saivam and shankara's date

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, vidya S Jayaraman wrote:

> 1.Reg KAshmiri saivism and why no mention of it :
> >> Abhinavagupta's time is appr 950 AD.so the curse
> story is again questionable.
> Not just thatAlso the madhaviya Sankaravijayam
> narrates a debate between Bhattabhaskara (11th Cent.
> A.D some say 15th ) and Sankara !
> How do we account for this ?
>

The Bhedabhedavadin oponent of Shankaracharya was Bhaskara Mishra who is
different from the Bhaskar you mentioned above.

> 2.The previous question about the method of worship in
> the temples still persists.

I can't add anything more than what was mentioned in other posts.

>
> 3.By dualist pastoralism I meant pashupata  to
> distinguish pasupatas that from lakulisha and its
> followers as they slightly differ in their
> interpretations. Lakulishas believe in the
> individuality of the soul after final union.the term
> monist is just used to distinguish from the earlier
> school.[sorry for the confusing misnomer!]
> Sankara criticizes only a school which believes that
> Shiva relies on the category effect for his creative
> activity.This is not so in Lakulisha.
> So Why no reference by Sankara to his school.I think
> even there he refers to maheshvaras only.
>

Ok thats interesting.  I didn't know there was this split.  According to
Shiva Purana, Lakulisha is the founder of the Pashupata sampradaya.  In
the sarvadarshanasangrah of Madhavacharya, the chapter on Pashupatas is
called Nakulishapashupatadarshanam.  Judging by the short description
there, some of the distinctive features of this darsha are just variants
on theories held by Vaisheshika and Samkhya.  In that case, Shankaracharya
may not have thought it worth the bother to deal wih them seperately.

> 4.Establishmet of Monastic orders :
>
> It is said that sankara (or rather his followers )
> were the first to establish monastic orders first.

Amongst the Astikas, yes.  But the Buddhist and Jain monasticism was
already ancient by that time.

> But Saiva siddhanta tradition says kadamba guhaavaasi
> being succeeded by shankamatAdhipati and by
> terambipala,rudrashambu ,amardaka etc.
> Appr 775 AD from Amardaka there were already 3
> established monastic orders like Amardaka
> ,mattamayura,madhumateya
>
> So How do we account for all these?
>

Jainism seems to have been quite influential in South India in early times
until supplanted by Shaivism.  Could that be a link/influence?

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>