 Re: The Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath
Austin - An authoritative and factual, substantiated list was released
today that indicates the following persons have been totally
discredited on the alt.meditation newsgroup, being on record that they
lied, big time, about the the Maharishi and the World Plan.
It has been reported, on good authority, that the following individuals
are now 'personas nona grata' at TMO Vlodrop, Netherlands, because of
their failure to grasp even the most rudimentary, fundametal and basic
principles of the Science of Creative Intelligence. Apparently, they
can't even think straight so they are big losers and they all got waxed
real good for fib-telling and stretching the truth on this forum.
None of these individuals would even be permitted on the MUM campus,
let lone inside a Maharishi Golden Dome of Pure Knowledge. Their names
are mud all over Vedic City, IA, Radience, TX. AND they are not
welcome at NOIDA, India, either!
Apparently, even their names have been removed from the MERU database
at Siddhadorp, NL - they will no longer recieve ANY reports of
breakthroughs concerning advanced relaxation techniques, health or home
tips, preventative medication, alchemical healing, or scientific,
physiolocial mind/body correlations AND they must be getting all their
Vedic Yogic Flying news by subscribing to this list.
Foreign Devils on the Silk Road! They all got waxed real good for
lying.
The current anti-TM list (in order of miscreancy):
Robert Kropinsky
John Lennon
Mia Farrow
John Doe Malnak
John Knapp
Mike Doughney
Joe Kellet
Mike Kelly
Don Krieger
Mr and Mrs Peter Skeeter
Lon P. Stacks
Andrew A. Skolnick
Robin Carlton
Joyce Collins-Smith
Kathy What's-Her-Name
Steve Perino
Marci Perino
Jeff Ridley
Ned Wynn
Kirt Berkhardt
John Manning
Tom Anderson
Barry Wright
<punditster@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1119591972.696711.48120@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com..
My thanks go to Dana Sawyer of Maine college of Art, who kindly shared
with me the results of his field studies and interviews. See also his
article, "Monastic Structure of Banarsi Dandi Sadhus" in Living
Banaras: Hindu Religion in Cultural Context, ed. Hertel, Bradley R. and
Cynthia Humes, Albany: State university of New York Press, 1993, and
his forthcoming publication(s) on the Dandi Sadhus.
Willytex wrote:
Dana Sawyer wrote:[vbcol=seagreen]
> There are many complex questions to be resolved.
>
The real question is why has the Swami Swaroopanand turned the
Jyotirmath tradition into a politcal football. It is well-known that
Swaroopanand has close ties to the Congress Party and to Sonia Gandhi.
Swaroopanand has been reported to be opposed to the VHP, the Kanchi
Matha, and the Mahesh Yogi's programs.
One wondors why the will has been questioned by theSwami Prakashanand
as well, and what is his agenda? It is well known that the Swami
Prakashanand is under the influence of a Vishnuite baba of Vrindavan.
In my opinion, once the committee apointed Swami Brahmanand to be the
Shankaracharya they should have not attempted any other interference.
I'm a strong advocate of the desciplic succession and it is clear that
Guru Dev wanted one of his own desciples to succeed him, Swami
Shantanand who was specified in a will.
> First, the will has been strongly contested..
>
As I previously pointed out, Guru Dev's will hasn't been contested in
an Indian court of law and the recent court rulling didn't obviate the
will, since Swami Vasudevanand remains in possession of the Jyotirmath
and the Allahabad Shankar Math established by Swami Brahmanand. And I'm
told that Vasudevananda is also in possession of all the accoutrements
once used by Guru Dev, the Throne, the fly whisk, the beads, and Guru
Dev's sandals. These are all on display at the Shankar Math at
Allahabad.
In addition there are reports that millions of devotees worship His
Holiness Swami Vasudevanand as the embodiment of Shankaracharya. At a
recent Kumbh Mela Vasudevananda performed puja with close to a thousand
other Dandi Swamis and thousands of devout pilgrims at the Shankar
Matha. I've read many positive reports in the Indian press that
describe Vasudevanand as the rightful Shankaracharya, including
'Hinduism Today' and the 'Times of India.' William Cenkner, the author
of the scholarly work, 'Shankara and the Jagadgurus Today', makes the
point that the successor of Swami Brahmanada is Swami Shantanand and he
describes the the Dasanami tradition in some detail.
