Same Instances in Different Digvijayas

We have already seen so many similarities and dissimilarities in different Śaṅkaradigvijayās.

Some instances are same in all Digvijayās. Among them important events are listed below:

Birth of Śaṅkara–Śiva’s Boon

Śivaguru and Āryāmba were observing penance and offering worship and prayers to God Śiva Mahādeva. Days rolled on. The Lord was very much pleased with their sincerity, devotion and piety. One day, a few hours before sunrise, both the husband and wife had identical dreams simultaneously. In their dreams Lord Mahādeva appeared before them in the form of an aged Brahmin and told them: ‘my dear child, Iam greately pleased with your piety and prayers. I grant what you desire. But you have to choose either many sons, all of whom would be a very poor, intelligence but would live long life, or ony one son who would be surpassing wisdom but would live for a short period’^[1]. In their dreams both Śivaguru and Āryāmba made identical choice, opting to have one son who would become a great, intellectual though living for a short period. The Lord granted their boon. The couple woke up immediately and related to each other their dreams, rejoicing that their prayers had been finally answered. After they went to the temple immediately and offered their sincere thanks giving prayers of the Lord. Then they gave away rich gifts to the Brahmins and the poor, conducted special worship in the temple;and thus concluded their penance. They happily returned home at Kāladi^[2].

About Bhikṣā of Āmalaka

According to some Śaṅkaravijayas, a miracle happened during the period of Śaṅkara’s study in the gurukula. One day the young Śaṅkara was going round the village seeking food or bhikṣā as usual. During that round he chanced go to a house of a very poor Brahmin. The house owner had gone out. Seeing the Brahmachari, coming in for bhikṣā, his wife felt very unhappy that there was nothing in her house which she could, by way of bhikṣā offer to this brilliant young scholar. Anxiously she reached and found only one ripe gooseberry in the house. With tears rolling down on her cheek the Brahmin lady, shrunk by a sense of shame offered it meekly to Śri Śaṅkara. The latter was deeply touched^[3]. On the spot he prayed to the Goddess of Wealth, Mahālakṣmi, invoking Her grace for that pure family, by singing a beautiful hymn compossed instantly for the purpose. The Goddess answered his prayers, by showering on the house gold lumps of the shape and size of gooseberry. Seeing the poverty of that house Śaṅkara composed a poem known as ‘Kanakadhāra stotra’, ‘a hymn that caused a shower of gold’. It consists of eighteen verses and is one of the most famous hymns, sung by devotees all over India inorder to invoke the Grace of the Goddess of Wealth.

Crocodile Incident

Whether the crocodile episode was true or it was a product of imagination of the biographers, it is difficult to ascertain. But all the Śaṅkaravijayās contain this episode. It is unfair to think about this episode as a story of a son playing a trick of magic on his mother to wrest her premision for his own act. Śri Śaṅkara could have taken Saṃnyāsa by going out without informing his mother, just as the Buddha went out when his wife, son and his entire harem where fast asleep. But he would not have recource to that. He was very particular to become a monk and was also equally particular in obtaining his lonely mother’s consent for that^[4]. He founded that both these ends could not be achieved. Yet, his efforts in that direction were so sincere and so earnest that Almightly God, whose ways are proverbially mysterious, would have helped Śri Śaṅkara in a mysterious way, threatening Āryāmba with such a cruel end to her son.

This incident shows that every seeker with strong conviction and sincerity of purpose, will get help in mysterious ways in his march on the path of spirituality.

“It is also probable that the crocodile episode is meant to convey in a legendary way, a simple fact: Śri Śaṅkara found that his mother could not be won over to his side by mere requests or by entreaties”^[5].

Hence he might have used his gifted skill in argument and his art of persuasion. He would have convinced his mother of this fact: As far as he was concerned to get married and to lead a family was as bad as to be caught by a monstrous crocodile. For, like the latter the married life too drags its victim in to a dangerous whirlpool, i.e., the unending circle of birth and death from which no deliverance is possible.

