THE DEITY AND THE RIVER HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS

A New Zealand River is a Legal Person

With the landmark verdict on Padmanabhaswamy temple, the Supreme Court has recognized the privileges of a deity in India; this verdict will have a far-reaching impact, since in the Sabarimala case, the Supreme Court had denied the rights to the deity. The current verdict can even reverse that verdict when the review petitions are finally heard.

The Travancore covenant signed by the Government of India was with Lord Padmanabhaswamy. This was made clear by the then ruler Chithira Thirunal to V.P. Menon and Sardar Patel that he was only acting on behalf of the Deity as His servant, Padmanabha Dasa.

The rights and privileges of all such rulers including the Ruler of all Rulers, Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity was protected in our Constitution by the Constituent Assembly, as advised by Sardar Patel in his address to the Constituent Assembly.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple

The Supreme Court, in the famous Privy Purse judgement in 1971 interpreting the Constitutional guarantees given to rulers held that “The Rulers who were before integration of their States aliens qua the Dominion Government are now citizens.”

Even though the 26th Amendment to the Constitution removed the privileges and rights due to all rulers in an immoral act, the Supreme Court in a 1993 judgement upheld the 26th Amendment of the Constitution, approving the statement of objects of the amendment as “The distinction between the erstwhile Rulers and the citizenry of India has to be put an end to so as to have a common brotherhood.”

Prior to the 26th amendment of the Constitution, only Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity, who was the ruler of the Travancore State, became Citizen as per the ratio of the Privy Purse judgement, by virtue of the 26th Amendment of the Constitution.

The SC judgement ratio upholding the conversion of Ruler to Citizen of Anantha Padmanabhaswamy under Article 14 of the Constitution is to create a common brotherhood. From this decision, all temple deities should now be considered as citizens, as there cannot be a distinction between one Hindu deity and another in our Constitution under Article 14.

In the Citizenship Act of 1955, Section 2(f) reads as follows: “‘person’ does not include any company or association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not”.

In Section 2(31) of the Income Tax Act of 1961 “person” was defined including “artificial juridical persons” and the SC held in a 1969 judgement that Hindu deities can be taxed as per this definition.

In view of the above, since Section 2(f) of the Citizenship Act of 1955 did not bar Hindu deities as juristic persons from the definition of the term “person”, clearly there is no bar for the Central government to register Hindu deities as citizens under Section 5(a).

In view of the fact that the Central government granted citizenship to Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity as Ruler when the Travancore kingdom was integrated, as held by the SC in its 1971 judgement, and due to the 26th Amendment of the Constitution and the ratio of the SC judgement of 1993 upholding the same under Article 14, it is now duty bound to register all Hindu deities as citizens under Section 5(a) of the Citizenship Act.

The Union Government should apply the same rule as that of the Rivers Ganga and Yamuna and register all the temple deities as citizens so that many issues can get resolved with this one stroke.

A river is a legal person

A New Zealand river, Whanganui, revered by the Maori has been recognised by Parliament as a “legal person”, in a move believed to be the world’s first. The river has been granted the same legal rights as a human being.

“The Great River flows from the mountains to the sea. I am the River, the River is me.”

With these words, the Maori tribes of Whanganui, New Zealand, declare their inseverable connection to their ancestral river. The river rises in the snowfields of a trio of volcanoes in central North Island. The tribes say that a teardrop from the eye of the Sky Father fell at the foot of the tallest of these mountains, lonely Ruapehu, and the river was born.

Swelled by myriad tributaries, it twists like an eel through a mountainous country—part of it a national park—on its 180-mile journey to the sea. Travel the precipitous River Road, and far below you will see canoeists drifting down the placid reaches, at one with the current and its cargo of flotsam and foam, then digging their paddles deep to hurtle through a rapid.

This is the river that for more than 700 years the Whanganui tribes controlled, cared for, and depended on. It is their awa tupuna—their river of sacred power. But when European settlers arrived in the mid-1800s, the tribes' traditional authority was undermined—and finally extinguished by government decree.

The local Maori tribe of Whanganui in the North Island has fought for the recognition of their river—the third-largest in New Zealand—as an ancestor for 140 years. Hundreds of tribal representatives wept with joy when their bid to have their kin awarded legal status as a living entity was made into law.

This legislation was passed on 15 March 2017. The legislation passed combines Western legal precedent with Maori mysticism.

"[It] will have its own legal identity with all the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person," Attorney-General Chris Finlayson said.

"The approach of granting legal personality to a river is unique."

The river, known by Maori as Te Awa Tupua, is the third longest in New Zealand.

Finlayson said the local Maori iwi, or tribe, had been fighting to assert their rights over the river since the 1870s, in New Zealand's longest-running legal dispute.

"This legislation recognises the deep spiritual connection between the Whanganui iwi and its ancestral river," he said.

It deems the river a single living being "from the mountains to the sea, incorporating its tributaries and all its physical and metaphysical elements".

In practical terms, it means the river can be represented at legal proceedings with two lawyers protecting its interests, one from the iwi and the other from the government.

The iwi also received an NZ$80m ($56m) settlement from the government after their marathon legal battle, as well as NZ$30m to improve the river's health.

Based on the Whanganui precedent, 820 square miles of forests, lakes, and rivers—a former national park known as Te Urewera—also gained legal personhood. Soon a mountain, Taranaki, became the third person.

In recent years, New Zealand’s primary industries—the country’s economic backbone—have come in for close scrutiny and mounting criticism over their negative environmental impacts on waterways. Severe weather events connected to a warming climate—here torrential rain in the middle section of the Whanganui River, in an area of plantation forestry of Monterey pine—exacerbate those impacts, sending tons of soil and debris into the river.

In February 2017, voters in Toledo, Ohio, voted to grant legal standing to Lake Erie. In the wake of these initiatives, the question uppermost in many minds is whether such legislative devices will prove to have teeth in the courtroom.

Since 1975, a commission of inquiry, the Waitangi Tribunal, has been steadily investigating, reporting, and recommending ways the Crown can resolve grievances brought by the more than a hundred tribes of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The treaty guaranteed Maori the paramount authority they had exercised for time immemorial over their lands, habitations, and all that they treasured. Without question, the Whanganui chiefs who signed the treaty in 1840 would have considered the river a treasure—a treasure beyond price. It was their food basket, their medicine cabinet, their highway, and their defensive moat. It was their healer, their priest, and their parent. It was the source of their prestige and the core of their being. It was, as the Waitangi Tribunal explained in its report on the Whanganui River treaty claim, the central bloodline of their one heart.

In the new legislation, the Crown issues an apology for its historical wrong-doing, acknowledging that it breached the treaty, undermined the ability of Whanganui tribes to exercise their customary rights and responsibilities in respect of the river, and compromised their physical, cultural, and spiritual well-being.

Whanganui River

The Crown says it “seeks to atone for its past wrongs and begin the process of healing.” The Te Awa Tupua Act, it says, represents “the beginning of a renewed and enduring relationship,” with the river at its centre.

It’s a humbling statement for a government to make. But it doesn’t restore ownership of the river to the Whanganui tribes. Politically, that remains a bridge too far, even for a country that believes its future lies in a genuine “treaty partnership” between Maori and non-Maori.

