāncyām In still another it is: Kāncyām Sive! tava pure sa ca siddhim āpa. Evidently texts have been manipulated by interested Pandits, creating a very confusing and suspicious situation. This view cannot, therefore, be accepted as conclusive as some adherents of it seem to hold.

There are further insuperable difficulties in accepting Ananta- nandagiri’s work as a proof of this theory at all. A little textual

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criticism of the work will make the point clear. In the edition of it, recently published by the University of Madras under the editorship of Dr. Veezhinathan, the birth of Sankara is thus des- cribed: “In the beautiful land of Kerala, there is a prominent village called Kaladi, and at that place dwelt a wise man named Sivaguru, the son, of Vidyathiraja. The great Siva, desirous of blessing the world, entered by his spiritual glory into his wife, who had become great and holy by her austerities. She bore a foetus whose splendour resembled the sun and it was delivered at an auspicious moment.” This in main outline is in agreement with the version given by all literature on Sankara.

But the first ever published edition of this work gives an entirely different version. Below is given this version from the 2nd chapter of. Anantanandagiri’s Sankara-vijaya published by the Baptist Mission Press in 1868 under the editorship of Navadweepa Goswami and Jayanarayana Tarkapanchanana: “In the world there is the famous Akasalinga of Siva, the all-pervading Deity, in the place called Chidambaram. There many Brahmanas inhabited, and among them, in a family of very learned men, was born a leading Brahmana named Sarvajna. He had a wife named Kamakshi who was possessed of all auspicious qualities. By meditating on the Lord of Chidambaram, this couple had a famous daughter named Visishta, who from her early girlhood delighted herself by meditation on Siva and was devoted to the knowledge of the Divine. In her eighth year her father Sarvajna married her to one named Visvajit. But she, Visishta, always continued to look upon as her Lord (Pati) the Non-dual Being Siva installed in the Akasa- linga at Chidambaram, and performed worship and meditation on Him with added and awe-inspiring devotion. Finding her to be of this nature, Visvajit (her husband) abandoned her and resorted to the forest to perform austerities as a hermit. Since then the girl Visishta pleased the Lord of Chidambaram by her whole- hearted worship and meditation. That Deity, although perfect in every way, entered into the lotus face of that girl to the astonish- ment of all others who saw it. Possessed of that great and awe- inspiring power of the Lord, Visishta became veritably Ambika (Siva’s consort) Herself. She was thenceforth worshipped and served by all, including her parents. As months passed, the foetus in her developed day by day, and after the third month, the great Brah-

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manas did the appropriate rituals, taking the Lord of Chidambaram as Yajamana (in this case for the performance of the rituals which the husband of the girl is to perform). On the attainment of the tenth month, out came from the womb of Visishta the great God Siva under the name of Sankaracharya. At that time a rain of flowers was showered from the heavens, and the Devas sounded for long their musical and percussion instruments like Dundubhi and the rest.”

Now, in Dr. Veezhinathan’s edition, the, above text is given as a footnote. He has not given sufficient reason for discarding it. From the rather unclear reference to manuscripts he has given in his Introduction, this version seems to be supported by five manu- scripts (B.Mss.) and an earlier printed version published by Jivananda Vidya Sagara and printed at Sarasudhanidhi Press at Calcutta in 1881. He has not, however, referred to the still earlier Calcutta edition of 1868, quoted herein above, probably because the book was not available to him. As against this, he refers to ten manuscripts (A.Mss.) as supporting his version. Probably many of these manuscripts of both groups may be copies only, and from the numbers, their authenticity cannot be ascertained. Besides, several of them are not complete also. Dr. Veezhinathan, however, concludes that the texts maintaining Chidambaram being the birth place of Sankara form a later interpolation, on the basis of the citation of Achutaraya Modak and of an article of W. R. Antarkar on Anantanandagiri’s text in the Journal of the Bombay University, September 1961. The discussion is in no way conclusive. Considering that equally great scholars unconnected. with later controversies have adopted the other version so early as 1868, the importance of it cannot be so easily minimised. The· Editors of the 1868 edition, Navadweep Goswami and Jayanarayana Tarkapanchanana, have stated in their Preface that ’their edition had been prepared in the light of three texts they could get-one in Nagari letters which was procured with great difficulty; another in Telugu characters procured with equal difficulty; and still another in Bengali alphabets made on the basis of the above texts’. There is no reason why this text should not be given at least an equal place of importance as the one edited by Dr. Veezhinathan. According to the text of the Calcutta edition, Anantanandagiri is giving the history, not of ‘Adi-Sankara who was born at Kaladi”,

