Adi Sankaracharya- the Voice of Vedanta Read online

  Adi sankaracharya

  THE VOICE OF VEDANTA

  * * *

  Copyright © Rupa & Co 2003

  Text © 2003 Sridevi Rao

  Published in 2003 by

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  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Photographs courtesy: N. R. Ramachandran, Shankara Vidya Kendra, New Delhi; Ajay Khullar

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Voice of Hinduism

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Child Prodigy

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Philosopher

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Sage and The Son

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Teacher and Reformer

  CHAPTER SIX

  Architect of the Hindu Identity

  Bibliography

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Voice Of Hindusim

  * * *

  Adi Sankaracharya is the chief architect of the philosophical system — Vedanta, that has come to be recognised as the pre-eminent voice of Indian philosophy. At once mystical and intellectual, sublime and scholarly, covering the entire range of human experience from the empirical to the transcendental, Vedanta is one of the most complete and comprehensive philosophical systems in the world today.

  This great tradition, whose genesis lay in the mystical vision of the Upanishadic seers and sages of yore, was but a feeble voice amid the clamour of the myriad religious groups that existed when Sankara was born.

  Sankara lived in an age when the Vedic tradition was in decline, and when the great spiritual heritage of India — the Vedas and Upanishads, were being interpreted variously to suit the divergent beliefs of a staggering variety of sects and cults. All these groups claimed allegiance to the Vedas, though their philosophies and practices ranged from orthodox ritualism to radical atheism, from tantric practices that included human sacrifice to the individual practices of puja, dana, vrata, utsava and yatra. This was, perhaps, inevitable because the scriptures themselves seemed to posit quite contradictory views.

  Adi Sankara's radical and original reinterpretation of the scriptures, in the light of his own direct realisation of ultimate reality, succeeded in completely refurbishing them and reinstating their beauty and elegance. It also resulted in a system that unified the various Vedic sects and cults into a single stream with a common philosophical matrix. In time, this unification would evolve into the modern, homogeneous Hindu identity.

  Besides refurbishing the scriptures, Sankara embarked on a highly successful mission of cleansing Vedic religious practices of their ritualistic excesses, and turning people's minds towards the core teaching of Vedanta, which is Advaita or non-dualism.

  By this time, Buddhism and Jainism, which were the radical, heterodox religions that had held sway for almost a millennium, were already on the wane in India. Sankara's missionary zeal recharged and reinvigorated the Vedic religion, and brought it back to the centre-stage. Sankara is therefore, regarded as the prime propagator of the Hindu revival movement, or renaissance of Hinduism in the country.

  Sankara was a self-realised sage, brilliant philosopher and prodigious scholar; he was also, by most accounts, an extraordinary debater, a remarkable strategist, a compassionate teacher and a loving son. A charismatic figure, he was a man of the people.

  It is a matter of some irony that this vibrant figure in India's spiritual heritage is also its most elusive.

  Very little is known of the actual events of Sankara's life. He is known as Adi Sankaracharya or the original Sankaracharya, in order to distinguish him from his spiritual descendants who bear the same name. The biographies that were written in the couple of centuries after his death were, at best, hagiographies, with little reliable information regarding his life. For instance, it is believed that he took up sanyasa at the age of eight, completed his major works by the time he was sixteen and died at the age of thirty-two. Fact? One does not know. Plausible? Maybe. Even the literary works attributed to him are of questionable authorship, because it was the practice of those times for disciples to attribute their works to their guru out of a sense of reverence. Legend and fact therefore get inextricably intertwined in the life history of Sankara. For instance, stories of miraculous powers, such as his entering the body of a dead king, and improbable meetings with mythological figures, such as the meetings with the rishi Vyasa, abound in the traditional accounts of his life. Some of them contradict the very essence of his teachings.

  Nevertheless, even without the legends, Sankara's life would stand out as one of stupendous achievement. His is a story with few parallels in the history of world philosophy.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Child Prodigy

  * * *

  Sankara was born sometime in the eighth century, in a village on the banks of the river Puma. The village (present day Kaladi), on the banks of what is now known as river Periyar in Kerala, South India — subsisted on agriculture, and had a small population made up of different social classes.

  His parents were Sivaguru and Aryamba, a prosperous, middle-aged Nambudiri Brahmin couple who had been childless for a long time. The birth of the boy was not only a joyous occasion for the couple, but also a blessed one.

  Legends relate that Aryamba had performed severe penance to Lord Siva for the boon of a child. One day, the Lord appeared to her in a vision, and expressing pleasure at her deep faith and devotion to him, promised her that he would himself incarnate in the form of her firstborn. It is interesting to note that Sankara's disciples, who referred to Sankara reverently as Bhagavat or Bhagavatpada, never spoke of him as being an incarnation of Siva.

  Just before the birth of the child, the Lord appeared once again before the couple and asked them to choose between a child who would live a short but extraordinary life and one who would be dull, but live long and be a dutiful and devoted son to them. The couple chose the former.

