[Advaita-l] Re: yoga and vedanta

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

praNAms Sri Ramakrishna BalasubramaNian prabhuji
Hare Krishna

RB prabhuji:

When composing Sanskrit works, it is typical to compose ma~Ngala
shlokas. There is even a rule that works should always begin with
ma~Ngala shlokas.

bhaskar :

but prabhuji as you know this is not followed as a rule in every work...for
exp. shankara himself argues why *atha* is not maNgala kAraka shabda in
first brahma sUtra.

RB prabhuji:

Sarvaj~naatman mentions sha.nkara and sureshvara by name many times.
Never once does he mention that the latter is a disciple of the
former. It is indeed a Western notion that these things need to be
mentioned explicitly. For the Indians, such things are not of much
importance.

bhaskar :

Yes prabhuji as your goodself mentioned above, there is no uniform method
followed by our advaitAchArya-s while penning their works...Hence, praising
shankara at the beginning of the work / not mentioning his name anywhere
do not anyway a valid pramANa to establish that that author is the direct
desciple of shankara or otherwise.  But in vArtikakAra's case, surEshwara
in his work acknowledges that he is the desciple of shankara & through his
grace he is writing it..without giving any room to any sort of doubt!!

> Ofcourse prabhuji, for all spiritual aspirants in jnAna path shankara is
> *the guru*.

RB prabhuji:

Then every advaitic author would be saluting shankara in their works,
which is most definitely not the case!

bhaskar :

yes prabhuji, that is not the case..Hence, searching shankara's name at the
beginning of the work is not going to help us to determine the authorship
of that particular work.  correct prabhuji??

> This is really news to me prabhuji!!  Kindly give the details of that
> biography prabhuji.  Sofar I've read one book in kannada called *sadguru
> charitre* written by Sri H.S. Lakshmi Narasimha Murthy, direct desciple
of
> SS...but nowhere I've come across personal attacks like this (claiming
> padmapAda was a charlaton/rogue etc.) .  I request the members those who
> have studied karyalaya publications to enlighten me about this.

RB prabhuji:

Try the english biography published by the kaaryaalaya.

bhaskar :

kindly give the details of that biography in which you've read those
remarks...One Mr. D.B. Gangolli has translated some of the works of SS in
English...but I donot know whether he has written any biography in English.
With a copy of this mail to Sri Stig prabhuji & Sri Ranjeet prabhuji, I
request them to let me know if they read anything of this order.

RB prabhuji:

In other words you are saying that it is an open issue whether the
advaitic authors other than SS in the last 1200 years were fools ?
:-).

bhaskar :

no prabhuji:-)) it is not like that...it is a genuine query & SS asked
historians to dig deep into it!!

RB prabhuji:

In any case, I think I shall stop with this and concentrate on writing
my article. Best to discuss as a whole than piecemeal.

bhaskar :

Yes prabhuji, I agree with you..& I shall eagerly await your article.

Rama

Humble praNAms onceagain
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar