[Advaita-l] Brahmasutrabhashya and the date of.Adi Sankaracharya

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Dear Vidyasankarji,

Namaste,

1)
<<<   The mass of internal evidence from the works all these eminent
scholars and teachers indicates a period between 6th and 8th century
CE, for Dharmakirti and Kumarila Bhatta to Suresvaracharya. The date
of the historical Adi Sankaracharya has to be within this period. >>>

With all regards to you I have to say that I have not seen  a single
convincing internal evidence on the  6th to 8th century  date of
Dharmakirti so far. I shall be grateful  you kindly enlighten me on at
least a couple of such evidences? Further if you believe that Adi
Sankaracharya lived in the 8th century CE what will you say about the
Muslim scholars' claim that Adi Sankaracharya was influenced by
Prophet Muhammad's teachings. There is a big paper on that. It is also
convincingly established  that in the 7th century CE the Muslims
occupied Sind and in the 8th century CE they had foothold in the
Kerala coast, where Adi Sankaracharya was born.

2)
"Jina Vijaya" was last seen and that after six years of that the AIT
was announced by Prof. Max Muller which led to the suppression of the
"Jina Vijaya", as the contents of the latter did not agree with the
former. I find that this is  not acceptable to you. Now if you find a
copy of the "Jina Vijaya", it is not going to help. After your request
I was trying to get some more details of the "Jina Vijaya" but now as
I see, it will be of no use. As regards the Jina Vijaya Muni he is a
person and the "Jina Vijaya", that I am talking about, is a biography
of Lord Mahavira. Further the details of "Jina Vijaya" first appeared
in a Marathi book and not in a "Jina Vijaya" journal. I have done
considerable research in the chronological area of Ancient Indian
history and recently presented a paper in the World Association for
Vedic Studies, where I have given some of my findings. I have shown
how the historians have misinterpreted the historical records.

3)
Any way for spiritual purpose the date may not that important and that
is why probably the Sringeri Swamiji is not bothered but all along
till the beginning of the last century Sringeri was talking about Adi
Sankaracharya's date in terms of the Vikram Samvat. One will have to
identify the right Vikaramaditya, who is an All-India figure and not
any local king as Adi Sankaracharya was an all-India figure. And that
will be the acid test. But let us not enter into more controversy.

With best regards,

Sunil Kumar Bhattaxharjya



On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Sri Bhattacharya, The outcome of the discussions we have had on this forum in the past on the authorship of Brahmasutrabhashya went somewhat as follows. The author of brahmasUtra bhAshya should have lived in the 7th to 8th century AD. As everyone accepts that Adi Sankaracharya is the author of this bhAshya, they also have to accept the same date. Now, IF someone says that Adi Sankaracharya lived much earlier and that someone else called Abhinava Sankaracharya lived in the 8th century, THEN they would have to also say that brahmasUtra bhAshya was written by Abhinava Sankaracharya. Obviously, this is an absurd conclusion.
>
> 509 BCE is is no way an established date for Adi Sankaracharya, although it has many adherents. The problem with these arguments is again paucity of primary sources. That the times of Dharmakirti and Kumarila Bhatta should have overlapped in time seems quite probable. That Sankaracharya has quoted
> Dharmakirti is certain, as confirmed by his own prime disciple, Suresvaracharya. That Sankaracharya should have been a younger contemporary of Kumarila Bhatta is also more or less certain. The mass of internal evidence from the works all these eminent scholars and teachers indicates a period between 6th and 8th century CE, for Dharmakirti and Kumarila Bhatta to Suresvaracharya. The date of the historical Adi Sankaracharya has to be within this period.
>
> However, Jina Vijaya is a source that is quite unknown. There is no such text known anywhere. There is a Jaina scholar called Jina Vijaya Muni, who has edited a number of Sanskrit texts for various publishers. He also used to be the director of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Bombay, in the 1950s. However, I don't think he wrote anything about the date of Sankaracharya and Kumarila Bhatta at all.
>
> I have heard from some people that there used to be a periodical called Jina Vijaya with articles by various people, in which problems of historical interest used to be analyzed. If so, a date of 557 BCE for Kumarila Bhatta may be nothing more than the view of one or two people and cannot be used as evidence for placing Sankaracharya's date in the 5th century BCE. Nobody who cites the so-called "Jina Vijaya" evidence for an early date has ever produced the original article/text for independent study by other scholars. That, unfortunately, is one of the major problems with such research. One author cites twenty other scholars before him, each of whom had cited twenty other people, and so on, till you come to a point where no primary sources are ever analyzed by anybody. It becomes very confusing, so I, for one, am very insistent upon checking primary texts before making any kind of statement about such issues.
>
> With best regards,
> Vidyasankar> Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:36:11 -0700> From: skbhattacharjya at gmail.com> To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> Subject: [Advaita-l] Brahmasutrabhashya and the date of.Adi Sankaracharya> > Dear members,> > About two years ago we had some discussions in this forum regarding> the authorship of Brahmasutrabhashya. The date of Adi Sankaracharya> has been established as 509 BCE but some doubts were expressed as to> whether Adi Sankaracharya could have authored the> Brahmasutrabhashya.The doubts arose because of the wrong dates of> Dharmakirti. It is now known from Jina Vijaya that Kumarila Bhatta was> born in 557 BCE. Adi Sankaracharya met Kumarila bhatta just before the> death of the latter. Dharmakirti was a contemporary of Kumarila> Bhatta.Thus it is established that that Dharmakirti lived in the sixth> century BCE and he lived just before Adi Sankaracharya. Therefore> there is no doubt that Adi Sankaracharya was the author of> Brahmasutrabhashya and not Abhinava Sankaracharya, a later-day> advaitin stalwart.> > Regards,> > Sunil Kumar Bhattacharjya
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