dakSiNAmUrti stotra, and Tamil and Kashmir zaivisms

[Swaminathan Madhuresan]

--- Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> >As far as the pre-zankaran texts I have checked, there is no explicit
> >description of the age of the teacher vs. the age of the students.

> One should not discount the historical influence of Sankara himself as a
> young guru teaching old disciples. The Sanskrit texts that mention the
> relative ages of teacher and disciples are almost all post-Sankaran I think.
> That Sankara was equivalent to (if not an incarnation of) Siva is a notion
> found even in the works of his immediate disciples, padmapAda and sureSvara.
> In later times, there is an explicit notion that dakshiNAmUrti abandoned his
> silence and came down to earth as Sankara, in order to teach human beings.
>

An apt time to talk on Children teaching Elders(ref. Fosse and Magnone posts):

Child teaching Older person(s) is present in Tamil culture
from ancient times:

1) SubrahmaNya Murugan teaching his dad, Shiva.
2) St. Jnana Sambandhar, when beaten by his father
to tell who fed him with milk, showing Siva and Parvati
to him.
In 12th century, oTTakkUttar explicitly says Campantar
is Murukan's avatAram. In Saundaryalahari, Sankara praises
Jnana Sambandhar. Is the Sankaran hagiography indebted to
Sambandhar myth (A baby teaching older folks)?
3) KarikAl Cholan legend: He dresses as an old man
and dispenses justice in the court.

Also, look at Dakshinamurti, the young adult teaching Rishis,
with their old age indicated by long beards (like Brahma),

Regards.

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