Mimamsa, Vedanta etc.

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> There is no "standard" academic opinion, as far as I am aware. I
don't think
> any proper critical examination has been made of all the sculptures
that
> have been claimed to represent Sankara. The intersection set of art
> historians and academic vedAnta scholars is probably a null set. In
spite of
> his impeccable credentials, Sivaramamurti may have only seen what he
was
> expected (or told?) to see by a higher authority. I, for one, am
quite
> skeptical about it.

The panel clearly shows one ekadandin (fig.18 in his book Bhagavatpada
Sankaracarya). Of course, I agree that ekadaNDin   does not
necessarily mean it has to be Sha.nkara. However, pAshupata-s never
carried an ekadaNDa. It's neither mentioned in the pAshupata works
themselves nor in other works describing pAshupata-s. Surely
K.A.Venkataraman should know that! I don't know if K.A.Venkataraman is
being unduly biased in this regard. Just because some sculptures of
sha.nkara are found in some place, it does not mean he established a
Mutt there. Eg,  C.Sivaramamurti identifies some sculpture from the
9th century in Srinagar as Sha.nkara also (fig. 17 in the same book).
But, he didn't establish any mutt in Srinagar.

I read C.Sivaramamurtis book and as far as I can see it's only a
*hypothesis* that the triad is vyAsa, jaimini and sha.nkara.
C.Sivaramamurti seems to have decided that since the panel represented
an ekadandin, that must be sha.nkara. A hypothesis only, but not
completely unjustified I would say. Especially considering the fact
that the ekadandin seems to be a youth, while the other two are very
old. But, definitely the young person in the sculpture represents an
advaitin. None one other than advaitins carry ekadaNDa and
K.A.Venkataramans contention that they could be pAshupatas is quite
absurd.

C.Sivaramamurti also appears well read in the works of Sha.nkara. The
original Cambodian inscription identification was also made by none
other than K.A.Nilakantha Sastry himself.

Rama