Ganga has legal rights

In India, the Ganga River, considered sacred by more than 1 billion Indians, has become the first non-human entity in India to be granted the same legal rights as people. A court in Uttarakhand ordered that the Ganga and its main tributary, the Yamuna, should be accorded the status of living human entities. The decision, which was welcomed by environmentalists, means that polluting or damaging the rivers will be legally equivalent to harming a person. The judges cited the example of the Whanganui River in this context. It was on 20 March 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganga and Yamuna would be legally treated as “living people,” and enjoy “all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person”. The order was stayed by the Supreme Court in July of that year because it “raised several legal questions and administrative issues”.

In the Ayodhya case, the Ram Lalla deity has been recognized as a juristic person. A juristic person, as opposed to a “natural person” (that is, a human being), is an entity whom the law vests with a personality. In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the Supreme Court said: “The very words Juristic Person connote recognition of an entity to be in law a person which otherwise it is not. In other words, it is not an individual natural person but an artificially created person which is to be recognised to be in law as such.” Gods, corporations, rivers, and animals, have all been treated as juristic persons by courts.

The treatment of deities as juristic persons started under the British. Temples owned huge land and resources, and British administrators held that the legal owner of the wealth was the deity, with a shebait or manager acting as trustee.

In 1887, the Bombay High Court held in the Dakor Temple case: “Hindu idol is a juridical subject and the pious idea that it embodies is given the status of a legal person.” This was reinforced in the 1921 order in Vidya Varuthi Thirtha vs Balusami Ayyar, where the court said, “under the Hindu law, the image of a deity… (is) a ‘juristic entity’, vested with the capacity of receiving gifts and holding property”.

This idea is now established in Indian law.

However, not every deity is a legal person. This status is given to an idol only after its public consecration, or pran pratishtha. In Yogendra Nath Naskar vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax (1969), the Supreme Court ruled: “It is not all idols that will qualify for being ‘juristic person’ but only when it is consecrated and installed at a public place for the public at large.”

Apart from owning property, paying taxes, suing, and being sued, what else do deities as ‘legal persons' do?

In the Sabarimala case (Indian Young Lawyers Association & Ors. vs The State of Kerala & Ors, 2018), one of the arguments presented against allowing women of menstruating age entry into the temple was that this would violate the right to privacy of the Lord Ayyappa, who is eternally celibate.

A lawyer who worked on the Sabarimala case said: “Deities have property rights, but not fundamental rights or other constitutional rights.” This was upheld by Justice D Y Chandrachud in the Sabarimala judgment: “Merely because a deity has been granted limited rights as juristic persons under statutory law does not mean that the deity necessarily has constitutional rights.”

Generally, the shebait is the temple priest, or the trust or individuals managing the temple. In the 2010 Allahabad HC judgment in the Ayodhya title suit, Justice D V Sharma had said: “As in the case of minor a guardian is appointed, so in the case of the idol, a Shebait or manager is appointed to act on its behalf.”

What if some parties feel that the shebait is not acting in the interest of the deity? In Bishwanath And Anr vs Shri Thakur Radhaballabhji & Ors (1967), the Supreme Court allowed a “suit filed by the idol represented by a worshipper” in a case where the shebait was found “alienating the idol’s property”. The court held that if a shebait does not discharge their duties properly, a devotee can move court as a “friend of the deity”. 

Shebait

In the Padmanabhasway temple case, the Supreme Court upheld the Shebait (കാരായ്‌മ) rights of the Travancore royal family in the administration. Shebait is a person who serves a Hindu deity and manages the temple. The court said as per custom, Shebaiship survived the death of the ruler and his death didn’t result in escheat in favour of state government despite the 26th amendment to the Constitution that abolished privy purse paid to former rulers of princely states which were incorporated into the Indian Republic after Independence. Allowing the appeal filed by the Travancore Royal Family Maharaja, the top court accepted the Shebaitship of the royal family over one of the richest Hindu temples in India. The Supreme Court’s verdict effectively means the “Ruler” under the Instrument of Accession signed by the Princely state ruler with the Government of India at the time of independence is “Ruler” by succession and will not end with the death of the ruler who signed the instrument of accession.

In this verdict, the court defines 'Shebait' thus: "The expression 'Shebait' is derived from 'Sewa' which means service, and in the literal sense, means one who renders 'sewa' to the idol or a deity. Every ruler of Travancore would call himself 'Padmanabhadasa', ie, one who is engaged in the service of Padmanabhaswamy."

In the law dictionary, Shebaitship, property dedicated to an idol vests in it in an ideal sense only; ex necessitats, the possession and management has to be entrusted to some human agent. Such an agent of the idol is known as shebait in Northern India. The legal character of a shebait cannot be defined with precision and exactitude. Broadly described, he is the human ministrant and custodian of the idol, its earthly spokesman, its authorised representative entitled to deal with all its temporal affairs and to manage its property. As regards the administration of the debutter, his position is analogous to that of a trustee; yet, he is not precisely in the position of a trustee in the English sense, because under Hindu Law, property absolutely dedicated to an idol, vests in the idol, and not in the shebait. Although the debutter never vests in the shebait, yet, peculiarly enough, almost in every case, the shebait has a right to a part of the usufruct, the mode of enjoyment; and the amount of the usufruct depending again on usage and custom, if not devised by the founder. Shebaitship being property, it devolves like any other species of heritable property. It follows that, where the founder does not dispose of the shebaiti rights in the endowment created by him, the shebaitship devolves on the heirs of the founder according to Hindu Law, if no usage or custom of a different nature is shown to exist, Profulla Chrone Requitte v. Satya Chorone Requitte, AIR 1979 SC 1682 (1686): (1979) 3 SCC 409: (1979) 3 SCR 431.

(ii) Shebaitship is in the nature of immovable property heritable by the widow of the last male holder unless there is a usage or custom of a different nature in cases where the founder has not disposed of the shebaiti right in the endowment created by him. Shebaitship is a property which is heritable. The devolution of the office of shebait depends on the terms of the deed or the Will or on the endowment or the act by which the deity was installed and properly consecrated or given to the deity.

The Travancore Kowdiar Palace

A mosque has never been held as a juristic person, because it’s a place where people gather to worship; it is not an object of worship itself. Neither has a church.

In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the SC ruled that the “Guru Granth Sahib… cannot be equated with other sacred books… Guru Granth Sahib is revered like a Guru… (and) is the very heart and spirit of gurudwara. The reverence of Guru Granth on the one hand and other sacred books, on the other hand, is based on different conceptual faith, belief and application.”

However, the court clarified that “every Guru Granth Sahib cannot be a juristic person unless it takes juristic role through its installation in a gurudwara or at such other recognised public place.”

In May 2019, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that the “entire animal kingdom” has a “distinct legal persona with corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities of a living person”. On March 20, 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganga and Yamuna would be legally treated as “living people,” and enjoy “all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person”. The order was stayed by the Supreme Court in July of that year because it “raised several legal questions and administrative issues”.

Albert Einstein wrote in 1950 that the presumption that humans are separate from nature is “an optical delusion of consciousness,” and something of a cultural prison. “Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison,” he wrote, “by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

© Ramachandran 

HINDU SCRIPTURES WERE REVEALED TO WOMEN

Sankara had a Debate with Ubhaya Bharathi

I am reading Nochur Venkataraman's scholarly biography of Sankaracharya,Athma Threetham and I just finished the part where in Ubhaya Bharati challenged Sankara after his debate with her husband Mandana Misra.

