[Advaita-l] Anya Devata

[Ramanan Subramanian]

>
> If he were as
> strong a vaishNava as some would like to believe, the kenopanishat would
> have been a great place for him to describe umA-haimavatI as the sahodarI
> of sarvajna-ISvara, rather than a sahacAriNI.


I would have some reservations about that. "Parvati Devi as the sister of
Vishnu" does not, as far as I know, exist in any of the Sanskrit
Puranas/Itihasas/Smriti. All these texts describe Parvati to be the daughter
of himavan and the re-incarnation of Dakshayani/Sati the daughter of Daksha
Prajapati who was married to Lord Shiva twice thus. The identification
as "sister of Vishnu" is purely based on Sthala puranas (Madurai Meenakshi),
that too mostly in South India as far as I see. Some of my North Indian
friends say they have never heard of the Devi being described as Vishnu's
sister.

> The debate (and the supposed academic "consensus") about whether Sankara
> was primarily a vaishNava and whether the later tradition has changed for
> whatever reason, is meaningless. Such views can only come from not
> knowing and understanding the tradition properly.
>

Is there any critical essay that systematically analyzes these points that
supposedly establish that the Acharya was Vaishnava and refutes them, basing
only on the Bhashyas? Is it available anywhere on the web?

Hari Smaranam.