mahendra varma pallava

[Anand V. Hudli]

On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 13:44:54 -0500, Ravi <msr at COMCO.COM> wrote:

>1) mahendra varma pallava ruled during 600 ad and was one of
>the famous pallava kings. He ruled with kAnchi as capital.
>Mamallapuram which is on the coast of Bay of Bengal was due
>to him. His son narasimha varma pallava was even greater
>monarch.
>
  This does confirm that he ruled about 1500 years ago.

>4) Whether shankara was before or after mahendra varma is an
>open question.

 The birth of Shankara is usually accepted as 788 CE(AD) which
 is after Mahendra Varma. GauDapAda is also accepted usually
 as living in the early part of the same century as Shankara.


>But mahendra varma had enough reasons to
>attack the two nAstika traditions (buddhism and jainism). It
>should be noted that kAnchi was so famous, it was called
>nagareshu kAnchi. It was a great center of learning during
>pallava dynasty (which I think lasted till the advent of
>later chozhas). Kanchi had the presence of four major
>schools of thought (shaiva, vaishNava, bauddha and jaina).
>Hence, there were clashes and debates among them all the
>time.  Kanchi was so important in this regard for anyone to
>ignore.
>
> mahendra varma was a convert, he had all the more
>reasons to attack the nAstika tradition. One of the easiest
>way to discount the opponent is to claim that they anyway
>copied from us. I think people who are converted are quite
>hyperactive in attacking the other traditions and supporting
>the adopted tradition.
>

 He may have attacked Jainism or Buddhism. But does this
 necessarily mean what he wrote about them is false? Was there a
 basis in reality for what he wrote about them? Even Sureshvara,
 the direct disciple of Shankara, was a mImAmsaka before he "converted"
 to advaita. And he wrote criticisms of the mImAmsakas themselves after
 his "conversion."  We do not take such criticisms of Sureshvara as lacking
 in truth and substance just because "he had reasons to attack mImAmsA."

 Anand