Shiva Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Natalia Isayeva

Critical Essay by Natalia Isayeva

SOURCE: "Biography of Sankara and His Main Works" in Shankara and Indian Philosophy, State University of New York Press, 1993, pp. 69-104.

Below, Isayeva surveys the various hagiographies of Sankara's life, outlines the three categories of his writings, and discusses the difficulty scholars have encountered in authenticating some of his work.

Gi; 1. Sankara's Life =~ S1. Sankara's Life

We know both too much and too little about Sankara's life. The hagiographical tradition of Vedanta overflows with descriptions of wonderful signs and prophecies, fantastic occurrences and brilliant aphorisms that accompanied literally every day and hour of the Advaitist's earthly existence. Meanwhile, the reliable data are quite scanty and difficult to single out from the colorful mass of contradictory evidence.

There are several accepted biographies of Sankara, but some of them are still unpublished. The only source of this genre available to me was a present-day compilation by V.S. Radhakrishna Sastri, entitled Sri-Sankaravijaya-makaranda,¹ and therefore I also made extensive...
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