[Advaita-l] Age/History of Sankara

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Dear Mr. Sridhar,

I am writing this in two capacities - as the person whose very general post 
provoked a very specific reaction from you and also as one of the moderators 
of this list. I hesitated to exercise the latter till now, only because of 
the former, but it is time to do so.

First, learn to write posts to this list in a civil style. Statements asking 
one member to use his common sense and characterizing another as a "new 
Columbus" prove nothing more than that you are an extremely rude person. You 
may think you are doing the Kanchi matha and its Acharyas a great service by 
discussng this topic in your current manner. Frankly, you are achieving only 
the opposite. Please cut down the tendency to lash out at people. At the 
very least, try to be not so strident. When very mild and highly general 
statements in my posting could lead to so much reaction on your part, do 
pause and think of the reaction and its intensity that you could be causing 
in the minds of other readers.

Secondly, learn to do some research before you shoot off something in an 
email. It is very clear that you do not know even the Kanchi traditions 
well, let alone those of other Advaita institutions. FYI, there was no 
tradition of celebrating Sankara Jayanti before 1905-1910. This fact is 
acknowledged in all sources,

Thirdly, all your arguments are different versions of a claim that a lineage 
of 70 names or more has to be more ancient than a lineage of less than 40 
names. I do not even want to start offering all the reasons why this 
argument is deeply flawed.

Both sides of this debate have had their say in the past, multiple times, on 
this very list. You might want to search through the archives to satisfy 
yourself that this is so. If you have nothing new to offer, or if you cannot 
learn to incorporate the above two points of sincere advice in your writing, 
let us consider this topic closed.

To set the record straight, we do not actively moderate anybody's ability to 
post to this list, so long as you are a member. This is not an attempt to 
stifle your voice, but everybody has had an opportunity to have his or her 
say. Other members have already started complaining about the futility of 
this thread and I think they adequately represent the silent majority of 
this list's members.

After about one or two more posts, at the maximum, this thread needs to be 
put to rest.

Vidyasankar

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