  Sivaguru and Aryamba now accorded the infant a welcome worthy of a god. They named him Sankara, meaning 'accomplisher of peace and good'.

  From very early on, Sankara displayed signs that he was indeed a gifted child. By most accounts, he started speaking by the time he was one and was writing prolifically and intelligently by the time he was two. He was hailed as eka-sruti-dâra, one who can retain anything that had been read just once, and had, by the time he was three, memorised a great deal of poetry, legend and history.

  His parents gave him the kind of upbringing and education accorded to boys in Nambudiri households of the time. A pious couple, Sivaguru and Aryamba performed all the rituals expected of their class, excelling especially in the growing practice of dâna-dharma or giving alms to charity. Therefore, Sankara was exposed to Vedic tradition even as a boy and must have had a fine sense of the role expected of him as an adult. When he was three, his parents performed cûdâkarman or tonsure ceremony on him and sent him off to school to begin his formal studies.

  The village school or gurukula would hold its lessons under the shade
of a tree or in one of the two temples of the village. The language of learning and instruction was, of course, Sanskrit. The teacher was an official appointed by the local administration. The pupils would live together, begging for alms from nearby homes for sustenance. In this humble environment, the boy, who would in later years distill a sophisticated and path-breaking philosophical system from the Vedas and Upanishads, began his study of the scriptures, grammar, rhetoric and logic. He was precociously talented and was a very quick learner. It is said he had mastered all the four Vedas (though he himself belonged to the tradition specialising in Yajurveda and was not really required to study them all) and the six Vedangas in just two years' time. He learned to recite extensively from the epics and puranas. He was introduced to the doctrines of tarka, mimamsa and dharmasastra. These were the fourteen branches of learning or vidyas that were taught at gurukulas of the time.

  When Sankara was five years old, his parents planned to perform the upanayana or thread ceremony, which would, according to Brahminical tradition, formally end his childhood and mark his induction into the life of a brahmachari, thus making him eligible to perform the sacrificial rites prescribed in the Vedas. Sivaguru died before this ceremony could be performed, but after due interval, it was completed. The five-year-old then went back to school to complete his education before he could assume his responsibilities as head of his little family.

  Tender though in age, Sankara seems to have conducted himself with rare focus and diligence. He was hungry for knowledge, and taught himself a lot more than what the village teacher could offer. Very often, wandering mendicants would pass by the village, taking up temporary residence at the village temples. Through them, Sankara acquainted himself with the complex philosophical systems of the various sects prevalent at the time.

  Politically, socially and religiously, it was a time when old traditions and systems were breaking down. There was no single imperial ruler, and the political scene was one of perpetual strife among small kingdoms. The Gupta Period had come to an end, the powerful Harshavardhana had died in Kanauj, the era of Pulakesin II was over in the Deccan, and the Chera, Chola, Pandya and Pallava kingdoms exercised power more or less equally over the South.

  Socially, the disintegration of old — or more precisely, Vedic traditions meant that the varna system of class distinctions based on profession had given way to the rigid jati or caste system based on heredity. Certainly, the young Sankara had identified strongly with his jati, and it would take a pivotal encounter with a social outcaste years later, to jolt the maturing sage out of its stultifying hold.

  Religion and ritual were no longer the preserve of one class of people. The performance of sacrificial rites was still the exclusive birthright of the Brahmins, but people of all classes enthusiastically conducted puja, vrata, dana and samskara, both in their homes and in temples. The abstract philosophies of Vedic religion had long been replaced with images of gods and goddesses that people could relate to. Magic, marvel and miracle were popular, with the performance of Tantric rites to invoke invisible powers being rampant. Tantric practices involving animal and even human sacrifice were not unknown. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Bhakti Movement had swept like a tidal wave into homes and hearts, resonating to the emotionally charged devotional songs of the Alvars and Nayanmars, the poet-saints of the Tamil kingdoms.

  Young Sankara absorbed it all. He also grappled intellectually with the philosophies of diverse sects, which included Jainas, Ajivakas or those who denied the existence of the individual soul, Buddhists who talked of sunyata, Kapilas who adhered to the dualistic Sankhya system, ritualistic Purva Mimamsakas, non-dualistic Vedantins, Pauranikas with their many gods and goddesses and Lokayatas or materialists...

  By the time he was eight, Sankara was a storehouse of philosophical knowledge and was already teaching others in his little village school.

