Introduction

The centrality of Adi Shankara Bhagavatpada (henceforth “Shankara”) to the Hindu civilizational continuum, in fields of philosophy, religion, culture and even society is an undeniable fact. No amount of acknowledgement and gratitude is enough.

He is to Hinduism, what Sagarmatha (Everest) is to the Himalayas. This is perfectly captured in the sloka,

Sadashiva samarambham

Shankaracharya madhyamam

Asmat acharya paryantam

Vande Guru paramparam

This is true even for those outside of Advaita sampradayas, i.e, those who acknowledge a different Guru Parampara, for even the other Bhashyakaras - philosophers who differ from Advaita as a philosophy, will still have him as the reference point to measure against, to contrast with etc. 

That said, over time the popular narratives regarding him, have taken a life of their own, and many of which seemingly glorify him, are based on poor evidence and reasoning, that they are unsuitable ornaments, which attempt to obscure this great light of Dharma.

While we do love to dress up and decorate our Devata Murthis, it is also worthwhile, to ensure that ornaments are not fakes.

Following is an attempt to look at those narratives, from an entirely amateur perspective. 

Disclaimer

This analysis is not about the quality of his philosophical achievements. I absolutely have no capability to be the judge of that, even if it can be judged at all. And is only about the narratives on his historical and contemporary impact. 

Advaita and Adhyatmikata, are the body of this Murthy - Shankara, I will not even presume to understand that. So, only analyzing and questioning, the historical and social narratives which are peripheral to his image, like accessories to the body.

The reason for this exercise arose due to interactions on social media, where even those invested in the Hindu Heritage, often offer very poor evidence when discussing Shankara. 

Being a compilation of such posts, there will be some repetition, some switching back and forth, non sequitur and satire of those who use him for their agendas. I apologize ahead for those things.

I will also not offer citations and references, regarding my understanding of this subject. Because this is not a conclusion by any means, merely an exploration with speculative perspectives. Readers are welcome to look up, research and add more perspectives to this process.

Accretion and Archetypes

With legendary figures, a process of accretion happens, where the credit for many proximal events are given to the ‘figure’, converting the figure into an archetype. This is natural and a healthy process.

For example, Maharishi Vyasa. The things credited to him are so monumental, that it is hardly believable that it was all done within one lifetime. 

So, was Vyasa a single person or a padh/post adorned by many people? Is the Krishna Dwaipayana of Mahabharatha same as Badarayana of Brahmasutra? We do not know, but since Vyasa is beyond the reaches of history, it is wonderful to have him as an archetype and a model for all teachers.

But Shankara is still within the reaches of our time, within the reach of modern historical studies, so a decent attempt can be made to study the narratives surrounding him.

Historicity

One of the key differentiators of the Dharmic world view, is that it is not premised on historicity like the Abrahamic religions. It is probably because, Hindu subscribe to rebirths at all levels, microcosm or macrocosm and of cyclic time Laya-Pralaya, whereas the Abrahamic religion subscribe to linear time and have one-birth-one-shot at salvation.

Hence the historic validity of Jesus or Muhammad, is critical to those religions, the value of their teachings is tied to their personalities in History. But for Hindus, that is rather peripheral, even if Shankara was only, say 200 years old in history or if Mahabharata was entirely a fiction, that would not impact their importance to Hindus, as much as such a revelation about Jesus would impact Christians.

However, since the contact with European Historiology, Hindus have also been compelled to look at their legends in that aspect. This has resulted in two things, a genuine interest and exploration of our ancient past and also utterly nonsensical claims, more showing insecurity than intelligence.

The historicity game should not matter to Hindus, the dating and evidence for Shankara, Ramayana, Mahabharata etc. have little relevance, compared to the impact they have on Hindu spiritual and cultural ethos. However, if Hindus choose to play the historicity game, they should play with it with rigorous evidence and unassailable logic.

And not use belief, uncorroborated evidence, un-independent evidence to prove anything; and not be offended, when called out for such flawed methods. 

And not dismiss the demand for logically consistent evidence, as a Western imposition, as not applicable to us. Hindus have been master logicians, long before the West was even a blip in the span of history.

And even if something originated/systematized in the West, it is not to be discarded, just because it is from the West. The validity should be tested and then accepted/discarded as applicable.

Shankara and Historical Dating

Historicity of Shankara is peripheral to my enquiry, which is only his impact on society. But since it occupies many debates and the impact can’t be measured without a reasonable understanding of his period, I will briefly mention my assessment and move on.

Two areas of evidence, I will “lay aside”, for the purposes of this exploration.

• Evidence from the Shankaracharya Parampara itself, such as the “Shankara Dig Vijayam”, because the validity of any evidence from the in-group always is of less value than from independent sources. And also, because even within the Parampara, separate branches appear to date him to different periods.
• Literary and linguistic evidence, where people use the style of Sanskrit or things like how ancient Greek Philosophers use the “Snake and Rope”, an analogy much favoured by Shankara as evidence, because like how the debate around origin of Aryans prove, linguistic/literary evidences are notoriously unreliable to establish timelines.

And will look only at unassailable upper and lower limits,  

For the upper limit, the earliest epigraphic evidence so far discovered, is a Chola inscription, dated in the reign of Vira Rajendra (1065 A.D.) in the Kailasanatha temple of Cholamahadevi village near Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu.

This inscription records the gift of land to scholars of the villages expounding a commentary named Pradeepaka alias Vaartika written by Chidaananda Bhattaara. This commentary was on Brahmastura Shankara Bhashya, mentioned as Bhagavadpaadiyam alias Saariraka Bhashyam.

This is the earliest dated and indisputable record so far known, referring to Shankara and his works and establishes the upper limit for Shankarachaya i.e., before 1000 CE.

The lower limit is open for debate. But since Shankara references and refutes Buddhists like Dignaga, the reasonable lower limit is 4^th century BCE. There are hypotheses that there were other Buddhas different from Siddhartha of Sakyas. As yet these do not have reasonable traction to be considered. If that changes, we will see.

So Shankara’s possible time spans about 1500 years. That is adequate for this exploration of the following topics.

• Shankara and Buddhism
• Shankara and restructuring of Hinduism
• Shankara Mutts and historical popularity
• Shankara and modern popularity – Neo Advaita
• Shankara and Social Reform

Shankara and Buddhism

I believe it was Dr. Koenraad Elst, who noted that among the Right Wing ramblings, gems of illogic like

“Shankaracharya defeated Buddhists and saved Hinduism” and 

“Buddhism is not different from Hinduism, the separation is artificial”, are both peddled.

If Buddhism is just a part of Hinduism, then what did Shankaracharya save Hinduism from? That is as ridiculous as saying “I saved myself from being slapped by my own hand”.

 'Shankara Bhagavadhpada defeated Buddhism'. I wonder where, when and by whom, this narrative originated. I think it would be during the Colonial period and then accelerated by leftist historians.

Colonial and Marxist propagandists like Buddhism better, they like to pitch that it is a noble religion of pure philosophy, egalitarian etc., while Hinduism is a bewildering mess of chaotic rituals, nonsensical superstition and of course caste system.

In that imaginary history, the noble Buddhism was defeated by Brahmanism, but not for which India would have been a utopian society. And Shankara has been dubbed as the representative of regressive Brahminism - a fake religion. It is never asked, that if there was an elite and exclusive Brahminism, then shouldn’t there be a Kshatriyaism, a Vaishyaism etc. 

And Buddha, well literature like Lalita Vistara Sutra (Mahayana), detail that Buddha acknowledged Varnashrama, Thervadins consider the Traystrimshat (33) Devatas as divine beings (though not capable of leading to nirvana), and many such core Hindu concepts, while neo-Buddhists of all sorts, have sanitized a ‘True Buddha’ for themselves without such ‘regressive’ Brahminical concepts.

It seems many contemporary Hindus have fallen completely to this narrative, believing that 'Shankara defeated Buddhism' as a matter of pride.

One should be very careful, when outsiders tell us, who our heroes are and who our villains.

Still to explore, When is a religion supposed to be defeated? Is there a quantifiable measure for the defeat?

A reasonable measure is, a religion is defeated in a geographic region, when the number of followers it had, drastically reduces to insignificance.

