The date of Sankara

[Valerie J Roebuck]

Bijoy Misra writes:

>I just finished reading Soundaryalahari by S'ankara for
>a translation work I am doing for a yogi.  The language
>in soundaryalahari is very similar to the jagannathashTakam
>that is used in temple at Puri.  Some people had put
>doubts earlier that the jagannathaashTakam was most likely
>written by SriChaitanya since the AshTakam talks about Radha
>and also that the temple did not exist in S'ankara's time.

The ascription of SaundaryalaharI to Adi S'ankara is itself rather
doubtful, since it is not noted before about 14th century. The only
reference to a poet within the text itself is quite ambiguous: to a
"DraviDa infant" who becomes the best-loved of poets after tasting the milk
of the Goddess (v. 75)--which could refer to any one of several South
Indian poet-saints, and in any case does not sound like an author talking
about himself.  Several features within the text itself are thought to
suggest a date post 1000 CE: e.g. the fact that the Goddess is described as
wearing a nose-ornament (v. 61), and that it refers to nine, not eight,
rasas (v. 41, 50).  Its teaching has a strongly Tantric flavour, comparable
to that of the late Yoga UpaniSads (themselves of doubtful date).

See W. Norman Brown (ed. and trans.), The SaundaryalaharI or Flood Of
Beauty, Harvard UP, 1958. pp. 25-30.  (Well worth a look even if you don't
agree with his conclusions, since he reproduces the miniature paintings
from two illustrated mss of the poem!)

Best wishes--

Valerie J Roebuck
Manchester, UK