When a question relating to a Åšaá¹…kara-vijaya came
up here recently, I did a quick online search and found that very few of these biographies
of Åšaá¹…karÄcÄrya were available on the web. So I have now scanned the ones I had
and posted them, along with three scanned by others, with the Sanskrit Hindu
texts at http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/sanskrit-texts-3/sanskrit-hindu-texts/. Besides
the two well-known ones by AnantÄnandagiri and by MÄdhava, and also the one by
VyÄsÄcala, these include seven edited by W. R. Antarkar.
Antarkar had made a comprehensive study of all the available Åšaá¹…kara-vijayas, both in print and in manuscript (then sixteen in total), for his 1960 University of Poona PhD thesis: Åšaá¹…kara-vijayas: A Comparative and a Critical Study. In subsequent years he published several journal articles pertaining to this topic, and editions of seven lesser-known Åšaá¹…kara-vijayas (hopefully I did not miss any when I gathered them about fifteen years ago). But his thesis remained unpublished.
A few days ago by chance I saw that Antarkar’s thesis has been published, and this was back in 2003! This book is even now not listed on WorldCat, which only shows the 1960 thesis (and that is held only at one library). A scan of this book, in two parts (the thesis, and later articles as appendices), is available at: https://sites.google.com/site/hindulibrary/document-list
In view of the disputes around the Åšaá¹…kara maá¹has that we were just reminded of by Dean’s post, it may be worth noting that this book is scholarly research with no connection to any maá¹ha, contrary to appearances. As may be seen by the photos of the adhipatis of the Kanchi Kamakoti Åšaá¹…kara maá¹ha in its opening pages, this book was published by an affiliate of this maá¹ha. I am very grateful to everyone involved in the publication of Antarkar’s thesis for making it available at long last.
The extant Åšaá¹…kara-vijayas are comparatively late, and their stories often conflict with each other. One of the latest (nineteenth century) was published in Germany in 1992: Åšaṃkara-mandÄra-saurabha: Eine Legende über das Leben des Philosophen Åšaṃkara, Text, Ãœbersetzung, Einleitung, by Anton Ungemach. Antarkar showed in separate articles that the extant Åšaá¹…kara-vijaya attributed to Ä€nandagiri (1961 article) and the one attributed to VidyÄraṇya (1972article) are later works, not written by those authors. Antarkar commented at the end of his 1961 article: “not one of the 16/17 biographies of Åšaá¹…kara I have worked upon inspires confidence in its authenticity to the expected degree.†However, Antarkar provided good evidence that two old Åšaá¹…kara-vijayas still existed in the recent past: Bá¹›hat-Åšaá¹…kara-vijaya by Citsukha and PrÄcÄ«na-Åšaá¹…kara-vijaya by Ä€nandagiri (1960 article). Despite his efforts, he could not obtain them, and these have still not come to light as far as I know.
Best regards,
David Reigle
Colorado, U.S.A.