Tag Archives: Sw.Satchidanandendra

Trip to India – Part 5

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smartcapture

Wife, Sowmya, and a friend of the latter employed themselves the next day mostly shopping (goodness knows what they shopped – I think my wife bought a shalwar chameez). I stayed home, mostly  sipping warm lassy. The following day (Saturday) my wife was taken by Ravi (our taxi driver) to visit two temples and she took some photos. Next day – Sunday – we all went to the karyalaya, centre of activities of Sw. Subraya Sharma. A large group of students, both young and adult, were sitting around in the large room – as they do every Sunday – to study Advaita Vedanta under the direction of Subraya Sharma. They all speak Kannada (definitely better than they do English, at least to my ear), so no problem. Continue reading →

Mulavidya – Real or Unreal? – I

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INTRODUCTION

As S.K. Ramachandra Rao relates in his Introduction to Sw. Satchidanandendra’s book ‘Salient Features of Shankara’s Vedanta’ ( a translation of ‘Shankara-Vedanta-Prakriye’ in Kannada language), the Swami decided to find out for himself what the real tradition of Shankara and the latter’s contributions to it had been, since he had suspected for some time that the former had been misrepresented by later advaitins. This desire took form in the way of a monograph he wrote in Sanscrit in 1929 with the title of ‘Mulavidya -nirasa. ‘He applied himself diligently to repeated study of Shankara’s works (Bhashyas on the three Prasthanas) for several years to convince himself that the sub-commentaries (of Vacaspaty Misra and Padmapada) had not done justice to the great master… It was in the year 1920, a year after his wife passed away, that he felt called upon to take this as a mission in his life’. Continue reading →