KAn.chI v. SRngeri

Fri May 28 09:40:42 UTC 1999

Balaji Hebbar <bhebbar at EROLS.COM> wrote:

>Dear  Mr.  Sundaresan:
>
>Perhaps  you  are  the  best  equipped  on  the  list  to  answer  the
>following:
>

I would rather have not dissected this issue on this forum, but as you ask
me specifically, I am obliged to respond. Be warned that I will be
considered a biased source by many people, and this is a particularly
sensitive topic for many. The timing of this question is particularly odd -
May 30 is the 106th birth anniversary of the late Sankaracharya of Kanchi,
and already highly laudatory articles are starting to appear everywhere. See
for example, the May 28 issue of The Hindu, the Madras newspaper.

There are many on this list who are followers or admirers of the Kanchi
matha and its heads. The following is not meant to be disrespectful to the
Kanchi Acharyas, so I hope it is taken in the right spirit.

>1.  Why  is  the  KAn.chI  KAmakoTi  PItham  always  excluded  among
>the  "ShankarAcAryas".  Why  just  the  four  ones?
>

Dasanami Sannyasi tradition identifies only the four Mathas at Sringeri,
Puri, Dwaraka and Badrinath (called Amnaya mathas) as having been
established by Sankaracharya. Sadananda Giri has listed some 50 odd mathas
of the Advaita tradition according to old records of the Dasanami Akhadas.
Kanchipuram is not listed here. Either this matha is much more recent, or
somebody 'fixed' the record many centuries ago, and successfully wiped out
any mention of Kanchi till the mid-19th century. It should be obvious which
alternative is more probable.

The ten suffixes used by Sannyasis in the Advaita tradition are nominally
affiliated with the primary four monasteries. Specifically, the suffixes
Puri, Bharati and Sarasvati have been associated with Sringeri matha. And
all the Kanchi Sankaracharyas to date have been Sarasvatis. Why does any
tradition arise? I believe the tradition of four original mathas in the
Advaita tradition is based on historical reality.

However, there are numerous Sankaracharyas in India today. If the Indian
press would have its way, even the Jeers of the Ahobila math and other
Srivaishnava institutions would be called Sankaracharyas. More seriously, I
don't think anybody from the four Amnaya mathas grudges the title of
Sankaracharya to the Kanchi mathadhipatis or to those of the other mathas.
The 1998 Kumbha Mela was attended by more than 30 "Sankaracharyas".

To my knowledge, there are only two Advaita institutions whose mathadhipatis
do not want to be called Sankaracharyas. These are the Kavale matha in Goa
and the Chitrapura matha in Shirali, both associated with Konkani speaking
Gaud Sarasvats. The Kavale mathadhipatis are called Gaudacharyas, and the
Chitrapura matha was originally a split from the Kavale matha.

Other than the four original seats, there are Sankaracharyas at Karavir in
Kolhapur, Gaya in Bihar, Bhanpura in UP(?), Pushpagiri in AP, Kudali and
Hampi in Karnataka etc. Some of these other Sankaracharyas are even quite
famous - Swami Rama, who established a center in Honesdale, Pennsylvania,
was once the Sankaracharya of Karavir. The current Karavir Sankaracharya,
Swami Vidyasankara Bharati, was recently in the news for converting
Christians to Hinduism in Maharashtra. Swami Satyamitrananda Giri, former
Sankaracharya of Bhanpura has set up the "Bharat Mata" mandir in Hardwar,
which attracts crowds all through the year. None of these other
institutions, however, seem to have the kind of political influence wielded
by the Kanchi matha. But if one prefers a number bigger than four, there is
no reason to restrict it to five, in order to include Kanchi and exclude the
rest. Many of these have perhaps much older than the Kanchi matha too. Why
not settle for the magic number 108?

There are other problems involved. If at all somebody like Arjun Appadurai
or Chris Fuller gets around to researching the history of the priests at the
Kanchi Kamakshi temple, the history of the Kanchi matha will have to be
examined. The tradition that Sankaracharya consecrated the Sricakra at the
Kamakshi temple is acknowledged by all, and is seen in the name kAncyAm
SrIcakra rAjakhya yantra sthApana dIkshitaH, that is part of the traditional
nAmAvali of Sankaracharya. The distinction between a monastic institution
and a Sricakra in a temple seems to be largely lost on people nowadays.
However, I must draw your attention to a small Tamil text called Sri
Kamakshi Ambal Sthala Varalaru, written by Kamakoti Sastri, the Sthanika of
the Kamakshi temple, in which he identifies the Kamakoti Pitham with the
Sricakra installed in the temple, not with the matha. This is exactly what
the pundits of the Amnaya mathas have been saying all along, that the name
Kamakoti Pitham did not originally refer to a monastic establishment at all.