It was after rescuing Kumarila Bhatta in Prayag,Sankaracharya travelled to Mahishmathi to have a debate with Mandana Misra,who was a Poorva Meemamsa scholar.He was married to Bharathi.Mandana Misra was the son of Hima Mithra,the Advisor to the King of Kashmir.Hima Mithra is said to be the brother in law of Kumarila Bhatta.Bharathi was the daughter of Vishnu Mithra,who resided on the banks of Sona river.

One day, when Ubhaya Bharati was going to the river for a bath with her women disciples, she saw an ascetic, who had renounced everything in life, sleeping on the wayside, resting his head on a hollow water jug, using it as a pillow and at the same time ensuring that nobody took it away. As long as you have attachment and ego, you can never understand the Atma or experience atmic bliss.

In order to convey a lesson to the ascetic, Ubhaya Bharati spoke within his hearing the following words to one of her disciples: "Look at that ascetic, who has ostensibly renounced every kind of attachment, but he has not given up his attachment to his water jug!" On hearing these words, the ascetic got enraged. He thought: "Is a mere woman entitled to teach me as to how I should behave." While Ubhaya Bharati was returning from the river, the ascetic threw the jug at her feet and said: "Now, see what my renunciation is?" Ubhaya Bharati remarked: "Alas! You are not only filled with attachment (abhimana) but you are also filled with ego (ahamkara)." On hearing these words, the ascetic ran up to her, fell at her feet and pleaded for forgiveness of his faults.

Bharati is the only woman arbiter in a debate, mentioned in Hinduism.

In Modern India,there is an over emphasis on the law book of first century CE,Manusmrithi.This emphasis is a legacy of British Colonial sadministrators,who expounded Eurocentrism,to win over the vulnerable sections of the Hindu religion,to Christianity.This legacy was later on inherited by the pseudo secular Marxist historians who suffer from red myopia.Ancient vedic literature beats modern day feminists,when it comes to the debate on gender inequality.

Only in Hinduidsm,-and in no other World Religion -the Scriptures say, GOD “Revealed” VEDAM to Women and Men Scholars ,almost in Equal Number.

Dr.Ananth Sadhashiv Altekar in his Book , “Position of Women in Hindu Civilization” ( Motilal Banarasi Das,Delhi ,1959 & 1987) states that he quotes this information from a Sanskrit Text “Sarvaanukkraamaanika”. Those Women,who did not marry -for whom God “Revealed” the authoritative Hindu Scripture, VEDAM and doing religious service,were called “Brahma Vaadhins”.The last names for them are their father’s names. Those who were married to whom “Vedam” was “revealed” and were doing religious Srevice were called “Saadhya Vadhus “.

When it comes to talking about significant female figures of the Vedic period, five names -Ubhaya Bharati, Ghosha, Lopamudra, Sulabha Maitreyi, and Gargi - come to mind.

Dr.Altekar says that according to another Sanskrit Text, Kaasakritsanaas ( Maha Bhaashya),“ Poorva Meemamsa is more Abstruse than Mathematics “.A very large number of Ladies were Adept in Poorva meemaamsa “. Gaargi Vaachana Kavi,daughter of Sage Garg, Sulabha Maithreyi (daughter of Sage Mithra) and wife of Sage Yaagjnavalkya, Vaadhavi Praathatheyi are examples.Poorva Meemamsa is one that doesn't recognize Vedanta,with emphasis on Karma or action.

Vedam was “revealed” to women scholars -women taught Vedam to men Scholars.In Kerala,Manorama Thampuratti of Kottakkal Palace,a Sanskrit scholar,taught men during the time of Travancore King,Dharmaraja.

Ubhaya Bharathi was appointed as “Adjudicator” (Judge/Arbiter) in the Religious debate between  Sankara and  Mandana Misra, two Intellecual giants,and in the debate she was the third  intellectual giant in Hindu Scripures (788 to 820 A.D.).My short story,Parakaya Pravesam is based on that debate,where in Bharati is said to have belittled Sankara for absence of sexual experience.Bharathi got the sobriquet Ubhaya,since she was expert in both Meemamsa a nd Brahma Vidya.

Maṇḍana and Sankara agreed that Maṇḍana's wife Ubhaya Bharati, who is considered to be an incarnation of the goddess Saraswati in the folklore of Mithila, would be the arbiter for the debate, and that the vanquished would become a disciple of the victor and accept his school of thought. The debate spanned many days and ranged across many different subjects within the Vedas, and the arguments of both competitors were compelling and forceful. Sankara finally emerged victorious. But Maṇḍana's wife, who was the judge, would not accept an ascetic as having complete knowledge since he did not have any knowledge about Kama sastras (rules about marital life). Sankara was then given six months to research certain aspects of sex-love sciences and then resume the debate. According to legend, he entered into the body of Amaruka, king of Kashmir who had just died to learn these sciences. Later, after obtaining the necessary knowledge, the debate resumed. There is a poetic work,Amaruka Sathaka.After a long debate, Maṇḍana accepted defeat.There is a legend that the place of debate between Sankaracharya and Mandanmisra, was the town Mandleshwar near Maheshwar in Bihar. The ancient temple Chhapan Deo of this town is considered to be this place.But Mahishmati, is at the confluence of the Narmada and Mahishmati rivers, near Omkareshwar,Madhya Pradesh.

Scholars usually doesn't accept the kamasasthra aspect of Sankara-Bharati debate,and Nochur Venkataraman too has avoided it in his biography of Sankara.From his book,one learns that Ubhaya Bharati,who became a disciple of Sankara,accompanied him to Sringeri,and stayed there forever after Acharya consecrated the Sarada temple there.

Vedic wisdom is encapsulated in myriad hymns and 27 women-seers emerge from them. But most of them are mere abstractions except for a few, such as Ghosha, who has a definite human form. Granddaughter of Dirghatamas and daughter of Kakshivat, both composers of hymns in praise of Ashwins, Ghosha has two entire hymns of the tenth book, each containing 14 verses, assigned to her name. The first eulogizes the Ashwins, the heavenly twins who are also physicians; the second is a personal wish expressing her intimate feelings and desires for married life. Ghosha suffered from an incurable disfiguring disease, probably leprosy, and remained a spinster at her father's house. Her implorations with the Ashwins and the devotion of her forefathers towards them made them cure her disease and allow her to experience wedded bliss.

The Rig Veda  has long conversations between the sage Agasthya and his wife Lopamudra that testifies to the great intelligence and goodness of the latter. As the legend goes, Lopamudra was created by sage Agasthya and was given as a daughter of the King of Vidarbha. The royal couple gave her the best possible education and brought her up amidst luxury. When she attained a marriageable age, Agasthya, the sage who was under vows of celibacy and poverty, wanted to own her. Lopa agreed to marry him and left her palace for Agasthya's hermitage. After serving her husband faithfully for a long period, Lopa grew tired of his austere practices. She wrote a hymn of two stanzas making an impassioned plea for his attention and love. Soon afterward, the sage realized his duties towards his wife and performed both his domestic and ascetic life with equal zeal, reaching a wholeness of spiritual and physical powers. A son was born to them. He was named Dridhasyu, who later became a great poet.

Gargi Vachaknavi (born about c. 7th century BCE) was an ancient Indian philosopher. In Vedic literature, she is honored as a great natural philosopher,renowned expounder of the Vedas, and known as Brahmavadini, a person with knowledge of Brahma Vidya.In the Sixth and the eighth Brahmana of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, her name is prominent as she participates in the brahmayajna, a philosophic debate organized by King Janaka of Videha and challenges the sage Yajnavalkya with perplexing questions on the issue of atman (soul). She is also said to have written many hymns in the Rigveda. She remained a celibate all her life and was held in veneration by the conventional Hindus.