> so if Vasudevananda is in the lineage as defined by
> the will then that is a problem (too bad Brahmananda
> didn't make his wishes clear verbally before he died).
>
It has not been demonstrated that there is a problem with Guru Dev's
will. According to the official biography of Swami Brahmanand there was
no doubt in the minds of his desciples as to the intent of the will and
it was very plain who was specified therein. According to my sources
the will was handwritten and in English and specified Swami Shantanad
as the first to be considered. Also, there's no evidence that
Brahmanand didn't verbally make his wishes clear. He may have done so
on a number of occasions, but maybe only his secretary knows for sure!
> Second, since the lineage of Jyotirmath had been
> extinct, Brahmananda wasn't in disciplic succession
> with it - so even if we accept the will, Vasudevananda
> is only inarguably the disciple of Brahmananda and not
> necessarily the lineage holder of Jyotirmath.
>
I've also pointed out previously that the mere possession of the
Jyotirmath property in the succession dispute has no great bearing on
who the real Shankaracharya is. If it were, Vasudevanand would prevail
hands down, since he's in possession of most of the Jyotirmath
property. In fact, it's a title that's at stake in the dispute. In this
sense the dispute reaches a moot point because in fact there's no
evidence that Shankara established any mathas at all - it's just a
mythic tradition. So, if the devotees on the ground in India believe
that Vasudevanand is a Shankaraycharya and revere him as such, and
Vasudevanannd looks and acts like a Shankaracharya, and he is assumed
to be the successor to Guru Dev, and no material evidnce is presented
to the contrary, then Vasudevanand probably is a Shankaracharya.
> Karpatri chose Brahmananda for the post and saw no reason
> why he shouldn't pick his successor if the will was
> disputed and Shantananda wasn't qualified.
>
This would probably be considered to be an affront by Swami Brahmanand
himself, since Guru Dev was the teacher of Karpatri. There's another
rumor on the Internet that Swami Prakashanand was once offered the seat
of the Shankaracharya. This claim has been discredited by Mr.
Sundersan, but Ive read that there are over 150 other claimants to the
status of Shankaracharya in North India alone! In one case an
illiterate farmer was ruled by a civil court to be worthy of the title
Shankaracharya.
As for being qualified, I've read several reports that attested to
Shantanand's spiritual insights. But this objection seems to be a
smokescreen for somthing else. After all, it's possible to learn
Sanskrit in a few years, not to mention that Shantanand lived into his
eighties, so I don't see how Shantanand wouldn't have learned a lot of
Sanskrit in that length of time, after all, his Adi Guru, Trotaka
Shankaracharya, was illiterate. The 'unfit' argument doesn't hold much
water with me - it's a technicality, and in the bhakti tradition could
be a hindrance. Apparently Sri Krishna Chaitanya Bharati wrote only
sixteen slokas in his entire lifetime.
> Again, you mean he was the successor of the "anyone" who was
> Brahmananda, who WAS appointed by a committee.
I mean that Vasudevanand would be the successor to Brahmanand even
without Guru Dev being a Shankaracharya appointed by a committee. For
example, Mahesh Yogi was Brahmanand's desciple at least a year or two
before Guru Dev became the Shankaracharya. In that case and others it
matters not if Brahmananda had accepted the Seat of the Shankaracharya.
The point that I'm trying to make is that the 'Jyotirmath' and the
'Shankaracharya' is a myth, and the dispute is about a title, neither
of which have anything to do with the guru-desciple relationship or
succession. The 'seat' of the Shankaracharya of the North is a
political issue, not a spiritual issue.
> No it most certainly does not.
>
In fact, any holy spot can become a Peeth due to the association with a
revered Saint. For the desciples of Guru Dev every single spot of earth
that he touched upon is a sacred Peeth. Guru Dev's sandals are on the
Mandir at the Shankar Matha - that's what a Mandir and a Peeth is, a
holy spot. But technically, Jyotirmath and Badrika were both previously
famous Buddhist shrines built to honor Shakya the Muni and the idol
that was fished out of the river by Shankara was a statue of Buddha
himself!
> I'm not sure who's feeding you this ethnography but
> it's wrong.
>
Maybe so, but I read books and I traveled to India, and I'm about a
mile from one of the largest temples outside India. I get a lot of
information from the resident Swami there, Prakashanand Saraswati, at
Barsana Dham. According to the Swami he is one of the direct desciples
of Swami Brahmanand Saraswati. I don't agree with everything the Swami
says and I don't agree with all that his desciples have to say.
