On zankara's date - 2 (The view of Dvaraka Math)

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Somayaji Rajagopala <SSRVJ at AOL.COM> wrote:

><< 788-820 CE dates that have generally come to be accepted in India. >>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---------------------------------------------
>I think the statement "generally come to be accepted in India" seems to be
>NOT correct.

By "generally accepted," I meant what one routinely finds quoted by most
writers. 788 was the date quoted by one of the earliest publications on this
issue, when K. B. Pathak reported about a manuscript. The more recent
revision to some date between 700-750 CE, that is supported by Nakamura,
Mayeda, Hacker and others, is not very well known in India. Kunjunni Raja of
the Adyar Library supports a later date in the 8th century. That the year
1988 was called the 1200th anniversary of Sankara also means that GOI gave
an official nod to the date.

>I srongly feel the "Astronomical Information" ,if
>carefully analysed with other Internal Evidences(Archealogical etc) may
>settle these controversies at Rest, once and for all. Ofcourse I have read
>the books of Sri.K.R.Venkatrama Iyer  and Sri.S.Y.Krishnaswamy Iyer(-later-
>sri.Gjnaanaanadha Bharathi ).I had a long personal discussion on this
>subject
>at Enaathur with Dr.Nagaswami also,when he was the Vice-Chancellor of
>Sri.Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi (Deemed) University.So I feel the question
>is still "Open"-nothing can be said to be settled "As on date"

Astronomical information, or rather astrological information, has been
analyzed by noted astrologers in India. If I remember right, they came up
with a date of 1st century CE or so, not 6th century BCE, and not 7th-8th
century CE. Furthermore, the text which is supposed to contain this
astrological information is untraceable, even in quotations. And there is
competing astrological information that leads to a date of around 805 CE.
Prof. John Grimes can probably fill in some details about this, as I know he
was researching this issue recently. And then, consider how the date for
Sankara Jayanti was fixed by the then Sringeri Sankaracharya, almost a
hundred years ago. The name Sankara was converted to a number according to
the kaTapayAdi scheme, to give 2nd month (ra), first fortnight (ka), 5th day
(Sa). That was how it was decided to designate Visakha Sukla Pancami as
Sankara Jayanti. There was no astrological information used here.

The Matha lists are highly troublesome, unfortunately for many defenders of
tradition. I might sound extremely partisan when I say this, but only the
Sringeri list seems to be believable, especially in the post-14th century
period. The Kanchi list is full of problems, even for the 17th-18th century.
For example, the Kanchi list says that Paramasivendra Sarasvati, guru of the
famous Sadasiva Brahmendra, lived around 1565 CE. However, there is
substantial and reliable historical evidence from Tanjavur and Pudukkottai,
to assign a date of 1675 CE or so. The gap of a century is highly
significant. As for the Dvaraka and Puri lists, the latter has more than 140
names, while the former has around 70 names. Not much independent
information is available for assigning proper dates to these names.

Do step out of the conflicting claims of the various Mathas, or the
astrological information, and look at the critical academic discussion of
Sankara's date. Unless all of Indian history is rewritten, and for strong
reasons, there can be absolutely no possibility of accepting any date
earlier than 700 CE, give or take a few decades.

Vidyasankar
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