Then taking subcontinental India as a whole, Buddhism was very well present and prominent, when Islam invaded the continent, from the shores of Sindhu to Bengal, Islamic chroniclers encountered, defeated and converted from Buddhist populations.

A Buddhist monastery-university 'Nalanda' was flourishing bang in the middle of Ganga plains, the heartland of Indic civilization and polity, till 12th century CE, when Islam came visiting, “peacefully” and had a bonfire party at Nalanda to felicitate the visit, again “peacefully”.

Vikramashila, Odantapuri are other sites visited by Islam. So, until after the arrival of Islam, Buddhism does not meet my measure of a 'defeated religion'.

But yes, from the heydays under Ashoka, Buddhism did recede in influence. But the credit for that is multifactored, and Shankara was one of the factors, but not the primary one.

Debates and their debatable impacts

While everyone knows of his famous debate with Purva-Mimamsa Vadin Mandana Misra, how many can name a famed Buddhist Scholar, whom Shankara debated and defeated?

I did not and had to learn that Shankara references and refutes Buddhists scholars like Dharmakriti, Dignaga etc., which is normal for any philosophical work i.e., to quote contemporary/prior philosophies, refute or support them. But is that enough evidence to claim that 'Shankara defeated Buddhism'?

Philosophical debates are important, but they take a long time to percolate down to the masses and change the narrative. It is true then and it is true now.  To claim that Shankara was the primary cause of decline of Buddhism, is like claiming Dattopant Thengadi the RSS ideologue is the primary cause of decline of Congress, not Vajpayee, Advani or Modi, yet Thengadi’s impact on the Sangh will be felt for long generations to come. 

So, what tools and methods did Shankaracharya use to defeat the Buddhists.

• He had no political power or armies. Like with Ashoka.
• He had no particular royal patronage, who could further his agenda. Like in the case of Nayanmars like Sambandar, Appar who converted the Pallava, Pandya kings to Shaivam, causing Jainism to lose favour.
• He did not have thousands of followers, who can form mobs and upturn Buddhist monasteries etc. whereas Buddhist Sanghas and monasteries were numerous.

All he had was reasoning, logic and communication skills. And debates were his primary tool, and this is recorded in the case of Purva-Mimasavadin Mandana Misra.

Debates

Anyone who is active on social media would know this by now. Debating hardly ever convinces anybody to change their opinions or allegiances.

Debates typically has the following audiences,

• The largest group is actually the non-audience, the people who don't care at all about the debate.
• The second largest groups are the partisans, they already have picked their side, and nothing is going to convince them otherwise. And are the cause of the 'Rashomon effect', where both sides will believe and claim that they have won the debate. The purpose of the debaters is primarily to these partisans, to firm up and cater to their convictions. 
• Then a very tiny group of fairly open-minded people, who are both interested in the debate, yet are not so fixated in either stance. If the debate wins over some of these people, then it is a victory to the debater.

Parliaments and Assemblies are places where debates are supposed to happen, yet how many debates have managed to get MPs to vote across party lines?

Muslims might claim Zakir Naik won the debate against Sri Sri Ravishankar, and Sri Sri's supporters might claim the other way. Yet how many Muslims became Sri Sri's followers or how many Hindus became Muslims because of the debate?

But even assuming that Zakir Naik had the best of the debate, can it be claimed that Zakir Naik defeated Hinduism?

The value of the debate lies in its use to define the contours of the perspective, by contrasting with the other. It sharpens the fuzzy, gray areas into clear focus.

It is not very useful in winning adherents or taking away from the enemy, with immediate effect. But with passing of time, they could inspire large impacts, that is their value. So Shankara's impact in the last two centuries is exponentially more due to people like Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi, S.Radhakrishnan etc.

Note: Vada in Tarka, is not for victory, but for pursuit of truth, knowledge. But that is in an individual sense. We are looking at the social impact, where impact is terms of adherents won or lost.

So, in Shankara's time, debating as an activity would be like the academic lecture circuit or the lit-fests of today. This is known not just of Shankara, but of many rishis, poets, saints, and philosophers. They go around visiting many capitals, knowledge centres and debate with the scholars that they meet there.