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but of a Sankaracharya ‘who was born immaculately to Visishta of Chidambaram’, who continued to live at Chidambaram itself, took Sannyasa there, and who went on Dig-vijaya tours that are entirely different from the routes that Adi-Sankara is supposed to have taken in several of the other Vijayas. This Sankara is very largely concerned with reforming the various cults that prevailed. in the country and very little with philosophy. The controversy with Mandana, which is one of the most glorious episodes in Adi-Sankara’s life, finds a casual mention in the form of a synopsis. In this, as also in entering into Amaruka’s body and in the writing of the Bhashyas, the two Sankaracharyas are mixed up. According to the Calcutta edition also, he finally attains Siddhi at Kanchi as in the one edited by Dr. Veezhinathan. But the point that comes out of the Calcutta edition is that it is the ‘Chidambaram Sankara, the son of Visishta’, and not the ‘Adi-Sankara of Kaladi’ that attains Siddhi at Kanchi. So Anantanandagiri’s text cannot be taken as a conclusive evidence or settled proof of Adi-Sankara’s final resting place. It is only one of the traditions supported by some manuscripts. There is every possibility that this Chidam- baram Sankaracharya is the Abhinava-Sankara, whom even modern scholars have mistakenly identified with Adi-Sankara and given 788 A.D. as his time. Besides, Anantanandagiri, the author, calls the hero of his work his Parama-guru (his teacher’s teacher). This makes the matter all the more confusing. For, no one has recorded that Adi-Sankara or his disciples had a disciple called Anantanandagiri. Anandagiri (quite different from Anantananda- giri) was Sankara’s disciple, and the Prachina-Sankara-vijaya attributed to him (a book quite different from Anantanandagiri’s) is not available anywhere now. The point that we want to make out by these critical remarks is that it is not very desirable to take a dogmatic position on such points where no final view is possible with the existing information. The best that can be said is that it is one of the traditions.

Still another place which claims the honour of being the last resting place of Sankara is Vrishachala-the Siva temple at Trichur, from the Deity of which place he is supposed to have had his origin. This is the view of Sankara-vijaya of Govindanath, also known as Acharya-charita. Govindanatha, who claims his work to be based on Vyasachala’s Sankara-vijaya, brings Sankara up toINTRODUCTION

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Kanchi at the end of his mission and makes him assume the Throne of Omniscience there at Kanchi, which he seems to identify strangely with Kashmir. He does not, however, allow him to stop there. He takes him further to Trichur (Thiru-siva-perur), from the Siva-Deity of which place (Vrishachala) he had received em- bodiment. Sankara is supposed to have founded also a Math there, which continues to exist even today as Naduvil-madam, and spent his last days there until he was absorbed in the Divine Essence.

According to Govindanatha, Sankara, on realising that his last day had come, made obeisance to all the Deities in the temple and coming out, sat at a spot and contemplated on the glorious form of Maha Vishnu. Then with the mind overflowing with devotion, he recited a great hymn to Maha-Vishnu known as Vishnu-pādādikesa stotra, composed extempore by him. In the midst of this, his spirit left the body, and “merged in the Blissful Essence that is behind the disc of the Sun”. Today a visitor to the Vrishachala (Vadakkunathan) temple at Trichur can see a raised platform with emblems of conch and discus in stone, marking the place where Sankara is supposed to have attained Siddhi.

