Calling themselves Hindu in the 14th century

[N. Ganesan]

NG>>It is interesting that in this mileau where the term Hindu as
>>a religious category gets adopted by Hindus themselves,
>>Madava Vidyaranya starts the first Sankaran matha and propagates a
>>a myth that it was founded by the phlosopher Sankara himself. After seeing
>>the production of dvaita sect founder's hagiography,
>>Madava, the minister at the early court of Vijayanagar, probably started
>>writing the Sankara digvijaya text, also a first. In the
>>Sankara-digvijaya,
>>many shaivaite myths from Tamil hagiographic tradition are
>>recast for the life of Sankaracharya. This remains not so
>>well known.

VS>It seems to me that participation on this list serves no
 >purpose ultimately. The year 1235 for an inscription naming
 >Vidyasankara sticks out from a century before the earliest
 >evidence from Vijayanagara. I taxed the patience of list
 >members by discussing loads of information on this count,
 >under the Madhava-Vidyaranya-Sringeri thread, a couple of
 >months ago, where I argued for a more nuanced evaluation
 >of 13th and 14th century data.

The standard model of when Sankaran maths were establised
by mainstream academic scholars is the 14th century: Sanskritists
and authorities on Indian philosophy like P. Hacker and
Indologist-Historians like H. Kulke. Don't recollect
Prof. Zydenbos or Dr. Palaniappan accepting your view
that Sankara himself established his matha at Shringeri.
Not knowing any work on dating of the Rigveda conducted
at Manitoba, Dr. Klostermaier's date is usually not taken
as the mainstream either.

There is a good study to be done in the future on the construction
of Sankaravijayam written by Madhava Vidyaranya. Many themes
come from Tamil literature:
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0005&L=indology&P=R6290
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0003&L=indology&P=R24340
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0003&L=indology&P=R22621

Taking the view that Hindus or Muslims did not refer to any religious
entity,
V. Sundaresan wrote a while ago:
 > If however, as others have
 >  argued, the medieval Indian did not see the invading forces from outside
as
 >  "Muslim", in the 19th century sense of the term, one should wonder in
what
 >  way Vidyaranya supposedly created a defence against Islam.

This is not the case in 14th century Karnataka empire.
See my post "Calling themselves Hindu in the 14th century"
for references. Tamil inscriptions abound where Hindus contrasted
themselves with invading Muslims. See Dr. Palaniappan's
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0005&L=indology&P=R7418

Once, VS wrote:
>For example, take Kulke's view of the legitimation of Vijayanagara. It is
>not clear to me why Sankara needs to be invoked for this. The Hoysalas were
>Jainas, and later, Vaishnavas. Many other kings in the Karnataka region
>were
>followers of Kalamukha, Virasaiva and other kinds of Saiva teachers. Why
>should Sankara become important only in the 14th century, and not earlier?
>To suggest that Vidyaranya invoked Sankara's name primarily for this
>purpose
>does not seem legitimate at all.

That shows the genius of Maadhava Vidyaara.nya, and the cultural politics
he established. Vidyaranya and a Shaivaite guru Kriyasakti often appear
in the same inscription. Using his royal connections with the newly founded
Vijayanagar kingdom, and from viirasaiva and earlier kalamukha/pashupata
precedents, he built a temple to the dead (some decades earlier?)
Vidyasankara,
and founded the first Sankaran matha known so far to us from
inscriptions.

With kind regards,
N. Ganesan








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