Gargi, the daughter of sage Vachaknu in the lineage of sage Garga (c. 800-500 BCE) was named after her father as Gargi Vachaknavi. From a young age she evinced keen interest in Vedic scriptures and became very proficient in fields of philosophy. She became highly knowledgeable in the Vedas and Upanishads in the Vedic times and held intellectual debates with other philosophers.

Gargi, along with Vadava Pratitheyi and Sulabha Maitreyi are among the prominent females who figure in the Upanishads. She was as knowledgeable in Vedas and Upanishads as men of the Vedic times and could very well contest the male-philosophers in debates.Her name appears in the Grihya Sutras of Asvalayana. She had even awakened her Kundalini (indwelling spiritual energy). A realized soul.She was a leading scholar who also made rich contributions to propagate education.

According to Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, King Janaka of Videha Kingdom held a Rajasuya Yagna and invited all the learned sages, kings and princess of India to participate. The yagna lasted for many days. Large quantities of sandalwood, ghee (clarified butter) and barley (cereal grain) were offered to the Yagna fire creating an atmosphere of spiritual sanctity and aroma. Janaka himself being a scholar was impressed with the large gathering of learned sages. He thought of selecting a scholar from the assembled group of elite scholars, the most accomplished of them all who had maximum knowledge about Brahman. For this purpose, he evolved a plan and offered a prize of 1,000 cows with each cow dangled with 10 grams of gold on its horns. The galaxy of scholars, apart from others, included the renowned sage Yajnavalkya and Gargi Vachaknavi. Yajnavalkya, who was aware that he was the most spiritually knowledgeable among the assembled gathering, as he had mastered the art of Kundalini Yoga, ordered his disciple Samsrava to drive away the cow herd to his house. This infuriated the scholars as they felt that he was taking way the prize without contesting in a debate. Some of the local pundits (scholars) did not volunteer for debate with him as they were not sure of their knowledge. However, there were eight renowned sages who challenged him for a debate, which included Gargi, the only lady in the assembled gathering of the learned.

Sages like Asvala, the priest in Janaka's court, Artabhaga, Bhujyu, Ushasta, and Uddalaka debated with him and asked questions philosophical subjects to which Yajnavalkya provided convincing replies and they lost the debate. It was then the turn of Gargi to take up the challenge. Gargi, as one of the disputants in the debate, questioned Yajnavalkya on his claim of superiority among the scholars. She held repeated arguments with him. Gargi and Yajnavalkya's exchange centered on the ultimate "warp" of reality ("warp" means "the basic foundation or material of a structure or entity). Her initial dialogue with Yajnavalkya tended to be too metaphysical, such as unending status of the soul, away from practical situations. She then changed her approach and asked him pointed questions related to the environment existing in the world, the question of the very origin of all existence. Her question was specific when she asked him "since this whole world is woven back and forth on water, on what then is woven back and forth", a question that related to the commonly known cosmological metaphor that expressed the unity of the world, its essential interconnectedness. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.6), the sequence of her posing a bevy of questions to Yajnavalkya and his replies is narrated as

On air, Gargi.
On What, then, is air woven back and forth? On the intermediate regions, Gargi.
On what, then, are the worlds of the intermediate regions woven back and forth.
On the worlds of the Gandharvas, Gargi

She continued with an array of questions such as what was the universe of the suns, what were the moon, the stars, the gods, Indra, and Prajapati. Gargi then pressed on with two more questions. Gargi urged Yajnavalkya to enlighten her on the weave of reality and asked:

That, O Yajnavalkya, which is above the sky, that which is beneath the earth, that which is between these two, sky and earth, that which people call the past and the present and the future - across what is woven, warp and woof?"
Yagnavalakaya answered "Space"

Gargi was not satisfied and then posed the next question:

Across what then pray, is space woven, warp and woof?
Yajnavalkya answered: Verily, O Gargi, if one performs sacrifices and worship and undergoes austerity in this world for many thousands of years, but without knowing that Imperishable, limited indeed is that [work] of his. Across this Imperishable is the unseen, O Gargi, is space woven, warp and woof.

Then she asked a final question, on what was Brahman (world of the imperishable)? Yagnavalakya put an end to the debate by telling Gargi not to proceed further as other wise she would lose her mental balance. This riposte put an end to their further dialogue at the conference of the learned. However, at the end of the debate she conceded to the superior knowledge of Yajnavalkya by saying: "venerable Brahmins, you may consider it a great thing if you get off bowing before him. No one, I believe, will defeat him in any argument concerning Brahman."

Her philosophical views also find mention in the Chandogya Upanishad.Gargi, as Brahmavadini, composed several hymns in Rigveda (in X 39. V.28) that questioned the origin of all existence. The Yoga Yajnavalkya, a classical text on Yoga is a dialogue between Gargi and sage Yajnavalkya. Gargi was honoured as one of the Navaratnas (nine gems) in the court of King Janaka of Mithila.

Maitreyi ("friendly one"was an Indian philosopher who lived during the later Vedic period in ancient India. She is mentioned in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as one of two wives of the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya; he is estimated to have lived around the 8th century BCE. In the Hindu epic Mahabharata and the Gṛhyasūtras, however, Maitreyi is described as an Advaita philosopher who never married. In ancient Sanskrit literature, she is known as a brahmavadini (an expounder of the Veda).She is Sulabha in Mahabharata.

Maitreyi appears in ancient Indian texts, such as in a dialogue where she explores the Hindu concept of Atman (soul or self) in a dialogue with Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. According to this dialogue, love is driven by a person's soul, and Maitreyi discusses the nature of Atman and Brahman and their unity, the core of Advaita philosophy. This Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue is the topic of Sureshvara's varttika, a commentary.

Maitreyi is cited as an example of the educational opportunities available to women in Vedic India, and their philosophical achievements.

In the Asvalayana Gṛhyasūtra, the daughter of the sage Maitri is referred to as Sulabha Maitreyi and is mentioned in the Gṛhyasūtras with several other women scholars of the Vedic era.Her father, who lived in the Kingdom of the Videhas, Mithila, was a minister in the court of King Janaka.

Although Maitreyi of ancient India, described as an Advaita philosopher, is said to be a wife of the sage Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the time of Janaka, the Hindu epic Mahabharata states Sulabha Maitreyi is a young beauty who never marries. In the latter, Maitreyi explains Advaita philosophy (monism) to Janaka and is described as a lifelong ascetic.

In her debate with Janaka,Sulabha establishes that there is essentially no difference between a man and woman;she demonstrates by her own example,that a woman may achieve liberation by the same means as a man.Modern scholars of Mahabharata have not paid much attention to this episode.,nor feminist studies in ancient India given it the important it deserves.

She is called as a brahmavadini (a female expounder of the Veda) in ancient Sanskrit literature. 

Maitreyi and Yajnavalkya are estimated to have lived around the 8th century BCE.

In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Maitreyi is described as Yajnavalkya's scholarly wife; his other wife, Katyayani, was a housewife.While Yajnavalkya and Katyayani lived in contented domesticity, Maitreyi studied metaphysics and engaged in theological dialogues with her husband in addition to "making self-inquiries of introspection".

