Motivation for BS comment

shankara’s context

No-one’s AchArya is above “comments”, including yours and mine. Why? Because they are men, and as with pauruSheya vAkya-s, it becomes important to know the qualities and circumstances of the person producing them.

adhyAsa on BS

shankara misrepresented bAdarAyaNa’s brahmasUtra-s. This is considered separately here. It’s a hopeless task, and the fraud is apparent by the second sUtra itself. It’s akin to dressing up a monkey like a man, and hoping no one will notice.

Reasons?

Why did he get this itch? He could have stopped at adhyAsya-bhAShya (the introductory part), which is a perfectly respectable, if flawed, philosophical piece. Some possibilities follow.

A common thread in all this is this -
shankara was caught in a game involving buddhists and Astika-s -
as in the case of such people (double agents, civilians in rebel areas),
you can never be sure whose side he’s on. This is apparent from his philosophy.

Vaidika-vaiShNava soft-spot

He had attachment to vaidika-s, but was also attached to gauDapAda (who explicitly, comically, needed to clarify - “तथा ज्ञानं नैतद्बुद्धेन भाषितम् ॥ ४.९९ ॥” in his kArika extension). So, he had to convince himself, most of all, that his vivartavAda is vaidika.

adhyAsa-craze

Another guess is that he was so into “अध्यास” that he just could not resist doing it on to BS and laughing at all those who fall for it.

Commentary by force theory

abhinava-ranganAtha parakAla yati & varadAchArya thought that it was a subversive operation against buddhists (ie. he himself did not believe in what he was writing), but that seems a very unlikely conspiracy theory. YT

वरदाचार्यस्य सर्वाङ्कषा-व्याख्याने

श्रीमद्-अभिनव-रङ्ग-नाथ-ब्रह्म-तन्त्र-परकाल-महादेशिकाः
तदा तदा सत्यम् एवं प्रकटयेरन् बहुजन-मध्य एव, न रहसि -

‘भगवद्-रामानुज एवावतारपुरुषः,
नेतर इति नाहम् अङ्गी करोमि ।
व्याख्यातॄणां यथा-तथात्वेऽपि
मूलपुरुषास् सर्वेऽपि महात्मान एव ।
परं तु व्यवहारस्य पुरोवर्ति-चेतनोद्देश्यकत्वात्
काल-देश-पुरुषानुगुणं भिद्येरन्न् एव शब्दाः ।
एतावद् विन्यास-विशेषम् अजानद्भिः शब्द-मात्र-परायणैः
पूर्व-ग्रह-ग्राहाद् आत्मानं रक्षितुम् अशक्तैः
मोचितुम् तत्-तद्-व्याख्याकारैर् एव सर्वं पूर्व-पश्चिमी-कृतम् ।
सारतस् तु श्रीशङ्कराचार्यैर् उपक्रान्तम्, भगवद्-रामानुजैः पूरितम् । तावद् एव '

इति ॥

समय-विशेषे च स भगवान् स्पष्टम् एवान्वग्रहीत्

‘श्रीशङ्कराचार्याणां काले
श्रीरामानुजाचार्या यद्य् अवतीर्णाः स्युः,
तदैतेऽपि श्रीशङ्कराचार्य-क्रमम् एव नूनम् अनुसरेयुः ।
तथैव श्रीशङ्कराचार्या यदि श्रीरामानुजाचार्याणां कालेऽवतीर्णाः स्युः,
तदा तेऽपि श्रीमद्-रामानुजाचार्य-मार्गम् एव नूनम् अनुसरेयुः,
न संशयः ।
उभयोर् हृदयम् एकम् एव।
शब्द-विन्यासस् तु तत्-तत्-कालानुगुणो ऽनिवार्यः’

इति ॥

Asura?

The mAdhva-s think he was some asura (maNimAn?)
(mirroring perhaps the shAnkara belief that he was an avatAra of shiva).

The mAdhva text सुमध्व-विजय guesses that he was on the bauddha side:

अवैदिकं माध्यमिकं निरस्तं निरीक्ष्य तत्पक्षसुपक्षपाती ।
तमेव पक्षं प्रतिपादुकोऽसौ न्यरूरुपन् मार्गम् इहानुरूपम्॥ १.५० ॥

Similarly maNimanjarI -

सूत्रैः प्रपञ्चयाञ्चक्रे मायावी सौगतं मतम् ।
शून्यं ब्रह्मपदेनोक्त्वा तथाविद्येति संवृतिम् ॥ ४६ ॥

Aniruddh goswami in his vyakhyana on gopala-Tapani he say that lord sent 5 duratamas on earth to delude the humans, that are
Vidrayana (incarnation of ravana)
Appaya dikshita (kamsa incarnation)
Shankaracharya (manimana)
Suresa(hiranykashipu)
Gaudapada (buddha incarnation)
[To verify.]

shiva’s deceit?

Some quote -

मायावादमसच्छास्त्रं प्रच्छन्नबौद्ध उच्यते।
मयैव कथितं देवि कलौ ब्राह्मणरूपिणा।
(पद्मपुराण, उत्तरखण्ड, २३६/७)

and say that he was an avatAra of shiva born to delude people.

Example: ISKCON