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Sripada Sankaracarya
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To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Sripada Sankaracarya
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From: nparker@crl.com (Nathan Parker)
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Date: 16 Mar 1995 09:26:29 -0800
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From nparker@crl.com Thu Mar 16 12: 17:47 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest]
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SANKARACARYA
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After Lord Buddha had successfully diverted the general mass of
people away from the Vedas, Sankaracarya appeared to propagate a clouded
form of Buddhism to attract the people back to the Vedas, leaving aside
its real import. This was also the desire of the Supreme Personality of
Godhead. Sankaracarya is an incarnation of Lord Siva and he had to imagine
some kind of misleading interpretation, and therefore he presented a kind
of Vedic literature that is full of atheism. It is stated in the Padma
Purana, and quoted in the Caitanya-caritamrta (Madhya-lila Ch.6:181-182),
that Lord Siva was requested by the Lord to appear as a brahmana to
deviate the human race from Him.
"Addressing Lord Siva, the Supreme Personality of Godhead said,
`Please make the general populace averse to Me by imagining your own
interpretation of the Vedas. Also, cover Me in such a way that people will
take more interest in advancing material civilization just to propagate a
population bereft of spiritual knowledge.'
"Lord Siva informed the goddess Durga, the superintendent of the
material world, `In the age of Kali, I take the form of a brahmana and
explain the Vedas through false scriptures in an atheistic way, similar to
Buddhist philosophy.'"
The Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Absolute Truth, is not
like a material object that can be known by experimental knowledge or
sense perception. In the Narada-Pancaratra this fact has been explained by
Narayana Himself to Lord Siva. But Sankaracarya, the incarnation of Siva,
under the order of his master, had to mislead the monists, who favor
ultimate extinction. In the conditioned stage of existence, all living
entities have four basic defects, of which one is the cheating propensity.
Sankaracarya has carried this cheating propensity to the extreme to
mislead the monists.
Sankaracarya, by the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead,
compromised between atheism and theism in order to cheat the atheists and
bring them to theism, and to do so he gave up the direct method of Vedic
knowledge and tried to present a meaning which is indirect. It was with
this purpose that he wrote his Sariraka-bhasya commentary on the
Vedanta-sutra.
"The Mayavada philosophy," Lord Siva informed his wife Parvati, "is
impious [asac-chastra]. My dear Parvati, in the form of a brahmana in
Kali-yuga I teach this imagined Mayavada philosophy. In order to cheat the
atheists, I describe the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be without
form and without qualities. Similarly, in explaining Vedanta I describe
the same Mayavada philosophy in order to mislead the entire population
toward atheism by denying the personal form of the Lord." (Padma Purana)
Although Sankaracarya was attempting to cover the Supreme Lord by
his Mayavadi philosophy, he was simply following the order of the Supreme
Lord. Therefore, it should be understood that his teachings were a timely
necessity but not a permanent fact.
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