In the Rigveda about ten hymns are attributed to Maitreyi.She explores the Hindu concept of Atman (soul or self) in a dialogue contained in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The dialogue, also called the Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue, states that love is driven by a person's soul, and it discusses the nature of Atman and Brahman and their unity, the core of Advaita philosophy.

This dialogue appears in several Hindu texts; the earliest is in chapter 2.4 – and modified in chapter 4.5 – of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of the principal and oldest Upanishads, dating from approximately 700 BCE. The Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue has survived in two manuscript recensions from the Madhyamdina and Kanva Vedic schools; although they have significant literary differences, they share the same philosophical theme.

After Yajnavalkya achieved success in the first three stages of his life – brahmacharya (as a student), grihastha (with his family) and vanaprastha (in retirement) – he wished to become a sannyasi (a renunciant) in his old age. He asked Maitreyi for permission, telling her that he wanted to divide his assets between her and Katyayani. Maitreyi said that she was not interested in wealth, since it would not make her "immortal", but wanted to learn about immortality:

Then said Maitreyi: "If now, Sir, this whole earth filled with wealth were mine, would I be immortal thereby?"
"No", said Yajnavalkya. "As the life of the rich, even so would your life be. Of immortality, however, there is no hope through wealth."
Then said Maitreyi: "What should I do with that through which I may not be immortal? What you know, Sir – that, indeed, tell me!"
Yajnavalkya replied to Maitreyi: "Ah! Lo, dear as you are to us, dear is what you say! Come sit down. I will explain to you. But while I am expounding, do seek to ponder thereon."

— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.2–4

In the dialogue which follows, Yajnavalkya explains his views on immortality in Atman (soul), Brahman (ultimate reality) and their equivalence. Maitreyi objects to parts of Yajnavalkya's explanation, and requests clarification.

Scholars have differing views on whether this dialogue is evidence that in ancient Vedic tradition women were accepted as active participants in spiritual discussions and as scholars of Brahman. Wendy Doniger, an American Indologist and a professor of History of Religions, states that in this dialogue Maitreyi is not portrayed as an author, but is part of an Upanishadic story of a Brahmin with two wives who are distinguished by their intellect. Karen Pechelis, another American Indologist and a professor of Comparative Religion, in contrast, states that Maitreyi is portrayed as theologically minded, as she challenges Yajnavalkya in this dialogue and asks the right questions.

First-millennium Indian scholars, such as Sureshvara (Suresvaracharya, c. 750 CE), have viewed this male-female dialogue as profound on both sides; Maitreyi refuses wealth, wishing to share her husband's spiritual knowledge, and in the four known versions of the Upanishadic story she challenges Yajnavalkya's theory of Atman. Yajnavalkya acknowledges her motivations, and that her questions are evidence she is a seeker of ultimate knowledge and a lover of the Atman.

The Maitreyi dialogue in the Upanishad is significant beyond being a gage of gender relations. Adi Shankara, a scholar of the influential Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, wrote in his Brihadaranyakopanishad bhashya that the purpose of the Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue in chapter 2.4 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is to highlight the importance of the knowledge of Atman and Brahman, and to understand their oneness. According to Sankara, the dialogue suggests renunciation is prescribed in the Sruti (vedic texts of Hinduism), as a means to knowledge of the Brahman and Atman. He adds, that the pursuit of self-knowledge is considered important in the Sruti because the Maitreyi dialogue is repeated in chapter 4.5 as a "logical finale" to the discussion of Brahman in the Upanishad.

The Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue includes a discussion of love and the essence of whom one loves, suggesting that love is a connection of the soul and the universal self (related to an individual):

Lo, verily, not for love of a husband is a husband dear, but for the love of the Self a husband is dear.
Not for the love of the wife is a wife dear, but for love of the Self a wife is dear.

— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.2–4

 German Indologist and Oxford University professor Max Müller says that the love described in the Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad extends to all aspects of one's life and beyond; in verse 2.4.5, "The Devas (gods) are not dear to one out of love for gods, but because one may love the Self (Atman) that the gods are dear". In the dialogue "the Brahman-class, the Kshatra-class, these worlds, these gods, these beings, everything that is what this Soul is", and when "we see, hear, perceive and know the Self, then all is known".

Concluding his dialogue on the "inner self", or soul, Yajnavalkaya tells Maitreyi:

One should indeed see, hear, understand and meditate over the Self, O Maitreyi;
indeed, he who has seen, heard, reflected and understood the Self – by him alone the whole world comes to be known.

— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.5b

After Yajnavalkya leaves and becomes a sannyasi, Maitreyi becomes a sannyassini – she too wanders and leads a renunciate's life.
Apart from these five following names of women scholars are mentioned in the Vedas:

Ghosa: Name of the authoress of RV 5.39 and RV 5.40
Godha: Name of the authoress of a Sāman Source
Visvavara: Name of the authoress of the hymn RV 5.28
Apala: Name of the authoress of the hymn RV 8.91
Upanisat
Nisat
Juhu Brahmajaya: Name of the authoress of the hymn RV 10.109
Agastyasya
Aditi: Name of the authoress of the hymn RV 4.18
Indrani: Name of the authoress of the hymn RV 10.86
Indramata
Sarama: Name of the reputed authoress of RV 10.108
Romasa: Name of the reputed authoress of RV 1.126,7
Oorvasi
Nadya
Yami
Sasvati: Name of the authoress of RV 8.1
Sri Lakshaa
Sarparajni
Vak
Sraddha
Medha
Daksina: Name of the authoress of RV 10.107
Ratri
Surya Savitri: Name of the authoress of RV 10.85
Vasukrapatni: Name of the authoress of the verse RV 10.28.1

 R. L. Kashyap in Essentials of Rig Veda lists about 30 ṛṣhikās (women seers of Rigveda) along with the verse numbers. The author also notes the list is not exhaustive.Appendix Women Ṛṣhis (ṛṣhikā) in the Rig Veda Samhitā Aditi 4.18 Aditirdākshāyaṇī 10.72 Agastyasvasā 10.60.6 Apālā Ātreyī 8.91 Dakshiṇā Prājapatyā 10.107 Godhā 10.134 Goṣhā Kākshīvatī 10.39, 10.40 Indrāṇī 10.86, 10.145 Indra-mātaraḥ 10.153 Jaritā Sharṇgā 10.142 Juhūrbrahmajāyā 10.109 Kāshyapī 9.104 Lopāmudrā 1.179 Rātrīrbhāradvājī 10.127 Romashā 1.126 Suryā Sāvitrī 10.85 Saramā Devashunī 10.108.Sārparājnī 10.189 Sashvatyāṇgīrasī 8.1 Shachī Paulomī 10.159 Shradhdā Kāmāyānī 10.151 Sikatā Nivāvarī 9.86 Sudītīrangirasā 8.71 Tvaṣhṭa Garbhakartā 10.184 Urvashī 10.95 Vāgambhṛṇī 10.125 Vasukrapatnī 10.28 Vishvavārā Ātreyī 5.28 Yamī Vaivasvatī 10.10 Yamī 10.154.

© Ramachandran 

CHATTAMPI SWAMI'S BRAHMIN GURU

Subbajatapadikal Lived in Kalladaikurichi

We live in an era in which several historians and pseudo secularists invent a non-existent Brahmin monopolization of knowledge, and attack it incessantly. The fact is the majority of the well-known monks including Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo are not brahmins. In Kerala, two towering figures, Chattampi Swamikal and Narayana Guru were not brahmins.

But Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who carved out a Vivekananda was a poor brahmin. In India, for a person who seeks knowledge intensely, knowledge was not far away. In Mahabharata, there is an instance where Viswamitra learns Vedanta from a Chandala or Dalit. Viswamitra, incidentally, was not a brahmin. There is even a Vyadha Gita, Gita of the Butcher, in Mahabharata. It is deeper than even the Bhagavat Gita.

Narayana Guru went to Ramanashram at Thiruvannamalai, met Ramana Maharshi got overjoyed and wrote Nirvrithi Panchakam. One becomes a monk, surpassing the frontiers of caste and creed. Hence, Ramana Maharshi, who was born a Tamil brahmin, is not a brahmin at all before a saint like Narayana Guru. Advaita, the basic philosophy of India, speaks against casteism. Hence Sankaracharya wrote, Maneesha Panchakam. A Dalit taught him the essence of Advaita in Kashi.

I began visiting Kalladaikurichi a few years ago after I learned our family deity is Maragathavally Amman at the Kasinatha Temple there. While I am there, I remember Chattampi Swamikal, since his guru, Subba Jatapadikal, lived in Kalladaikurichi. Subbajata Padikal,a Tamil Brahmin, was a vedic scholar.

That he taught Chattampi Swamikal Vedanta is there in the biography of Swamikal by Justice K Bhaskara Pillai.

According to the Census of 1951, Nairs can scarcely be called a community though they are generally classed as Sudra, the fourth and lowest in the rank of the caste system of Hinduism. They got trained in martial arts and formed the army of the rulers of Kerala in early times but by the Middle Ages, they had already become subservient to the Nampoothiri Brahmins into whose hands most of the land had gone. Thus the Naits often became tenants and vassals of the Nampoothiris. A free mingling of the sexes -due to poverty prevalent in the past - and their expensive obligations and ceremonies, their land holdings were small and they were left with only a little cultivation. They felt it was below their dignity to do manual work themselves, they depended for the cultivation of their fields on their tenants.

Guru, Chattampi, Neelakanta Theerthapadar, before Chattampi's Samadhi

For reasons of prestige few Nairs took an active part m industries, trade or commerce, and so they were bypassed by the modern economic development which brought so much wealth to the more progressive classes of India. In this situation, the whole Nair caste in Kerala was in danger of being reduced to a backward community. Fortunately, some very gifted community leaders arose at this time who guided the Nair caste back into prominence Towards the end of the nineteenth century even the Hindu faith had begun to lose its grip on large sections of the population This rigours of the caste system, and other social disabilities which held down large sections of the Hindu population in semi-slavery had led to mass conversions of large numbers to other faiths, particularly, Christianity.

Among the Nairs, it was Chattampi Swamikal who roused them from stagnation, aptly initiating certain religious and social reforms among his community. He rendered great service to the cause of Hindu religion and society, mainly through his social and humanitarian work. At the same time, he was intensely religious and rebellious against Brahminical predominance. He wrote Pracheena Keralam, in which he theorised that the Namputhiris are basically fishermen and their sacred thread is nothing but the fishing thread on the fishing rod.

Kunjan Pillai (which was the original name of Chattampi Swamikal before he became a monk), was born m 1853 in the Ullurkott family, Kolloor, four miles to the north of Trivandrum city. His father was a Namputhiri Brahmin, Thamarassery Vasudeva Sharma from Mavelikara. His mother Nanga Pillai from Kannammoola was a Nair by caste. According to the matriarchal system prevalent in those limes m Kerala among Nairs, Kunjan Pillai became a Nair, taking his mother’s caste. Sharma was jobless. Nanga's family was so poor that although his relatives were clearly aware of the extraordinary talents of the child, they could not afford to give him a sufficient education. Nanga had two other children:Velukutty and Nani.

Owing to the great poverty of his relatives Kunjan had to contribute to the family income at a very early age by collecting flowers in the neighbouring hilly places for the Brahmin ladies who needed them for the temple service. He also collected vegetables. He had no means for proper schooling but he learned to read and write in Malayalam and Tamil from boys of his own age who attended a school nearby His memory was so prodigious that he learned Sanskrit simply by overhearing what was taught m the classes conducted in a Brahmin house.

The teacher one day discovered the little eavesdropper and made a test on his learning. To his surprise he discovered that the boy had mastered all that he had been taught in class, he consequently allowed Kunjan to attend the class without taking any fee from him. Kunjan showed such remarkable talents for learning that at the age of sixteen he was taken to the school of Raman Pillai in Petta. This Raman Pillai was a famous teacher in southern Kerala and the education that he imparted to his pupils was not merely intellectual but practical and adapted to the talents of the students. Raman Pillai soon appointed Kunjan monitor (Chattampi) of his pupils. It was then that Kunjan acquired the name Cliattampi which he was known ever afterwards.

The youth was highly appreciated by all not only for his wonderful capacity for acquiring knowledge but for his remarkable talents m teaching. It was noticed in those days that Chattampi frequently absented himself from school at night. The pupils soon found out that Chattampi was visiting a nearby Bhadrakali temple where he sat for hours lost m meditation. The teacher was highly pleased about the monitor’s love for the Devi and the pupils respected him the more for it.

At this time caste consciousness was very strong in Kerala. It was unthinkable, for instance, that a Nair would go to an Ezhava family and dine with them. Chattampi, however, was convinced that all distinctions of caste and class were man-made and against the divine law. To him, the basic equality of all men was clearly taught in the sacred scriptures of Hinduism. His sharp intellect penetrated the most difficult objects of every science. His memory was so profound. He went to the houses of his Ezhava classmates. He had food with them, he slept in their houses. But he remained a vegetarian and teetotaler. He was a daily visitor at the house of Dr P Palpu. Palpu's elder brother Parameswaran was an important player in Chattampi's gang. Nair's called him, Thottu thinnu nadakunna Thendi-the scoundrel who roams around with the untouchables. Chattampi was adept in sports as well. He was quite proficient m Indian music, played Ganjira at bhajans and mastered without a teacher, the mudras of Kathakali. He became an accomplished painter.

Adhivaraha Perumal Temple, Kalladaikurichi

But his mind was restless despite all his achievements. He was searching for a deeper meaning in his life. For this reason, he began to read Ezhuthachan's Ramayanam and the Mahabharatham and study the Advaita doctrine in the original texts. He read Kaivalya Navaneetham, a Tamil scared text repeatedly. He decided that he needed the guidance of a guru (teacher) to introduce him to the mysteries of Hindu spirituality. They were too deep to be grasped without a spiritual guide. In his search for a guru, he found a sanyasi (monk) in the yard of the temple at Kolloor. The sanyasi taught him a mantra (Balasubramanya mantra — a sacred formula) and went his way. After meditation on this mantra — replete with spiritual power, Chattampi felt his spirits rising and his vitality returning. He even began to cure diseases by anointing the sick with bhasma (sacred ash) and exorcising the possessed.

He wanted to take up the life of a sannyasin, however, the debts he had incurred and the obligation of supporting his mother prevented him from it. Kunjan found it difficult to earn a living. He began to work as an earner of bricks and mud for building construction, which enabled him to support his mother, but soon he found this manual work too heavy and had to give it up. For many days he served as a labourer carrying building materials for the construction of the Government Secretariat building in Trivandrum. For some time he worked as a document writer and also as an advocate's clerk. He stood first in a test for clerical posts in Government Secretariat Trivandrum conducted by Sir T Madhava Rao the then Divan of Travancore State. But he left the service after a short while as it curtailed his freedom and prevented his wanderings for spiritual exploitations and research.

