on zankara's date - 2

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Being a Tamilian myself, I am highly intrigued by the parallels that keep
cropping up between Sankara's hagiography and Tamil Saiva legends. However,
I would like to err on the side of caution, as I think mythic themes have a
way of rapidly travelling far.

Take the case of Sankara's debate with Mandana Misra. The former is a monk,
the latter is a householder. Sankara enters Mandana's home during an annual
Sraaddha ritual, and they banter about for a while before entering into a
serious philosophical debate.

It all sounds highly Hindu/Brahminical, with a vivid description of the
tension between ascetic and householder. Recently, I found from Robert
Thurman's "The Central Philosophy of Tibet" that a very similar report is
found in 16th c. Tibetan texts, about a debate between Aryadeva and
mAtRceTa. Here too, an ascetic visits a householder's home during an annual
Sraaddha ritual, and engage in similar banter before getting into a debate.
> From what I can make out from Thurman's account, even the quips about being
shaven-headed and the rest of the word-play seem quite similar. I don't know
if such a story is found in older Pali accounts.

What is the direction of indebtedness? Has the late Tibetan author taken up
an Indian Hindu theme and cast it into a Buddhist legend, or has the
follower of Sankara taken a Tibetan Buddhist theme and given it a Vedantic
spin on the householder vs. ascetic tension? Or is it that what is central
to both accounts is precisely this tension, that is present in all Indian
religions? I wonder if there is a similar story from some Jaina source, and
I wouldn't be surprised to find one. The specific doctrinal aspects of these
accounts could then be secondary, and we might want to point to a cultural
aspect of Indian society. Similar things could be happening with other
mythological themes too. Deriving geographical and historical information
out of them is quite tricky.

Venkataraman Iyer wrote:

>  The Madurai 'sangapalaka' legend briefly mentioned in the late text
>is likely to come from Srivaishnavism very prevalent in Satyamangalam.
>More on this later.
>

Intriguing. Do elaborate on the relationship between Srivaishnavism and the
Madurai sanghapalaka reference. Satyamangalam is of course important in
stories of Ramanuja's life also, but it is quite close to the TN-Karnataka
border, not in Madurai. It is Veerappan land nowadays.

Vidyasankar
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