Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00970)

I had mentioned about Shankaracharya -- one of the most reknowned religious
leaders who reformed Hinduism. I had an inquiry about him. Hence I am
posting the following:

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SHRI SHANKARACHARYA

BY H. V.


   This Great Restorer of the Hindu religion and Founder of its noblest
philosophical school, took birth among men soon after the passing away of
the Lord Gautama Buddha, though a much later date is usually assigned to
Him. In the East, the immortality of a Great Teacher is more profoundly
realised than in the West, and so those who are His spiritual sons, bearing
the unmistakable impress of His personal influence and continuing His work,
are intuitively recognised as one with Himself, their Gurudeva, however many
centuries may stretch between them and the true manifestation. Learned
historians may chafe, groping in the dust, to find reliable evidence of a
Zarathushtra and others; but so it must tee, for these things are truly not
of time but of eternity. In this connection, we may well ponder over the
words of the Christ when someone found fault with His chronology: '' Verily,
I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am." 

   It seems that, in that wonderful fifth century B.C., when Great
Messengers were incarnating in different lands, to suit old truths to new
times, as Pythagoras in Greece and Lao-Tze in China, the Supreme Teacher
Himself trod the "soil of India, the Holy Land of old, as Gautama the
Buddha. But His message was not meant primarily for Hindus, though deeply
influencing Hinduism, just as Christianity was not meant primarily for the
Jews; and there was some danger lest the beauty of His life of service and
noble ethical teachings might lead to the disparagement, and ultimate loss,
of those superb philosophical truths which Hinduism held in trust for the
world. So it was deemed necessary that another Great One should come to
illuminate and restore, supplementing the work of His great Brother, but in
no way opposing it, though the followers of both were later to come into
conflict, as foolish followers will!

   Shri Shankaracharya was born, it is said, in Kerala, to an elderly
Brahmana couple, who were devotees of Mahadeva. Some accounts claim a
miraculous birth for Him, of the God Shiva, and, as in the case of the Lord
Jesus, doubts were later cast on His legitimacy. In a dream, Mahadeva
offered His parents the choice, either of one son, of surpassing wisdom and
merit but of short life, or of many sons of more ordinary character and
length of days. The parents made the better choice, though afterwards the
mother would seek to wean her son from His path of renunciation, and would
have to be reminded by the Rishi Agastya of her earlier decision.

   Indeed, she was highly honored, for He who had come to her for motherly
care was none other than a Son of the Fire, sent forth from the very throne
of Him to Whom the whole world bows in reverence, the Spiritual King of the
Earth.

   This wonderful Child soon set about "His Father's business," mastering
many of the Shastras before He was eight, and finishing His education at
sixteen. Then, resisting His mother's wish for His marriage, He won her
reluctant consent to His becoming a Sannyasi. Thenceforth He journeyed
tirelessly over the vast plains of India, from the Himalayas and Kashmir to
Cape Comorin, from Puri in the East to Dwarka in the West, establishing
Muths, disputing with and enlightening the learned, sternly denouncing ill
practices, and winning, by His sweet reasonableness, the most perversely
orthodox. His was a mighty work  of organising and purifying, while at the
same time He lit a flame of devotion in men's hearts, strong enough to
revitalise the whole of Hinduism, giving it a philosophy unapproachable in
its loftiness by any other religion in the world.

   A beautiful story is told of Him, when He went to Kashi (or Benares),
early in life. On his way to a bath in the holy river Ganga, His way was
obstructed by a chandala-the lowest of outcastes-whose touch is pollution to
the Brahmana. His disciples ran forward, shouting to the chandala to
withdraw, but the latter held his ground, and put the pertinent question,
how the Master could reconcile such proud exclusiveness with His doctrine of
the One Life in all. At once Shri Shankaracharya  did homage to the
chandala, exclaiming that here indeed was His Guru; who had taught Him to
look on phenomena rightly. The story goes that then the supposed chandala
revealed himself as none other than Mahadeva, Who had taken this illusory
form to teach a lesson, but perhaps one may be permitted to doubt whether
there was any immediate and striking change in the appearance of the
chandala; only the eyes of spiritual discernment had penetrated beneath the
polluted body. It is significant that to-day, in Kerala; the Lord's own
birth-place, a struggle is going on to win respect for these same outcastes,
and opposition again comes from the orthodox, who refuse to see Mahadeva in
the form of these lowly servants of society.

   Another story is told of His tenderness to His mother. Left a widow soon
after the birth of her great Son, she had found it difficult to resign her
one treasure to the service of the world - like another mother, in Galilee,
some centuries later. Shri Shankaracharya had promised her, however, that
not withstanding His Sannyasi vows, He would never neglect any practice
necessary for her spiritual well-being; and so, on hearing of her declining
health, He abruptly left His disciples, and alone sought her bed-side.