He returned home and in 1875, at the age of twenty-one, secured a job in the Registrar’s office at Neyyattinkara. Nor did this job satisfy him. He returned to Trivandrum and Dewan T Madhava Rao appointed him as a government accountant, at a monthly salary of Rs 4 but was given Rs 10 assessing his brilliance. He returned the six rupees, saying it is beyond his salary and he doesn't deserve it. Though his poverty was extreme he would not accept a rise in salary, as he wanted no earthly goods for himself. Soon he gave up this job also and joined an association, called Jnanaprajagaram, started by Raman Pillai, which gave asylum to seekers of wisdom and students of religion. He also could learn Tamil from Swaminatha Desikar and philosophy from Professor Manonmaniyam Sundaram Pillai during his participation in Jnanaprajagaram. Thycaut Ayyavu, Manager at Residency was part of the group and he taught the primers of Vedanta and Yoga. He learned wrestling from Tamil books.

Chattampi, 40 days before samadhi

Since the Vedanta texts in Tamil were ancient, he had to acquire knowledge of ancient Tamil grammar. Chattampi approached Swaminatha Desikar, a Tamil Brahmin, who was the Tamil Teacher at Trivandrum College. He used to attend some sessions of the Jnanaprajagaram. Desikar agreed to the request. Chattampi reached Desikar's home every day and learned Tamil grammar. He learned science, Purana and Vedanta books in Tamil. Chattampi got the feeling that Tamil is the quintessential language of all wisdom in the world.He read Kambar, Thirukkural, Pattanathu Pillayar, and Nakkeerar.He got drowned in the Tamil spiritual poetry. He wished for a knowledge pilgrimage across Tamil Nadu.

He also studied English books on philosophy with the help of others. While at Jnanaprajagaram, he studied the ancient works of the Vedanta written in Tamil. His love for Dravidian culture and spirituality increased so much tint he decided to go to Tamil Nadu for further studies. Meeting Subba Jatapadikal, a Tamil Brahmin, was a turning point.

In one of the Philosophical Conferences organised annually by the Travancore Kings at the Palace complex adjacent to Sree Padmanabha Swami Temple Kunjan Pillai met Subba Jatapadikal from Kalladaikurichin in Southern Tamil Nadu; a renowned teacher well versed in Tarka, Vyakarana, Mimasa, and Vedanta. He had come for the Navarathri Scholars meet. Chattampi went along with Swaminatha Desikar and waited on the sidelines of the dais and met Jatapadikal. Desikar introduced Chattampi. Both were impressed by the other and Kunjan's wish to learn at Kalladaikurichin under him was granted. He invited Chattampi to his home in Kalladaikurichi.

Kalladaikurichi is a town on the right bank of the Thamiraparani river in Ambasamudram Taluk of Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India. any Indian rural town, this town too is steeped in tradition and is rich in heritage, but struggling to hold on to its past glories. Here the modern co-exist peacefully with the bullock carts and rickshaws of yesteryears.

Kallidaikurichi's Hindu shrines are of ancient temple architecture style, having high-rise gopurams (ornamental gateways of temples) with sculptures that herald the past glory of this region. Muthuswami Dikshitar, the great Carnatic composer, whose songs abound with geographic and iconographic references, sings of the curative properties of the river Thamiraparani. To him, the Goddess at Tirunelveli is Hima-saila-sutaa (daughter of the mountain snow) and Suddha Thamraparni tatha sthitha.Vishnu is Bhangahara thamraparni Theerastha. The local language is Tamil. Adivaraha Perumal temple represents the principal deity in present-day Kalladaikurichi. Dikshitar has sung a song, Sri Lakshmi Varaham in the raga Abhogi, on the Aadhivaraga Moorthy Swamy. Dikshitar settled in the nearby village Ettayapuram in 1835.

Kothai Adithya Varma the Venad King who ruled during 1469-1484 resided in Kalladaikurichi. The Adhivaraha Perumal Temple was rebuilt by him, retaining the original structure by Kandan Keralan of Kurukenikkollam ( Quilon ) of Malaimandalam ( Kerala ). The King's figure is engraved in the parikrama and the deity is called Aditya Varmeswara. Vishnu is called Veerakerala Perumal, and Parvathi is Nila Sjundari Nachiyar. Krishna is Veerakerala Pillayar. Saivites later removed images of Vishnu and Krishna, but these names remain as inscriptions. 

The Thamiraparni river flows through Kallidaikurichi. Originating from the Pothigai nearby, it flows down to the Bay of Bengal after travelling for about 125 kilometres. In the hills are several waterfalls, such as Courtallam Falls, Banatheertham Falls, Agasthiar Falls, and Manimuthar Falls.

Kalladaikurichi is on the border between the Pandya and the Chera countries of the past. The road, either from the south via Nagarcoil or from the north via Shencottai takes about 164.4 km. A determined and sturdy person can easily climb the bridle paths and move between hills, without undue exertion. The boundary between the Pandya and Chera Kings was subject to frequent changes, this way or that way, depending on who felt the more powerful between the two of them, at any point in time. At times the Pandyas drove deep into Kerala and reached up to Kanetti near Karunagapally. At other times the Cheras went up to Madurai and beyond. At one point the Cheras held in their hands entire south India, for a tantalizing brief period of five years. Kalladaikurichi got accustomed to these changes to her fortune and readily absorbed the characteristics of both streams of culture and language.

Subba Jatapadikal was known as Subbajata Vallabhar in Kalladaikurichi,the town on the banks of the Thamraparni river.His ancestral family had come from Andhra to be the priests of the Tamil Bramins there and they began staying at Koottikkal street. It became the reputed headquarters of the Vedanta scholars in South India. They taught inquisitive students Veda, Vedanta, logic and grammar. None could beat Jatavallabhar in these, in Tamil Nadu. His home was a meeting place of scholars from various parts and the atmosphere was replete with scientific dialogues." Chattampi got knowledge of all sastras in Sanskrit and Tamil from here", Justice Bhaskara Pillai records, "It is the iron that sharpens the iron".

Subbajata Padikal was an expert in chanting Vedic hymns. The suffix Jatapadi was derived from his expertise in chanting Jata Padam, one of the four ways of chanting Vedic hymns.

He used to chair scholarly discussions during Navarathri. Being the guest of the royal family, he stayed inside the palace complex in the Fort.

Jatapadikal had no children.Chattampi became close to him like a son. In Sadguru Sarvaswam, a disciple of Chattampi described that relationship thus:

In the days of childhood and youth of the great sage

Profound scholars from different spheres of knowledge

The enlightened souls who understood his greatness

Like Subbajatapadikal adorned the position of his gurus.

Chattampi spent long hours at Thiruvaduthurai Madam reading ancient texts on Saivism. Unfortunately, he failed to systematically preserve documents in later life.

Chattampi spent almost four years learning under Subba Jatapadikal. There he acquired deep and extensive mastery of all sastras in Tamil and Sanskrit. He also learned Siddha medicine, music, and martial arts. During this period he was greatly influenced by the works of Kodakanallur Sundara Swamikal, a great Advaitin. He later translated his work Nijananda Vilasam containing the cream of Vedanta into simple Malayalam to guide spiritual aspirants.

