The date of Sankara

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>After reading Soundaryalahari, the following thoughts
>comes to mind.
>
>1.  S'ankara is indeed the author of jagannathashTakam.

It seems likely, from the general alankAra similarities,
that the same poet wrote jagannAthAshTaka and saundaryalaharI.
But it would take a good expert in kAvya to make an informed
judgment about this.

>2.  Jagannatha did exist in some form in Puri in S'ankara's time.

Anandagiri, the author of TIkAs on Sankara's commentaries,
salutes purushottama, the lord of nIlAdri. A definite
reference to Puri. But he makes no reference to Radha, or
even generally to Gopi women. There is a prakaraNa text,
attributed to Sankara, called prabodhasudhAkara, which does
talk of Radha and the gopa-strIs.

Whether in Sankara's times or not, Vishnu is a definite
presence at Puri, by Anandagiri's time (most likely, 13th
century). It is possible that some of the later Puri
Sankaracaryas wrote the above hymns and texts. One doesn't
have to wait till the time of Caitanya. In any case, see
various articles in "The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional
Tradition of Orissa", ed. Anncharlott Eschman, Hermann Kulke
and G. C. Tripathi, Manohar Publications, Delhi, 1978.

>3.  If S'ankara lived around 800AD, the Radha concept goes before
>     Jayadeva.

See Barbara Stoler Miller's translation of Gitagovinda
(1977), as also her essay in a 1980 collection, edited by
Gowry Kuppuswami and M. Hariharan (Trivandrum: College Book
House).

Re: the no. of rasas in saundaryalaharI, I have always been
puzzled by how the term sarasiruha-saubhAgya-jananI in verse
51 refers to the rasas. If sarasiruha translates to vIra rasa
(how?), shouldn't saubhAgya likewise translate to SAnta rasa?
This would bring the number up to 9, making it consistent with
"navarasa" in verse 50. What does lakshmIdhara say about it?

Re: "Tantric" influence in works attributed to Sankara, I
think people have to be willing to question what constitutes
Tantra and what doesn't, and also whether the currently
assumed dates are valid for these texts. Also, the assumption
that the same person could not have written a "vedAntic" text
and also a "tAntric" text needs to be questioned. There is a
"mantra-SAstra" text called prapancasAra, attributed to
Sankara. Andre Padoux thinks it could be a composition of
vidyASankara (13th-14th century), in Vac: The concept of the
word in selected Hindu Tantras. However, note that amalAnanda,
the early 13th century author of kalpataru (commentary on
vAcaspatimiSra's bhAmatI), already attributes prapancasAra
to Sankara. Whoever wrote the prapancasAra, it seems quite
likely that he was a "SankarAcArya".

Best wishes,
Vidyasankar
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