   There, at her request, He illuminated her mind by lofty philosophical
teachings, and so magnificently did He chant the glories of Shiva, in an
inspired hymn, that at His call the Messengers of Mahadeva appeared, to take
under their charge the soul of the dying woman. But she shrank in terror
from the dread appearance of these Mighty Forms, being unable to rise to
that grandeur of vision which perceives beauty and tenderness through the
stern aspect of power. So her Great Son, in compassion, tuned His song
afresh, to the praises of Vishnu, Whose Messengers, coming in less
awe-inspiring forms, bore her away to bliss.

   Now her funeral rites had to be performed, and among friends and kinsfolk
of the Nambudiri Brahmana caste, the Master could find none to help Him,
because, forsooth, He, as a Sannyasi, was going against orthodox practice in
performing any rites. Another theory is that their objections were on the
grounds of His rumored illegitimacy. They even went so far as to refuse Him
fire for the burning, and so He did all Himself, abone and unassisted,
carrying the poor mortal remains to the pyre He had prepared. He exercised
His Divine Power to bring fire from the wood of plantain trees, and
performed all the due rites which would give peace to the soul of His mother.

Again we are reminded of another Prophet Who was "not without honor, save in
His own country and among His own people ". That Great One, too, had
sometimes to disregard the wishes of her who had given Him His mortal body,
but, before passing away, even from the Cross He recommended her to the care
of His beloved Apostle, taking pity on her sonless age, and honoring this as
His one debt to earth.

   It is claimed that Shri Shankaracharya rigorously excluded women from His
orders, but in view of one tale that is told, this may well be thought a
later innovation. The tale is that at a famous debate with Mandana Misra,
champion of Vedic Hindu orthodoxy, on the relative virtues of the Sannyasi
and householder modes of life, each undertook, if beaten, to relinquish his
mode of life, in favor of the other. Mandana had a very learned wife, by
name Bharati, who, at Shri Shankaracharya's suggestion, was made umpire in
the verbal contest. After several days, the verdict went against her
husband, but Bharati claimed the favor of a further discussion, with
herself, since Mandana was so far but half defeated. Now, therefore, the
dispute was resumed, and lasted for many days further before Bharati was
overcome in argument. The Master, indeed, found Himself unable to answer
from His own experience some of her arguments on the - Science of Love; so
temporarily laying aside the body, He entered into that of a King who had
just died and was being mourned by his Queens. He spent a month in their
company, to the delight of that kingdom, who found their king marvellously
improved; then He returned, to win His victory over Bharati, who, like her
husband, became His devoted follower. The tale is a quaint one, but shows no
want of respect for women, and their fitness for a Holy Life.

   It is probable that, in His short life of thirty two years, Shri
Shankaracharya wrote little, the three famous commentaries that go under His
name being the work of a later Shankaracharya, perhaps overshadowed by his
Master and certainly recording His teachings. As in the case of the
Christian Gospels, these were transmitted orally among the Master's
followers long before they were committed to writing prominent among these
teachings occur the Four Qualifications for Discipleship, with which many of
us are familiar in their modern garb, as forming the ground-work of At the
Feet of the Master. Shri Shankaracharya gives them as Discrimination,
Desirelessness, Self-Control and Longing for Liberation, the last being
explained by our latest Teacher, as Love, because that word best conveys, to
modern understanding, the real meaning of the Fourth Qualification, so often
misunderstood by seekers after Moksha.

   His work was done by the time His body was thirty-two years old, and so
He laid it aside as a garment, in a cave of the Himalayas at Kedarnath,
whence He was never seen to emerge, though popularly believed to be still in
existence, and accessible to His disciples.

   Madame Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine has some interesting things to
say about Shri Shankaracharya. Referring to a theory that He was a
reincarnation of the Buddha, she denies this, but states that the "personal
remains " or astral and mental vehicles of the Lord Gautama were used for
this Great Personality, though the Atman, or Higher Self, was quite other,
being indeed that of one of the Kumaras, sometimes called "Pratyeka
Buddhas," in loftiness equal to a Buddha, but exercising another function in
the Great Hierarchy. Shri Shankaracharya is regarded as the abode, for the
thirty-two years of His mortal life, of a flame, the highest of the
manifested Spiritual Beings. (S.D., Vol. III.) Another significant passage
says: " Shankaracharya was reputed to be an Avatara, an assertion the writer
implicitly believes in, but which other people are, of course, at liberty to
reject. And as such, He took the body of a Southern Indian, newly-born,
Brahmana body; that body, for reasons as important as they are mysterious to
us, is said to have been animated by Gautama's personal remains. This divine
Non-Ego chose as its own Upadhi (physical basis), the ethereal, human ego of
a great Sage in this world of forms, as the fittest vehicle for the Spirit
to descend into." (S. D Vol. III, p. 80.)