“The only notable difference is: The crocodile appears as a monster and acts as a monster. On the other hand the married life appears to be attractive and delightful but is, in fact, treacherous and destroys the delight of the Self. It kills even the spirit and urge of its victim to come out of its grip; but it is not so with the crocodile. Thus the latter is monster known to be a monster and it kills its victim only once; but the other is a monster in disguise and it kills its victim every minute, throughout this life and also in the lives to come. Thus married life is more brutal than the crocodile.”^[6]

Arguing in this or similar manner, the son must have told the mother why he wanted to escape from the family life and to become a monk.

In this context it is good to bear in mind some of Śri Śaṅkara’s utterances in his famous Vivekacudāmaṇi (verses 79, 81, 82, 143) where he pictures the craving for and the indulgence in the worldly life as a very dangerous crocodile and as the one, which is more deadly than the most venomous snake. The intelligent old women, Āryāmba, with her cultural background and saintly atmosphere of the family could not have failed to understand the force and logic of her little son’s argument and to appreciate his steadfastness and sincerity. Hence she finally permitted her son to enter the monastic order. Of course, having only one son, this orthodox Brahmin widow must have naturally had her apprehensions about the rites to be performed after her death.

But, Śri Śaṅkara put an end to her anxiety by his most sincere promise that he himself would perform her obsequies.

Śaṅkara meets Maṇḍana and his Wife

The Mādhaviya says: instead of endorsing Viśvarūpa’s defeat according to the terms and condition, she herself had approved, rather she herself had made, for the debate, she asked for a disputation with Śri Śaṅkara. She contented that she was the wife, i.e., the better half of Viśvarupa, and hence the could not be deemed to have been vanquished completely, as long as she was not defeated by Śri Śaṅkara in the debate. The Ācārya accepted her challenge. Again the debate was resumed and it continued for eighteen days. Ubhaya-bharati posed question after question in all the branches of learning but found Śri Śaṅkara unconquerable in any of those subjects. Finding no alternative, she put to him questions connected with the science of sex (Kāmaśāstra) of which the Ācārya, being a a true monk since his eight year, was totally ignorant. To answer her properly, the Ācārya asked for a few days time. It was granted. By using his yogic power, he left his body and entered the body of a king by name Amaruka, just dead; remained as a tenant of that body for sometime, mingled with Amaruka’s beautiful and highly cultured wives; mastered the sex-science too; composed the famous erotic poem Amarukaśātaka; came back to his own body; and answered very well all the points rasied by Ubhayabhārati. The latter admitted now the defeat of her husband and of herself and taking leave of them went to her abode. The biographers simply say that Śri Śaṅkara was very much desirous that his Śarīrakabhaṣya should have a varttika commentary by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa.

In the Śaṅkaravijaya of Anandagiri, it was Śri Śaṅkara who stopped Sarasa-Vāṇī (that is the name given to Viśvarūpa-Maṇḍana’s wife in this narrative) from going to heaven, invited her for a duel in all branches of learning. After defeating her in all sciences including the sex science in the above manner (i.e., by entering Amaruka’s body) he established her as Goddess Śārada in the Śṛṃgeri Maṭha. In the Vyāsācaliya we read the episode of the debate of Śri Śaṅkara and Bharati on the eve of the former’s ascending the throne of omniscience. But the Ācārya was a serious man and the aim of Śri Śaṅkara incarnation was only to establish the supremacy of the Advaita Vedanta and it was not to trumpet his own omniscience. So it is difficult to conceive of Śri Śaṅkara indulging himself in all these trivialities.

