Kashmir, Tamilnadu, Panini, Abhinavagupta, etc.

[N. Ganesan]

>I feel I am probably not clear in what I want to say. I  do not talk
>about the date when the GV was translated (at least not only) but
>about the age of actual PHYSICAL MANUSCRIPTS of these
>translations that your references stems from. I am sorry but I do
>not know how else to say it.

  Hi Petr,

  Greetings from Ganesan. Still, very obscure to me.
  I am NOT into mss. studies of Gv. Not in the near future.

  Your posts on manuscript studies have nothing to do with
  GaNDavyUha's kalyANamitra site, Mt. Potalaka of Avalokitezvara.

  I take my material from the works by well-known
  Sinologists/Tibetologists like G. Tucci, A. C. Soper, Chun-fang Yu,
  D. Snellgrove, J. Fontein and 10 others like them.

  They all say that Avalokitezvara and his abode, Mt. Potalaka
  occur as a separate kalyANamitra (and k. site). That is sufficient
  for my purposes.

  A. C. Soper has written in 1959 that earliest two Chinese
  translations of Gv. do not say Mt. Potalaka is in any island.
  Also, note BorobudUr sculptures depict a horse carriage from the
  preceding kalyANamitra site to Mt. Potalaka. This I believe is
  important because, BorobudUr scupltors (800 AD) skilled in depicting
  sea vessels do not depict boats or ships to Mt. Potalaka!
  Hence the pre-8th century material points to Mt. Potalaka
  in South India.

  Nandolal De, Nalinaksha Dutt, K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, ...
  say that Mt. Potalaka is in the Malaya mountains (Potikai).
  About 10 Western scholars have guessed that Potalaka is in
  South India.

  Daksinamurti and Avalokitezvara connections, both textual
  and sculptural, are brand new data.

  Regards,
  N. Ganesan

  PS: It is funny that people are willing to locate Mt. Potalaka
  at all places encircling Tamilnadu. eg., Tirupati, Nagarjunakonda,
  and now, in Ceylon. Reminds me someone said earlier in this century,
  Potala must be "pAtAla". Some other scholar refuted and said,
  "How can this be? it is an earthly paradise, so must be in Babylon"
  (cf. Mallmann's  book on Avalokita).

  I think I have presented enough evidence that Mt. Potalaka,
  may be little remote to Buddhists, is Mt. Potikai/Potityil
  in Malaya mountains. It is an earthly paradise with many
  waterfalls, dams, a tropical evergreen rain forest.
  Mt. Potalaka has an analogy of Kailasam as understood by
  Karaikkal Ammai (5th century) and Saint Appar (7th century)
  of the Tamil Saiva canon. - NG




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