  He had also, according to legend, already acquired miraculous powers. One day, on his daily round of begging for alms, the seven-year-old Sankara found himself at the doorstep of a poor Brahmin household. The man of the house was away and the lady was dismayed that there was no food to offer the young brahmachari. She searched high and low and finally found a gooseberry, which she gave as alms, with the blessing, "May your self-knowledge shine like the amalaka (gooseberry) in one's palm." (The gooseberry was traditionally used as a metaphor for the direct, unambiguous perception of reality. In the enlightened state, things are seen as they are, without the obstructions of thoughts, feelings, and interpretations — just as a gooseberry on one's palm is perceived as it is, with clarity and precision.) Great compassion flowed from the boy when he saw the heart of generosity in the midst of abject poverty and he spontaneously composed a poem to Goddess Lakshmi, praying for the blessings of wealth for the poor family. Immediately, there was a shower of golden gooseberries. The Kanakadharastotra (prayer for a rain of gold) of Sankara is traditionally believed to have been the poem composed on this occasion.

  On a later occasion, he was moved by the sight of his mother having to walk a long way to the river everyday for personal and other chores. One day, the legends say, she was so exhausted that she fainted on her way back from the river. Sankara used his yoga siddhis to cause the river to change course and flow closer to their home, thereby relieving his mother's hardship. In the process, a little Krishna temple was submerged, and he later installed a new shrine by the river.

  Sometime in his eighth year, Sankara decided that he had learned all he could from the school, so stayed home and devoted himself to performing Vedic rites as his father used to. He was a model brahmachari, but the years of study had instilled deep inside him an unshakeable desire for Absolute Knowledge, and he now found his thoughts turning increasingly towards living the life of a sanyasin in search of Truth.

  Sankara, the legends say, gently revealed his feelings to his mother, but Aryamba, who doted on him, would not hear of it. He coaxed and pleaded, but in vain. And then one day while he bathed in the Puma, a crocodile sank its teeth in to his ankle. He yelled for help, and a distraught Aryamba ran hither and thither on the bank, not knowing how to save her son.

  Then Sankara called out, "Please, mother, if you want me to live, give me your permission to become a sanyasin." Cornered, the helpless Aryamba agreed, and no sooner did she give her permission than the crocodile released the lad's leg. Sankara threw the sacred thread that bound him to the life of the brahmachari into the raging waters of the Puma and gained his release into sanyasa.

  He donned saffron robes, picked up his alms bowl and staff, and was ready to depart. Heavy-hearted at leaving his mother alone, he made sure that relatives, who would be her heirs, would take care of her well-being. He promised Aryamba that he would be back with her at the time of her death and would perform her last rites, as any son should. For a sanyasin who has severed all worldly bonds and relationships this would be a sacrilegious thing to do, but the promise was made with great love and compassion — and would be kept, when the time came, regardless of strong opposition from the community.

  And then he set off, first in search of a guru who would formally initiate him into sanyasa and set him on the path to liberation.

  What must it have been like for the eight-year-old to leave the comfort and security of a loving home and embark on a lonely journey that would lead him he knew not where? Did he follow bands of mendicants, or tread a lonely path through the thick forests of the West Coast, or was he, as some texts say, accompanied by a fellow student and friend? From available records, we can only guess that he journeyed through the present-day Palghat, Sringeri and Gokarna, on to Onkaresvara on the banks of the Narmada, where the climactic meeting with his guru would take place.

  In a secluded cave on the banks of the Narmada, lived a sage known as Govindapada. He was a great yogi and was said to have retained a youthful body despite his advanced age. Few had actually seen him or heard him, as he spent most of his time inside his cave in samadhi. Most importantly, h
e was a disciple of the great Vedantin, Gaudapada.

  It was most probably for this last reason that Sankara sought Govindapada. Although he became a disciple of Govindapada, Sankara is seen as, and seems to have considered himself to be, the direct spiritual descendant of Gaudapada. It was his vision and teaching that Sankara received from Govindapada, which he then crystallised into the form in which it is known today.

  Details of Gaudapada's life available to us are scanty and contradictory but most probably, he was a great learned man like his disciple Govindapada and lived well beyond a hundred years. A seer and a mystic, he related his direct experience of Realisation to the mystical sections of the Upanishads and, based on them, fashioned the genesis of a philosophical system that would find its full form and expression in the teachings of Sankara.

  The key teaching of Gaudapada was Advaita, or non-duality. He identified ultimate reality with Brahman, the eternal and indescribable Absolute. The phenomenal world of duality, of subject and object, is false, but appears to be real because of maya or the illusive projection of the mind, he declared.

  Gaudapada described the nature of Brahman and the means to it in these lines in his work:

  'Manodrysyam idam dvaitam

  Manaso hyamanibhave dvaitam naivopalabhyate

  Na sankalpayate yada'

  Which could be roughly translated as:

  The world of duality is a projection of the mind.

  When the mind becomes non-mind, this world of objectifications ceases to exist.

  The mind becomes non-mind when it stops imagining or constructing.

  Our consciousness, said Gaudapada, exists in four states: waking, sleeping, dreaming and transcendent. In the transcendental state, when thoughts have ceased and all objects dropped, the quiescent consciousness realises its oneness with Brahman. This is the state of nirvikalpasamadhi.