Śaṅkara meets Govinda Bhagavatpāda

All the biographers of Śri Śaṅkara admit that Govinda Bhagavatpāda was Śri Śaṅkara’s preceptor. They differ only regarding the locality where the disciple met his preceptor. Many of them mark it on the banks of the Narmada and some traditions would specifically fix the meeting place in the neighbourhood of the present Omkaresvar temple on the northern banks of the river. However, according to the biographer Govindanatha the meeting place was Kāśi in U.P. According to Cidvilāsa it was Badarikasrama on the Himalayas. Yet another (i.e., Ānandagiri) locates the meeting place at Chidambaram in Tamilnadu in that time. A question arises: Having taken saṃnyāsa provisionally in the Pūrṇa river in Kerala in the far South why should Śri Śaṅkara travel all the way to the Narmada in the Central India to get his saṃnyāsa regularised by a monk preceptor? were there no Saṃnyāsin s in the South? The biographers do not indicate that on his journey Śri Śaṅkara had met some monks and found them unsuitable for him before he met Govinda Bhagavatpada. Nor do they tell us that even while leaving Kaladi Śri Śaṅkara had made up his mind to have Govinda Bhagavatpada alone for his preceptor. Could all these suggest that in the South the order-of-monks (Saṃnyāsāśrama) had not been quite popular among the orthodox Hindus and Brahmins and that it was popularised in the South by Śri Śaṅkara?^[7]

Some biographers, like Vyāsacala, seems to think that Śri Śaṅkara stayed with Govinda Bhagavatpāda, for a longer period. And he taught him all branches of learning till his twelfth year.

Caṇḍāla Incident

The biographers of Śaṅkara says that the Caṇḍāla episode must have been based on some incident that actually took place in Śri Śaṅkara’s life. Otherwise his biographers, who belong to a much latter age of reaction of orthodoxy would not have dared to picture their Ācārya as one accepting a caṇḍāla as his guru. Anyway, one is concerned only with the spirit of the story, namely the Ācārya would not hesitate to recognise and worship truth even if it is hidden behind some mask.

The meeting with Vyāsa

The biographers say that the topic chosen for disputation with Vyāsa who came in disguice centred on the first topic in the third chapter of the Brahmasūras. This is one of the knotty topics in the treatise and it occurs almost in the midde of the work. It is the 88^th topic of the work containing 192 topics; and it touches the aphorisms 292-98 of the book of 555 of them. May be this is the reason why the biographers should imagine that this particular topic was chosen for testing the Ācārya’s ability. In this topic (adhikarana) it is established that while transmigrating to the other word, the embodied Soul takes with him some subtle elements which could develop in to a gross body for its enjoyment of pleasure and pain there according to its merits and demerits^[8].

In the Śaṅkaravijaya of Anandagiri we read: ‘The sage Vyāsa invoked Brahma, the Creator and prayed to Him for a longer life for Śri Śaṅkara. The Creator came in person and granted that Śri Śaṅkara might live as long as the sage wanted. Upon this, Vyāsa blessed the Ācārya sprinkling the Ganga water on the latter, to live one hundred years so that the Advaita philosophy might be established firmly once for all.’^[9]

The episode of the meeting between Vyāsa and Śri Śaṅkara makes an interesting reading. It is almost like a drama. A student of history is sure to face the following difficulties in the stories as it is: firstly the sage Vyasa, the author of the Epic and the Purāṇas is believed to have lived in the age of the Mahābhārata war said to have been fought earlier than 3101 B.C, while Śri Śaṅkara lived much later. So, how could they meet one another? hence the story has to be dismissed as a legend, a historian would conclude.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Dr. S. Sankaranarayanan, Śri Śaṅkara, His Life, Philosophy and Relevnce in Modern Times, p.48.

[2]:

Ibid

[3]:

Ibid., p.55.

[4]:

Ibid, p. 62.

[5]:

Ibid, p. 62-63.

[6]:

Ibid

[7]:

Ibid, p. 108.

[8]:

Ibid, p. 112.

[9]:

Vide Mādhava Vidhyāraṇya, Śrimad Śaṅkaradigvijaya, Tr., Swami Tapasyananda, p. xxvii.