On 8/28/2014 9:02 PM, emptyb...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
Adi Shankara’s guru was not Gaudapâda, who lived about 100-200 years
earlier by scholarly estimates^1 . Shankara’s guru was Govinda
Bhagavatpâda <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Govinda_Bhagavatpada>,
whom he met on the banks of the Narmada River.
>
From what I've read, Gaudapada was, by tradition, "the philosophical
grandfather of Shankara. His Karika on the Mandukya Upanishad is the
oldest known systematic exposition of Advaita Vedanta. Gaudapada shows
clear signs of familiarity with Buddhist philosophy, and both his
language and his doctrine are close in many cases to Buddhist originals.
This has led many scholars to speculate that Gaudapada himself was
originally a Buddhist."
Read more:
http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/gaudapada.html
<http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/gaudapada.html>
According to S. Vidyasankar, gauDapAda is the first historically known
author in the advaita vedAnta tradition, whose work is still available
to us, namely gauDapAdIya kArikAs, an expository text on the mANDUkya
upanishad. The kArikA of gauDapAdIyacharya is the first systematic
treatise on vedAnta. Notes Vidyasankar:
"...to the advaita school, all four prakaraNas are writings of a human
author named gauDapAda, and are therefore not regarded as Sruti, even
though the first prakaraNa is found interspersed with the sentences of
the mANDUkya upanishad" and "...it is clear that the GK has been written
in the context of a vedAntic dialogue with various schools of mahAyAna
buddhism, more prominently the yogAcAra and madhyamaka schools."
Other schools of buddhism such as vijnAnavAda and the madhyamaka school
itself criticize yogAcAra for holding views that entail consciousness as
an Absolute. gauDapAda apparently agrees with
this evaluation of the vijnAnavAda school.
/A number of works are ascribed in manuscripts to Gaudapâda include
Uttaragitâbhâsya, a commentary on Nrisimhatâpaniya Upanishad, a
Durgâsaptashati, a Vidyarâtna Sûtra and a Subhâgodaya on Shri Vidyâ.
None of these identifications can be authenticated. It is also
possible that the same author who wrote these Kârikâs also wrote the
commentary on the Sânkhyakârikâs attributed to Gaudapâda. But the
somewhat naïve character of the Sânkhya commentary seems so alien to
the depths of reflection suggested in the Advaita stanzas that the
identity seems unlikely. /^1
^1 /Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Advaita Vedānta up to
Śa//ṃ//kara and his Disciples/by Karl Potter.
Adi-Shankara never practiced, studied or taught any form of Shri
Vidya, a purely Tantric practice. This is also the case for his chief
disciples. The teacher known as Vidyaranya was born five centuries
after Shankara.
Willy spouts this stuff because he wants to fool you and anyone else
who will listen on FFL. Tantric practice invaded Shankara's Advaita
sometime in the 12-13th century and still contaminates it today. This
has been pointed out to Willy many times. However Willy is a fawning
psuchophant who is not only unwilling but also incapable of admitting
the truth.
He is also dishonest - allowing the mis-perception that he studied
with Yogânanda to stand. Yogânanda died in 1952 - case closed.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote :
On 8/28/2014 2:12 PM, danfriedman2002 wrote:
I started reading your brief. It is a great contribution.
>
The worship of Shri Vidya has been popular in India from very
ancient times. Swami Gaudapada, the teacher of Shankaracharya, was
a worshiper of Sri Vidya. Following his initiation Swami
Shankaracharya wrote a lucid ode to Shri Vidya, the Saundariya
Lahari, a translation of which is now available in English. "The
worship of Shri Vidya has been popular in India from very ancient
times. Swami Gaudapada, the teacher of Shankaracharya, was a
worshiper of Sri Vidya. Following his initiation Swami
Shankaracharya wrote a lucid ode to Shri Vidya, the Saundariya
Lahari, a translation of which is now available in English.
Many disciples of Shankaracharya were worshipers of Sri Vidya such
as Sureshvara, Padmapada, Vidyaranya and the brother of Chaitanya,
Nityanand, Abhinavagupta, and our own Swami Brahmanand Saraswati.
It is known to a galaxy of devotees that Swami Krishnanand
Saraswati of Sringeri was the teacher of Guru Dev, who was himself
a worshiper of Sri Vidya.
Read more:
http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg80283.html
>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <punditster@...>
<mailto:punditster@...> wrote :
On 8/28/2014 10:14 AM, danfriedman2002 wrote:
Richard Rich Kid,
I recently participated in the creation of a collaboration
of student scholars of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati Ji.
(Paul Mason et al).
Send me your email as we can use some questioners. That
group is very productive.
>
Paul already has my email address, but you may be interested
in reading my essay on SBS and Shree Vidya.
http://www.rwilliams.us/archives/srividya.htm
richard@... <mailto:richard@...>
>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <punditster@...>
<mailto:punditster@...> wrote :
On 8/28/2014 8:02 AM, danfriedman2002 wrote:
Thank you for sharing your path.
>
My job here is not answer questions, but to question
answers. You have to realize that we are dialoging with
informants that once cast doubt on my documented
evidence that SBS was a Shree Vidya adherent. Go figure.
http://www.mail-archive.com/yahoogroups/shree_vidya/
<http://www.mail-archive.com/search?q=sri+vidya&l=fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com>
Karpatri Swami:
"He was also the great expert of Shree Vidya and
probably all the present day experts in Varanasi have
somehow or the other obtained Shree vidya from him or
his pupils."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Karpatri
