Four maTha tradition

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Swaminathan Madhuresan <smadhuresan at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>In other words, what is the oldest writing which mentions
>Sankara founding 4 mutts? 19th/20th centurie, or earlier?

I don't see anybody else on this list responding in this
thread and I am sick and tired of repeating the same information
as answers to a bunch of related questions. I wish those asking
the questions had the decency to go through the previous answers
before asking the same questions in new versions. I wonder what
the motivations behind these questions are. Taking the charitable
view that this is a genuine request for sources, here goes.

cidvilAsa's SankaravijayavilAsa explicitly mentions that Sankara
established the four maThas. The text has been dated to the 15th
century by its editor, W. R. Antarkar, but I think it is probably
from the 17th century. Don't respond to this with a question about
the validity of these dates. Go back to the text or to secondary
sources like the numerous books on the life of Sankara and see
what they have to say about this texts. Or wait for IJHS to
resume publication, and read my article on the hagiographic texts.
For other sources, write to UMI or to the library at UC, Santa
Barbara, and ask for a copy of Wade Dazey's thesis on the
Dasanami orders. I hope Dazey gets around to publishing his
thesis as a book. It would save a lot of aggravation.

Vidyasankar
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