This theory is criticised by Sri T. S. Narayana Sastri and others on the ground that it is the product of a Keralite with too much of local patriotism and is improbable. This, however, is only a matter of opinion. It is as credible or incredible as any other theory based on Sankara-vijayas. The theory only suffers from the fact that there have been no partisans to highlight it.

Its critics forget that Govindanatha claims that his work is based on Vyasachala’s Sankara-vijaya. On this point Vyasachala only says that Sankara in the end went away to ruciradesam-a place dear to him. What that place is, is anybody’s gues. The place dear to him, can possibly be the Siva temple at Vrishachala from which he is said to have had his origin, as Govindanatha seems to interpret it. It may also be Kanchi, or Dattatreya-guha, or Sivaloka.

Another tradition is that Sankaracharya spent his last days in Dattatreya-guha (the cave of the sage Dattatreya). According to Chidvilasa’s Sankara-vijaya this cave is in Badarinarayan. According to this text it was to Badari that Sankara originally went straightway from his home at Kaladi, met his Guru Govinda-

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pada, wrote his Bhashyas and stayed until he started on his tour of philosophical debates and controversies. After all his life-work, Chidvilasa brings him back to Badari where he lives until he grows very old and decrepit (Jarjara-vigraha). Then Dattatreya leads him into his abode in a cavern there, from where he goes to Siva’s region. According to Guruvamsa Kävya, it was in Marathawada, at a place called Mahuripuri, that Sankara entered into com- munion with Dattatreya. This place is known today as Mahur, or Mahuragad. In the Central Railway, there is a line from Murthija- pur to Yavatmal. Not far from Yavatmal is Mahur with a temple of Dattatreya.7

We have shown above the confusion prevailing about the place of Sankara’s demise. The same extends to most events of his life, especially about the places where they happened and about the routes he took in his travels. The place of his birth as Kaladi, which is the most undisputed point in his life accepted by almost all the Sankara-vijayas, is given as different at least by one Sankara- vijaya, that of Anantanandagiri, in its Calcutta edition published in 1868. According to this edition he was born immaculately at Chidambaram as the son of Visishta, a theory that has already been discussed earlier. Sivarahasya calls the place of his birth as Sasalagrama in Kerala. One is at a loss to identify that place.8

Thus, not to speak of the place of his demise, even the place of his birth, which is the one biographical point on which all other Sankara-vijayas are agreed, is disputed at least by one version of what is considered today by many as an authoritative text, namely, that of Anantanandagiri, in its Calcutta edition of 1868. As pointed out already, this deviation is the result of confusing Adi-Sankara with Abhinava-Sankara, who might have been a native of Chidambaram. The same confusion might have entered into some of the other details connected with the hero of Anant- anandagiri’s Sankara-vijaya. For, as already pointed out, the

7 From Sankara-vijayam in Malayalam, by T. C. Narayana Sastri, Alathur. * If the word Sasalagrama were slightly amended as Sasilagrama, its identity with Kaladi can be easily established. Today the word Kaladi is pronounced with a lengthened ‘a’ as Kaaladi. ‘Kaal’ in Malayalam means ‘foot’. Probably this lengthening of ‘a’ may be a modern development, and it might have been known in ancient days as Kal-ati, ‘a’ being short. Kal, with a shortened ‘a’ means in Malayalam ‘stone’ and the Sanskrit ‘Sagila’ (with stone) may be taken as its Sanskritisted form.

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custom of all the Heads of Sankara Maths being called as Sankara- charyas, as if it were a title, and not an individual’s name, was the main cause of much of this confusion of biographical and literary details connected with Sankara. This confusion has got worse confounded by the interference with manuscript copies in the past by the adherents of particular Sankara Maths in order to enhance the prestige and supremacy of the particular institution that patronised them. As a result, we have today only a lot of traditions about Sankaracharya, and he is a foolhardy man, indeed, who dares to swear by any of these traditions as truly historical and the others as fabricated. Choice in such a situation can only be subjective.