I'll answer your fourth question next.

>4.  If  Shankara  established  an  apostolic  seat  at  KAn.chI, was  it
>because  KAn.chI  was  the  only  one  of  the  7  holy  Hindu  places
>which  was  in  the  South?  AND/OR  perhaps  it  was  a  seat  of
>Buddhism  and  the  native  city  of  Buddhist  savants  such  as
>Bodhidharma,  DinnAga  etc.
>

As the majority tradition does not say that Sankara established an apostolic
seat at Kanchi, there is no real answer to the question about the reason.
Nor for that matter is there any real answer to a question why Sankara chose
the places where he is traditionally said to have established mathas.
However,

Kanchi is the only southern mokshapuri, therefore Sankara established a
matha there - this is the argument found in the old Kanchi matha literature.
Kanchi was a big center of Buddhism, therefore Sankara established a matha
there - this is the argument proposed by modern, Western educated followers
of the matha, who are just beginning to acknowledge the Buddhist heritage of
Kanchipuram. Other arguments I've seen are - Kanchi is the nAbhisthAna of
the entire earth and is the location of the oDDiyAna pITha - this is offered
by those followers who have an affinity for the tantras. Sankara established
the four Amnaya mathas for his disciples, Kanchi was established for himself
- this is another standard argument, which overlooks the necessity of having
to say what happened there after Sankara's time, if his four disciples were
busy elsewhere, in their own respective establishments.

None of these arguments really addresses the question of why the widespread
Dasanami Sannyasin tradition has not mentioned any matha at Kanchipuram in
its old records. The 'if' in your question is a very big 'if' and the
possible answer 'yes, Sankara did establish a monastic seat at Kanchi' is
not supported either by tradition or by critical historical research. There
are some well-known scholars from Madras university, whose obliging
"research" has "conclusively proved" that Sankara made Kanchi his primary
center. Never mind that even the only Sankaravijaya text "critically edited"
and published from Madras university says that Sankara spent 12 out of his
life of 32 years at Sringeri. However, one can either have tradition, or
critical history, but I really don't know what to call a newly invented
tradition masquerading as critical history.

There are other issues - out of the seven mokshapuris, Ayodhya, Mathura,
Maya (Hardwar), Kasi, Kanchi, Avantika (Ujjain) and Dwaraka, what about the
other places? Kasi and Ujjain figure largely in all the traditional
Sankaravijayas, but there are no mathas in these places with the kind of
claims as put forth in favor of Kanchi. Nor are there any major
establishments in Ayodhya or Mathura. There are numerous Advaita
institutions in Hardwar, but none of them seeks to contest the priority or
the status of the Badrinath matha. There is an original matha in Dwaraka,
but I have never seen any claim that Sankara chose this place for its
reputation as the only mokshapuri in the west. So what makes the mokshapuri
in the south so very different from the other six, as far as the history of
Advaita Vedanta is concerned?

>2.  Why  is  the  ShankarAcArya  of  SRngeri  considered  primus  inter
>pares  (first  among  equals)  even  among  the  four.  Was  it  because
>SRngeri  was  given  to  Shankara's  favorite  disciple  Sureshvara?
>

Perhaps. One should not also forget Swamis Vidyasankara, Bharati Tirtha and
Vidyaranya in the 14th century, whose names are immortalized in early
Vijayanagara inscriptions. In the 14th century and after, the prestige of
Sringeri grew far beyond that of the rest.

>3.  Why  this  intense  rivalry  between  KAn.chI  and  SRngeri
>especially?  I  have  seen  this  in  quite  a  few  disciples
>belonging  to  both  pIthas.

This you should ask those who are staunch followers of these mathas, and a
whole litany of reasons will pop out from both sides. In my opinion, it
boils down to one thing - the competition from other mathadhipatis to claim
the same honors as used to be reserved for the Sringeri Sankaracharyas in
Vijayanagara and the subsequent Nayaka kingdoms.

As for the evidence from the textual sources (Sankaravijaya literature and
Dasanami records), please see my forthcoming paper that will appear soon in
The International Journal of Hindu Studies.

Regards,
Vidyasankar

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