Calling themselves Hindu in the 14th century

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

"N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Is Madava Vidyaranya in 1340s rebuilding an earlier temple
>dedicated to Vidyasankara?

Don't know. Check with the Archaeological Survey of
India, which currently oversees the temple maintenance
and owns its old records.

>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.

Please. There is no "standard model" whatsoever. Read
Kulke and Rothermund's 3rd edition of their book on
Indian history, where the discussion comes with a number
of qualifications.

A pretty poor model any current "standard" would be, if
it doesn't give any role to good ethnographic studies of
the monastic structure and the monasteries. With all due
respect to the late Prof. Hacker, his was not the last
word on the history of Indian philosophy. If he were alive,
I don't think Hacker would have objected to the idea that
his reconstruction can be questioned or modified.

I'm curious about one other thing. In recent times, you,
along with the august company of the lord of Madurai and
the lord of the seven hills (you know which two[?] people
I refer to) have frequently questioned the "standard model"
of Sankara's date, that has been constructed by mainstream
academic scholars such as Hajime Nakamura and Paul Hacker.
How do you decide that one "standard model" is open to
revision, but that another is etched forever in stone?

In both cases, we differ methodologically. You want precise
dates. I prefer accuracy. In my view, it is fundamentally
flawed to expect precise data for every event in pre-15th
century India, or to make precise conclusions based on the
currently available data. Maybe it is just the scientist in
me, but I think that in most cases, it makes far more sense
to think of a range of dates that will be accurate.

>Don't recollect
>Prof. Zydenbos or Dr. Palaniappan accepting your view
>that Sankara himself established his matha at Shringeri.

Fine, that makes the score 2 to 1, although my impression
was that RZ was going to rethink the issue, taking my
comments into account. And you have a rather incomplete
picture of my view of the subject. All I will strongly
state, as an independent researcher, is that the matha
at Sringeri must have come into being before Vidyaranya's
time. Do not forget that there was a well attested person
called Bharati Tirtha there, slightly before Vidyaranya.
It is a very weak argument that concludes that Vidyaranya
was the man who established the Sringeri matha. However,
all I say as one who comes from within the tradition is
that otherwise variant traditions unanimously attribute
the founding of the matha to Sankara himself. If you think
about it, there is no inherent contradiction between these
two hats that I wear. It may sound like trizanku's heaven,
or hiraNyakazipu's hell, but it is sometimes possible to
be "endo" and "exo" simultaneously (or perhaps neither).

>>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

I have no quarrel with your estimation that Vidyaranya must
have been a genius.

>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,

You generalize too much about a particular issue, without
taking necessary textual and cultural evidence into account.
It was a *standard* practice, at least from the times of
the dharmazAstras, to bury the bodies of Brahmana ascetics.
There were also the Buddhists who erected stupas and caityas.
If I am not mistaken, the Digambara Jains also bury ascetics.
When any important ascetic passed away, it would have been
a natural progression for his disciples to put up a shrine
over the burial spot. In general, most of these are the
kind of small, dilapidated structures you see from all over
India. A few became big temples for one reason or the other.
You can see this practice with vaishNava ascetics too, not
just with the zaivas. People still point out the spot where
rAmAnuja is supposed to have been buried. jnAnezvara's burial
spot is a big pilgrimage site in Maharashtra. Note that he
was pre-Vidyaranya, and the creator of a highly syncretic
tradition, incorporating tAntrika, theistic zaiva, vaishNava
and advaita vedAntic elements. Not to downplay the importance
of the kAlAmukha and pAzupata orders, but if you are looking
for pre-14th century precedents, there are plenty, from very
old times, and from a wide variety of Indian traditions.

Best wishes,
Vidyasankar
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