Who is the Shankara, Vyasa or Kalidasa.?

 

Who is the Shankara, Vyasa or Kalidasa.?

We hear and revere these celebrated names.

They mean a lot to our culture.

To our secular culture, to our scholastic culture and to our religious culture too.

The output of literature-- Vedas, Itihasams, Puranas, some smritis, Brahmasutras.- all are traditionally believed to be the creations of Vyasa..

Some believe that this Vyasa was the incarnation of Lord Narayana Himself-the great grandson of Vasishta, the grandson of Sage Shakti, the Son of Parashara and the happy father of Shukabrahmam.

However, many scholars and doyens in the field of study of language and literature reasonably believe that one single person could not have ever produced so much of literature.

Maybe the name represented a position, sort of a chair in an academy or University

Maybe he was just an editor or compiler.

We really do not have much to get by way of evidence from the literary products themselves to infer the identity of Vyasa.

But we know that name is great and inspiring..

We revere the name of Krishna Dvaipayana the Vyasa.

We honour him as one of the ultimate gurus and celebrate Vyasa Purnima.

It is welcome

His works are his identity.

One or many Vyasas are sublime.

This logic applies to Shankara too

The primary position in our Guru Parampara belongs to this Personage.

We trust this Shankara is one who was born in Kaladi to Shivaguru and Aryaambha, and who undertook Sannyasam at the age of seven to escape the samsara nakram, ran away from home, learned did penance, and thought and thought and created the advaita philosophy.

We also believe that he protected the Shanmathams.

We also believe that he learned everything under the sun and became sarvajna

We believe that he did all this before the age of thirty-two years when he ascended heaven.

We believe that He established Madams and directed his prime disciples to preside over the orders as a Parampara to continue the Aamnaaya. We have many such Paramparas guiding us even today.. And the Acharyas there bless us now too.

Moreover, there are thousands of stotras attributable to the same Shankara.

But there is hardly any evidence which would conform to the present standards to prove that the person we call Shankara did all these things.

Again, we have to wonder whether Shankara was a mixture or facts and myths, a position, or an overlap of many historical and mythical personages.

But nothing worthwhile is gained by debating and pulling at each other’s tuft about the historicity of Shankara.

Shankara is great-Shankara is sublime-Shankara is our guide.

That is good enough.

Literary style and history are for researchers and students who struggle for academic degrees and doctorates. Moreover, all that such debates can do is to provide salary for some professors.

Or fuel for futile debate and fight for inter se importance among mutts.

In what way we are concerned...?

This applies to Kalidasa too.

We are completely in the dark about his identity.

The styles of KumaraSambhavam, Raghuvamsham, Shakuntalam, Malavikaagnimitram, Vikramorvasheeyam, and Meghadootham more or less tally and we have ascribed the authorship of all these to one name and that name is Kalidasa.

When it comes to Shyamala Dandaka or Ritusamharam, we are not sure about it.

Then the name Kalidasa, whoever he was, is an icon. Is a pride for any Indian, any lover of Indian Culture, and any lover of Sanskrit.

Why do not we accept Kalidasa that way rather that fighting over style and caste?

Scholars are famous for to be intolerant. No one can accept what another one says.

Some person or group will oppose any nice creation, any cogent view by some squeak or noise by someone else, pointing out some irrelevant point as if the whole world revolved entirely around that particular interjection.

Long live sceptics and critics.