Vivekananda &c.

[N. Ganesan]

Currently browsing thru'
Raymond B. Williams, A sacred thread: Modern transmission of
Hindu traditions in India and abroad, 1992, Pennsylvania.

The politics of Kanchi math is described in:
William Cenkner, The Sankaracharya of Kanchi and the Kamakshi
temple as Ritual center, p. 52-67

The political undertakings of Sringeri Sankaracharya
is ably dealt by:
Glenn Yocum, The coronation of a Guru:
Charisma, politics, and philosophy in contemporary India,
p. 68-91

> From p. 316,
"A usually unstated, but implicit corollary of this charge is that
the Brahmin gurus of the South Indian Sankaracharya mathas (Sringeri,
Kanchi) clearly do know something, indeed know a great deal that
ordinary folk, including their lay Brahmin followers, do not know."

"Apparently the Congress-I's close relations with the Sringeri matha
stem from the time of Indira Gandhi's premiership. According to
a personal communication from Shrivatsa Goswami, the two
Sankaracaryas in North India (Puri and Dwaraka)
blessed Mrs. Gandhi's opponents. She therefore managed to
establish friendly relations with the Sringeri pontiff, which
had the additional advantage of not compromising her secular
image in the North while simultaneously showing her to be
a friend of established Hindu piety in the more traditional
South. (personal communication, Oct. 3, 1990)"


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