[Advaita-l] Query regarding the birthplace of Bhaskararaya

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Mon, 12 Dec 2011, Ramesh Krishnamurthy wrote:

> My understanding is that Bhaskararaya was born in what is now the
> Marathwada region of Maharashtra, and not in Andhra Pradesh. For much of
> his lifetime and for 2 centuries thereafter, the Marathwada region was part
> of the erstwhile kingdom of Hyderabad, which accounts for the popular
> notion that he was born "in Hyderabad".

The Bhaskaravilasa says he is the descendant of Eknath who popularized the 
worship of Vitthal Bhagavan at Pandharpur so that would definitely make 
him of Marathi origin.

>
> He is said to have had two wives, one from the mAdhva sect and other a
> smArta from a Thanjavur.

No I think you are confusing that story with Appaya Dikshita.

> He subsequently settled down near Thanjavur, and
> his descendants are counted amongst Tamil speaking smArta-s. To this day,
> there is sometimes  a debate on whether Bhaskararaya's family were Marathi
> speaking deshastha-s or Tamil speaking smArta-s. To me, this is an
> indicator that such distinctions were historically rather fluid.

This is true.  Given that as well as the facts mentioned so far, he had 
his Upanayana in Kashi, his diksha in Gujarat and visited such tirths as 
Pashupatinath in Nepal and Kamakhyadevi in Assam he should be considered 
like Shankaracharya as belonging to all of India.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>