[Advaita-l] Pa~nchapAdikAchArya

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

On 9/12/06, S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- K Kathirasan   NCS <kkathir at ncs.com.sg> wrote:
>
> > Namaste Jayanarayananji,
> >
> > You should study SSS's The Method of Vedanta to adequately
> > understand
> > his position on Padmapadacharya.
>
> Thanks for the suggestion, but if I'm indeed mistaken in assuming
> that SSS thought that the author of the Pa~nchapAdikA possessed
> "malicious intent", can you please provide me with quotes from SSS's
> works that conclusively proves otherwise?

The "malicious intent" quote is from Gangollis biography of SSS. It's
not a quotation from SSS. However, the following should give an idea
of what SSS thought about anyone other than himself:

" In the face of the above unmistakable definitions of both Avidyaa and
Maya, the sub-commentaries on Sankara Bhasya, have started a
procession of the blind led by the blind, in emphatically affirming
the identity of both
avidyaa and maayaa, and defining avidyaa not as subjective
ignorance but as something objective clinging to Atman, and thus
distorting his nature by
converting the all pure Brahman into a transmigratory soul by
enveloping his essential nature."

Essays on Vedanta, page 43.

Is it surprising Gangolli is saying what he is saying? They have to
rationalize how in 1200 years no one understood Sankara, but someone
(namely SSS) was the only one to understand him after self-study. You
just have to resort to some conspiracy theory to explain away the
absurdity of this presumption. So Padmapada is this evil person who
had malicious intent. Quite simple really. Clever enough to mislead
scholars for 1200 years, but not SSS. Oh, no indeed.

Rama