At Kalladaikurichi,near Ambasamudram, Subbajatapadikal guidcd him in Vedas and Upanishads.He learned to play classical instruments. The learning laid the foundation for Chattampi's future prospects. Close to Jatapadikal's home, a yogi was living in deep meditation. He too blessed Chattampi.

After completing his studies under Subba Jatapadikal he spent long periods of learning under a Christian priest. In a secluded church in Southern Tamil Nadu assisting the priest, he learned Christian meditation and learned Christian Religion and philosophy. Later he lived with an old Muslim well versed in the Qur'an and Sufi mysticism who taught him the main tenet of Islam. Kunjan acquired proficiency in reading Qur'an. Leaving him he wandered for months with many avadutas in Southern Tamil Nadu and also travelled all over India. These days revealed to him that the basic concepts of all religions are the same.

At the end of his wanderings and quest, Kunjan Pillai was led to self-realisation by an avaduta whom he met at a wayside in Vadaveeswaram a village in Tamil Nadu with whom he lived for many months in the forests without any contact with the outside world. It is believed that this avaduta belonged to the line of immortal masters of Southern India; the Siddhas who knew the scientific art of realising God. He returned to Kerala as a great scholar and saint.

In 1882, at the Aniyoor Temple near Vamanapuram, Swamikal met Nanu Asan, later known as Narayana Guru. Asan was three years younger than Swamikal and in search of spiritual guidance. By then Swamikal was well-versed in yoga and spiritual matters and their meeting proved to be the start of a profound and cherished companionship, although the two were of different temperaments. In those days Nanu Asan was a soft-spoken introvert and Swamikal was an outspoken extrovert. They lived and travelled for many months together. Swami introduced Asan to all arts and sciences he had mastered and also gave him the Balasubrahmanya mantra. These were the formative years of Asan, who later became a social reformer. Later Swamikal took Asan to his guru, Ayyavu Swamikal. After completing Asan's studies under Ayyavu Swamikal the men left him and wandered together in southern Tamil Nadu where they met many scholars. They would have together met Subbajata Padikal since Narayana Guru's poems contain the essence of Advaita.

Guru Visited Chattampi before Samadhi

Chattampi Swamikal wrote many guides and commentaries on Vedanta for the common man. Notable among them is Advaita Chinthapaddhathi (1949), an introductory manual on practical Advaita. written in simple language to enable ordinary people without knowledge of Sanskrit to learn Vedanta. The book describes the trigunas, trimurthees, jivatmas, panchabutas, sukshma, sthula, sarirotpatti, dasagunas, prapancholpatti, Tatvamasi, and related Vedic concepts. His Vedadikara Nirupanam is considered one of his greatest works. It refuted the baseless customs and rules that existed in Kerala. For the first time in the region's history, the work questioned the monopolisation of Vedas, sciences and education by a minority. Pracheena Malayalam also aimed at awakening the mind of the people of the region divided by various complexes to a collective sense of 'We'. Convictions of common origin and belief in a common ancestry were indispensable for the development of a collective mindset. Swami explored the roots of Kerala society and original inhabitants, and sociologically and genealogically connected most of the present groups in Kerala including the priestly class to common ancestors who were the original inhabitants known as the Nakas.

Swamikal settled down at Panmana, a village in the Kollam district, towards the end of his life. He attained samadhi on 5 May 1924 after a short illness during which he objected to taking any medicine.

Narayana Guru practised austere Jnana and Yoga under Swamikal during this period. It was with Chattampi Swamikal that Asan made his first trip to Maruthuvamalai, and later to Aruvippuram, which was chosen as his abode for meditation and spiritual activities and which was where he was led to self-realisation. It was after this that he was known as Narayana Guru. Swamikal did not stay there for long, although the two maintained lifelong contact, respect and regard for each other. The poem Narayana Guru composed when he came to know of Swami's samadhi was the only offering he gave to any person and it reveals how he considered Swamikal to be a realised soul.

Both Chattampi and Narayana Guru had another common Guru in Thycaud Ayyavu Swamikal. Thycaud Ayyavu Swamikal (1814 – 1909), also known as Sadananda Swami, was a spiritualist and a social reformer, the first to break customs related to caste in Kerala when caste restrictions and untouchability were at their extreme.

Thycaud Ayya Swami

Ayyavu Swamikal was born in 1814 in Nakalapuram in Tamil Nadu. His original name was Subharayan. His parents were Mutthukumaran and Rukmini Ammal. His father and grandfather Sri Hrishikesan were scholars and experts in yoga and spiritual sciences.

At the age of twelve, Subharayan received spiritual initiation from two Tamil Saints, Sachidananda Maharaj and Sri Chitti Paradeshi who used to visit his father. They told his family that his life has a specific assignment, that he is destined to serve humanity in another place and that when it is time they would come and take him to mould him to fulfil his duty. These avadutas are said to be connected to great Siddhas from Tamil Nadu living in the Himalayas who knew the science of immortality. When he was 16, the two Siddhas took him with them to Palani where he learned advanced yoga. He travelled with them to Burma, Singapore, Penang and Africa. With them, he met teachers of many religions and saints. Subbarayan mastered English during his stay and travelled with them. He also acquired proficiency in English, Siddha medicine and alchemy during his wanderings with the Siddhas.

At the age of nineteen, he was sent back home with instructions to look after his parents and brethren. At home he continued worshipping Goddess and yogic practices, often entering the state of Samadhi. His biographers and disciples state that by this time he had acquired the Ashtasiddhies or divine powers including that of astral travel. Occasionally he visited Pazhani, Chennai and other religious places as part of pilgrimages for participating in scholarly discussions going on there. He also started writing and composed 'Brahmothara Khandam' and 'Pazani Vaibhavam'. At the age of 27, as suggested by his gurus he visited Kodungalloor Devi Temple in Kerala. It is said that his devotion was so deep and his prayers were so strong that when he recited the kirtans the temple bells rang by themselves and the doors opened to give him darshan.

 He went to Trivandrum during the period of Swathi Tirunal Maharaja. The king came to know of his scholarship and expertise in Sivaraja Yoga and invited him to the palace and also learned many things from him. One day while a family gathering related to marriage was going on at the house where he stayed a very old lean woman told him that someone will be coming to meet him from his village and asked him to go to the traveller's shed nearby on that night. The Goddess gave darshan to him at that travellers' shed that night. Later Thycaud Devi Temple was constructed at this site. Before long he went back to Tamil Nadu.

Within a few months, his father left for Kasi. The whole responsibility for the family fell on his shoulders and he started a business to support his family. Following the direction of his guru, Subbarayan got married. He used to deliver spiritual discourses in Chennai. As part of his business, he was supplying goods to a military camp in Chennai, where he came in contact with a British official Atholl MacGregor.

MacGregor became fond of this English-speaking Tamil villager and established a friendship with him. He was interested in Indian religion, language and culture and he became his student. During the reign of Maharaja Ayillyam Thirunal, Atholl MacGregor became the Resident of Travancore. When the selection of a manager for Residency came he appointed him as the Manager of his Residency in Thycaud in 1873. It was MacGregor who prepared a list of birds for Logan's Malabar Manual, based on Jerdon's Birds of India.

As this post was one of the senior-most offices that the British allowed to natives, people respectfully called him 'Superintend Ayyavu'. The term 'Ayyavu' means a respectable or venerable person. