DEVI PEETAMS

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

> Looks like there are many, many "traditions" about the last days of sha.nkara.
> According to some of the literature (which you sent me) there are also
> traditions that he spent his last days in Kerala and Chidambaram!

Yes, but this is a rather frequent occurence in India. When history passes
into myth, this is especially prone to happen. For example, there are
twelve Jyotirlingams, but there are at least fifteen sites claiming to
have a Jyotirlingam temple.


> Looks like everyone wants to be associated with sha.nkara one way or the
 other.
> I read in the dvaita list that there is a "tradition" that Madhva defeated
> vidyasha.nkara (a Sringeri pontiff) who they claim is a reincarnation of
> sha.nkara. I think the advaitins themselves claim no such connection between
> sha.nkara and his successor at Sringeri. There seems to be no "tradition" that
> Madhva defeated some re-incarnation of raamanuja. Just goes to show how much

One of the later teachers in the Sri Vaishnava tradition is said to be a
reincarnation of Ramanuja. This is Manavala Mamuni, a star of the Tengalai
section of the Sri Vaishnavas. However, he lived later than Madhva.

In the Madhva tradition, as per their book Mani Manjari, Sankara was an
incarnation of a demon who deluded people. Their claim that Vidyasankara
of Srngeri was an incarnation of Sankara may have originated in a desire
to make Vidyasankara the incarnation of the same demon! After all, Madhva
and Vidyasankara were contemporaries and it may have been a political
move to declare such incarnation identities.

> sha.nkara has become ingrained in the Indian psyche, I guess.

Someone once quipped that in Indian religion/philosophy, you either argue
for Sankara or you argue against Sankara, but you certainly cannot afford
to ignore Sankara! This certainly holds true for the post-Sankaran
history of all the traditional six orthodox schools of Indian thought.

S. Vidyasankar