Madhava, Vidyaranya, Sringeri, and Kulke

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Venkatraman Iyer <venkatraman_iyer at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>I guess the assumption here is Sankara's date around 700 CE.
>The "standard" academic opinion is more like early 9th century.

Well, if you look at it that way, there is no "standard" opinion. KK Raja
defends the late 8th or early 9th century date. Hacker, Mayeda, Nakamura and
others argue for a date closer to 700 CE.

>The ency. of Indian philosophy volumes also
>mention late 10th century date for Vacaspati. Using the late
>10th century date of Vacaspati, and K. Raja's article
>Sankara's date looks more like 10th century, is it not?

Well, even if Vacaspati's date is in the 10th century, that does not
automatically bring Sankara's date down too. Perhaps there is a bigger gap
between Sankara's times and Vacaspati's times, so there may be no need to
assume any date later than say, 850 CE. Which is still five centuries before
the establishment of Vijayanagara. Plenty of time for disciple lineages to
set down roots here and there.

Vidyasankar
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