[Advaita-l] shankara as suhastaH

[Satish Arigela]

Every group can make such claims.

Example rAmAnuja or some vaiShNava being an avatAra of something in the viShNu 
parivAra etc.

The shaiva-s can also claim one of their AchArya-s as an incarnation of 
shiva...so on and so forth.

These things are to be treated as a respectful way of acknowledging the 
greatness of their sAmpradAya's AchArya-s.

So is shiva saying one thing to the shaiva-s in one avatAra and another thing to 
some smArta-s in a different avatAra? Or perhaps shiva and viShNu don't agree 
with each other and take human forms to teach their own versions?

So it is not correct to take such claims far and come up with reasoning for why 
some AchArya x or y is an avatAra of this or that devata. I don't know what is 
acheived by doing that.

We have seen how even most popular AchArya-s can be misinformed and go wrong on 
some subjects. This does not lower their greatness in any way... probably 
because the subject is not taken seriously or that it is only of cursory 
interest...they are after all human.