Kashi, Ujjain, Kanchi, Madurai, Kashmir were all famous for such activity.

But would such academic debate activity convert into a mass following, defeating entire ideologies?

Jordan Peterson is a modern-day example, even with the massive inter-connectivity, the ultimate amplification given by social media. What ideologies can JP claim to have defeated, in the sense that they faded from existence primarily because of his efforts?

Yet his efforts are of immense value and in a specific context of a debate, a small percentage of the interested open-minded viewers might give him the victory.

But let us not exaggerate the social impact of debates. Be it with Jordan Peterson or Shankaracharya.

Among the Dharmic sampradayas, including Buddhism, religion was not something over which people killed or rejected each other. That comes only with the exclusivist monopolistic Abrahamic cults.

Yet competition existed between Sampradayas, not at common people level, but at royal sponsorship. Winning over kings and nobles was a big deal. Though one of the strengths of Dharma, is that winning over the ruler, will not change the entire society to the new religion. This was the weakness in Europe, where if the tribe’s chief was converted, then everybody had to.

Still a change in royal sponsorship is a good indicator of the success or failure of any specific Samparadaya.

Buddhism’s success is noted by Ashoka’s allegiance to it (And no, despite the popular story, Ashoka was a Buddhist long before the Kalinga War). Christianity’s success is in Constantine adopting it.

So, on that scale do we have any history of any King leaving Buddhism and adopting Hinduism/Advaita because of Shankara?

Compare that with Mahendra Varman Pallava leaving Jainism and becoming Shaiva, under the influence of Nayanmaar ThiruNavukku Arasar or Pandya Nindra Seer Nedumaran, convinced by the Thiru Gnana Sambandar defeating the Jains in debate, turning to Shaivam.

No such event is recorded about Shankara.

That and few other reasons, I am disinclined to go along with what I suspect as a Colonial-Marxist mythmaking of 'Shankara defeated Buddhism'.

Shankara and restructuring of Hinduism

Yet there is much for us, to credit and thank Shankara for.

To make a rough analogy, he is like what Robert Boyle and Dmitri Mendeleev, put together would be, for Chemistry. He took a massive corpus of existing traditions, philosophies and

·       Took them to newer heights of illumination, like Robert Boyle did.

·       Systematized them in a manner, that is a critical referential framework, to future generations, as Mendeleev did, with the Periodic table.

Like what Vyasa had done in his epoch, both a composer and a compiler.

But those two activities are not to be conflated.  Exaggerated claims that Hinduism would have 'died' but not for him, is an insult to the multitude of thriving sampradayas, which still animate the civilization and have nothing to do with Shankara whatsoever.

To claim that, is to claim that without Mendeleev and his periodic table, Chemistry would have ceased to exist. That is not so.  Even if Sagarmatha or Kanchenjunga were missing, The Himalayas would still be magnificent, but certainly less so.

• Advaita as a defined school, pre-existed him. Yet he took it to new heights.
• Worship of all the multitude deities, pre-existed him, but he systematized Shanmata, bringing them under six broad mutually associated categories
• Kshetras from Badri to Rameshwara pre-existed him, but he organized ritualistic management of the Kshetras which had fallen off and revived their significance.
• Ascetics, Sannyasis all pre-existed him, but again he organized and streamlined the Dasanami tradition.

Diversity is the glory of Dharma, yet at critical junctures, to bring out the glory, someone comes to cut through the tangle and reorganize it, for that Shankara came after Vyasa.

Shankara was impactful in that he changed the prime meridian of Hindu philosophical narrative.

Before him the central reference point – to support, to diverge from, to refine and refute was Buddhism. But after Shankara, the central reference point – to support, to diverge from, to refine and refute was Advaita Vedanta.

If an analogy is to be made with contemporary politics. Before NaMo, the political party to oppose, to compare against etc. for everyone was Congress. After NaMo, the political party to oppose, to compare against etc. for everyone is the BJP.

However unlike with politics, philosophy is too abstract and takes a lot of time to achieve mass influence.

 

(To be continued...)

 

Image Source: Daily O