> The Shankaracaryas of all the amnaya vidyapiths
> maintain satellite maths all over India -
>
There's a Shankaracarya satellite maths in Stroudsburg, Pa. and a
Shankaracharya of Puri once visited Yogananda in Los Angeles.
Brahmananda established a satelite matha at Allahabad.
> and especially in sacred cities like Banaras and
> Mela cities. But the Shankaracaryas have no authority
> over Shankara's original plan and cannot establish new
> vidyapiths.
>
There's no evidence that Shankara had an original plan to establish any
mathas. I've read that the earliest known mention of four traditional
mathas in any adwaita literature dates from the fourteenth century. In
fact we may be even talking about a different Shankara. The authorities
at the Kanchi matha insist that Adi Shankara lived in the fourth
century B.C. before the birth of the historical Buddha. Swami
Prakashanad has written a history book to explain this. The Shankara
that I'm referring to wrote the Sutra Bhasya and debated with Buddhist
logician such as Dharmakirti. In my opinion, the historical Shankara,
circa 788 A.D., didn't make any comments about establishing any mathas
or vidyapiths.
> In fact, this is why Kanchi math is still not
> recognized by the other Shankaracaryas, because they
> believe the Sringeri acarya once made it a satellite,
> rather than believing, as the Kanchi faction claims,
> that Shankara established it himself.
>
Maybe so, but the so-called Shankaracharya of Kanchi has been very
active in the affairs of the VHP, which in turn supports Vasudevanand.
> Allahabad was Brahmananda's winter home; it isn't a
> new vidyapith.
>
Allahabad has been a Peeth for at least two thousand years, that's why
they have a Kumbh Mela at that location.
> What's funny about you using this quote from Vidya's website
> is that if you check his footnotes you'll see that he got
> this information from me!
>
Indeed it is!
> Having no recourse to a king (kings decided all such disputes
> in the old days), they hoped the court would stop protecting
> Shantananda's legal claim to ownership of the property that
> they had founded and purchased.
>
This would make sense if not for the fact that it was Swami Shantanand
and the Jyotrimath that sued the Swami Swaroopanand, not the other way
around. Shantanand has a legal claim to the Jyotrimath property so it
only makes sense that Shantanand would object to a committee down in
Kashi trying to tell him what to do with his property.
> This doesn't seem unreasonable.
>
It doesn't seem reasonable to me that there are four claimants to the
Shankaracharya Seat when it's obvious that Shantanand is in full
control of the property and that he was coronated in a ceremony in
downtown Allahabad and that this was announced in the Indian press at
the time. What is the real reason for the dispute?
> Remember, Vasudevananda's entire claim to the gaddi
> depends upon the validity of the will - AND THE WILL
> IS A LEGAL DOCUMENT. You argue that the courts should
> have no authority in this matter
>
The courts don't seem to have taken the will into consideration.
> but the only instrument keeping Vasudevananda from
> being laughed out of India is a court document.
>
Not according to Mr. Briggs, in a recent post on this subject.
> It's important to take note of that.
Please make a note that Vasudevanand has a lot of support in India
including several influential Dandi Sannyasins in Rishikesh. I also
have noted that Manika Gandhi supports Vasudevanand as well as Ashok
Sengal and the VHP.
> And this is why they haven't made a judgement. The
> court's only authority was to judge if the conditions
> of the land trust had been broken. Since they hadn't,
> the court had no jurisdiction, as you say.
>
> Having said that, who does have authority?
>
The Mahesh Yogi? His world-wide organization dwarfs the
Shankaracharya's office. If not for the Mahesh we probably wouldn't
even be having this conversation.
> The pandits of Banaras associated with the
> organizations that first appointed Brahmananda
> say that they do - and they're supported by the
> other Shankaracaryas.
>
At any rate I'm convinced that the Shankaracharya of Sringeri supported
Swami Shantanand as the rightful successor to Brahmanand as the
Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath. I've recieved a report concerning Paul G.
van Oyen's recent audience with the Shankaracharya of Sringeri to the
Sringeri in which the pontiff admitted as much. See below.
> But, BTW, the Shankaracaryas of the other amnyaya
> vidyapiths and the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal are not
> members of a civil or secular organization.
