[Advaita-l] SSS and madhva

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

Namaste,

My response after **

On 03/03/07, Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> praNAm.h shrI Abhilash,
>
> -- There is no history of a sampradAya before gauDapAda. So, how is one to
> know that there was indeed a bonafide sampradAya that was propagated by
> gauDapAda.

** Your statement above is not correct. Sankara himself mentions the
works of several ancient (pre-gauDapAda) advaitins in his writings,
though these works are not extant today.  In fact, the concept of
saMpradAya comes out quite strongly in Sankara's writings. For a brief
overview of this matter, pl have a look at the the section on
pre-Sankaran advaitins on Vidyasankar's website.

Other sources such as the bauddha bhAvaviveka and the grammarian
bhArtR^ihari also make references to advaitins.

In addition let us also remember that there are several works that are
neither part of the prasthAnatrayI nor written by well-known
historical saMpradAyavits but which nevertheless support advaita
*completely*. These include aShTavakra gItA, R^ibhu gIta, tripura
rahasya, yoga vAsiShTha, etc. Many of these are probably very ancient
pre-gauDapAdan texts. There are also other saMpradAya-s that are
advaitic, such as many of the nAtha lineages.

Ramesh