[Advaita-l] A question on a dialogue in the Madhaviya Shankara Vijaya

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Fri, 8 May 2020, V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l wrote:

> A question on a dialogue in the Madhaviya Shankara Vijaya
>
> In the Madhaviya Shankara Vijaya we have this verse, spoken by Shankara to
> Mandana Misra:
>
> स चाब्रवीत्सोम्य विवादभिक्षामि-
> च्छन्भवत्संनिधिमागतोऽस्मि ।
> साऽप्यन्योन्यशिष्यत्वपणा प्रदेया
> नास्त्यादरः प्राकृतभक्तभक्ष्यैः ||  8.32 ||
>
> To this Sankara replied: "I came here for Vaada bhiksha (an offering of
> philosophic disputation) and not a Bhiksha of edibles. And the wager in the
> disputation should be that the defeated one should become the disciple of
> the victor.
>
> The question is: What is meant by the sannyasin Shankara becoming the
> disciple of the householder Mandana' in case of the former losing the
> debate?  Is there an instance of a sannyasin being a disciple of a
> householder?
>
> The popular story in public would be: The bet is: The loser in the debate
> should accept the Ashrama of the winner.
>
> Such a version would open the case of the Sannyasin taking up the life of a
> householder. This is not permitted in Dharma, as we know, even from
> Shankara's own Sutra Bhashya.
>

For a Paramahamsa it is out of the question but the lower grades of 
sannyasi such as Bahudaka and Kuchitaka practice karma to some extant. 
That would have been acceptable to Mandana Mishra I imagine.

And remember Mandana Mishra also wrote a Vedantic work, Brahmasiddhi so he 
was not altogether anti-jnana just not at the expense of karma.


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