>
At present they are all under the orders of the Indian Government due
to the Ram Temple dispute. According to my sources, the Mahesh Yogi
owns much of the land at the Ayodhya temple site.
> He has control over one of the maths at Jyotirmath, given
> to him by the court because it had accepted the will as a
> legal document. Allahabad is a non-issue because it is
> incidental to the issue of Jyotirmath.
>
<snip>
> Second, Vasudevananda's claim to the throne did not come
> directly from Brahmananda through Shantananda and that
> is why there is a dispute.
>
> So what gives Vasudevananda a claim?
> The disputed will, which is a legal document. Vasudevananda
> better hope the courts have some power because most of
> his claim resides with them.
>
> This is a tautological argument. You're saying that if we
> decide the dispute over the will in favor of the Shantananda
> lineage then their claims to the Shankaracaryaship are most
> valid. It's a circular argument.
>
Good point.
<snip>
> A monk can only take diksha into a monastic lineage once.
> Swarupananda took diksha with Brahmananda. He was invested
> as Shankaracarya of Dwarka by its previous acarya. This
> does not invalidate his discipleship to Brahmananda.
>
> Yes, Vasudevananda was not a disciple of Brahmananda and
> never met him.
>
> Vidya is a scientist teaching in California and has no
> authority in this matter, as I don't. More interestingly,
> he is a member of a Brahmin family associated with the
> Shankaracarya of Sringeri. It surprises me to hear that
> Vidya is claiming that Vasudevananda has authority because
> the Sringeri pontiff, whom he knows and deeply loves,
> supports Swarupananda. I will email Vidya today and see
> if he has taken a new side in this matter. As recently
> as a year ago he was siding with Sringeri's viewpoint.
>
<snip>
> Again, only if we accept the disputed will - which surfaced
> several weeks after Brahmananda's death and was contested
> from the moment it surfaced.
>
<snip>
> Well, clarify your position, are you using Vidya to give
> your position authority or not?
>
No, William Cenkner.
> Regarding your second point, which group of "current
> disciples" are you talking about?
>
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati.
<snip>
> Note that the orgs you cite above are not the orgs that
> established the original trust. You're citing a different
> set of orgs and claiming continuity.
>
I was quoting Vidya - good point, I hadn't noticed this before.
<snip>
> If you're simply saying then that Vasudevananda may be in
> disciplic succession to Brahmananda and has no claim to
> the gaddi of Jyotirmath, then I certainly can't find
> anything to disagree with here.
>
Maybe so.
<snip>
> This is actually a direct quote from my article.
>
> I'm not saying they don't have an argument; I'm saying they
> don't have a clearcut claim. I have no side in this matter
> accept to convince all involved that there is, according to
> my considerable research of the matter, no clearcut claim.
>
I get your point - thanks for the information.
Append:
Kosmoplolis: the report of a visit to the Shankaracharya.
An Excerpt from the Kosmoplolis Newsletter
April - August 2000
Dear readers,
As you know Dorine and I have had the grace bestowed upon us of an
audience with HH Shrī Bhāratī Tīrtha, Shankarācārya of Shringeri
Matha. Kosmopolis is presenting herewith to its readers the report of
this visit..
With best wishes,
Paul G. van Oyen
His Holiness Shri Bharati Tirtha Shankaracharya:
"He also emphatically confirmed that in his opinion - and in the
opinion of Shringeri Matha - Shrī Shantānanda Sarasvatī had been
the lawful and respected Pīthapati of Jyotirmath. In their view Shrī
Shantānanda Sarasvatī had been a disciple of Shrī Shantānanda
Sarasvatī, maybe even a rather disobedient and naughty disciple.
In a later conversation with another member of the Shringeri Matha
staff we were reminded of the fact that when Shrī Svarūpānanda was
challenging the position of Shrī Shantānanda as Pīthapati of Jyotir
Matha the then Shankarācārya of Shringeri (Shrī Vidyatīrtha
Svamijī) had offered to anoint Svarūpānanda as Shankarācārya of
Dvaraka when that seat fell vacant.
The one condition was that he would drop his claim for Jyotir Matha.
This was agreed and Svarūpānanda was anointed as Pīthapati of
Dvāraka Matha. However when the ceremony was over Svarūpānanda
refused to honour his commitment and did not step down as claimant to
the Jyotir Matha seat."
http://www.kosmopolis.nl/e/index.html
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