Unquestionable History of Sankara

In this confused situation, Madhava’s Sankara-dig-vijaya has one outstanding superiority over all other available literature of that kind. As a poem it justifies itself as truly the product of a Nava-Kalidasa (a modern Kalidasa), as the author describes himself in his composition. And as a profound and penetrating exposition of some of the moot points in Advaita metaphysics, dressed in a poetical style that is as attractive to literary men as to philosophers, it can be described as a unique philosophical and historical poem. It has stood the test of time, and it will stand for all time, in spite of interested hostile criticism, which the author himself has anticipated and answered in the opening verses of the first canto. Whatever the uncertainties might be about biographi- cal details, the historicity of Sankaracharya stands on the following firm foundations: In spite of all the differences among authorities on some important details of his life, the main outlines of it stand clear, as we have shown at the beginning of this essay. The differ- ences in details only vary round these common factors representing different traditions. There is also his impress on most of the great temples and holy places of India, where he lived, preached, reno- vated edifices, and contributed so immensely to their holy tradi- · tions that his name and doings have become almost legendary, creating an image that has remained indelible on the Indian mind. Above all, there are his great commentaries on three source books of Vedanta, the Vedanta Sutras, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. Rightly does Dr. Radhakrishna offer the tribute of the

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Indian mind to the personality of the great Acharya in the following most beautiful and effective words in his book on Indian Philosophy: “The life of Sankara makes a strong impression of contraries. He is a philosopher and a poet, a savant and a saint, a mystic and a religious reformer. Such diverse gifts did he possess that different images present themselves, if we try to recall his personality. One sees him in youth, on fire with intellectual ambition, a stiff and intrepid debator; another regards him as a shrewd political genius (rather a patriot) attempting to impress on the people a sense of unity; for a third, he is a calm philosopher engaged in the single effort to expose the contradictions of life and thought with an unmatched incisiveness; for a fourth, he is the mystic who declares that we are all greater than we know. There have been few minds more universal than his.”

SWAMI TAPASYANANDA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Madhava-Vidyaranya’s Sankara-Dig-Vijaya: Anandasrama Sanskrit

Series.

Translation of the above into Malayam, metre to metre: by T. Sub-

rahmanyan Tirumumpu, P. O. Palikode, Kerala.

Anantanandagiri’s Sankara-Vijaya: Madras University Philosophical

Series No. 16.

-do- Calcutta Edition (1868): Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.

Vyasachala’s Sankara-Vijaya: Madras Govt. Oriental Manuscript

Series No. 24.

Chidvilasa’s Sankara Vijaya Vilasa: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Research

Organ, Vol. XXXIII, Nos. 1 to 4.

Govindanatha’s Acharya-Vijaya: Published by K. N. Divakaran Nam-

budiri, ‘Hari-Vihar’, Fort, Trippunithura, Kerala.

T. S. Narayana Sastri’s The Age of Sankara:

M/s. B.G. Paul & Co., Francis Joseph. St., Madras-1.

S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri’s Sankaracharya:

M/s G. A. Natesan & Co., Madras.

N. Ramesan’s Sri Sankaracharya:

M/s. Bhavanarayanaswami Temple, Ponnur. A. P.

T. C. Narayana Sastri’s Sankara-Vijaya (in Malayalam):

M/s. Sitarama Kalyanamandapam Trust, Bank Road, Alathur, Kerala.

P. Ramasastrigal’s The Mutts Founded by Sankara:

B. G. Paul & Co., Madras.

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan’s History of Indian Philosophy:

M/s. George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London.

S. Sathianathier’s History of India:

M/s. Ananda Book Depot, McNichols Road, Madras-31.

Ullur S. Parameswara Iyer’s Kerala-Sahitya (in Malayalam): Kerala

University, Trivandrum.

A. G. Krishna Warrier: Sankara’s Brahma-sutra-bhashya (translation

in Malayalam): Kerala University, Trivandrum.

SANKARA-DIG-VIJAYA

The Book

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BIBLIOGRAPHY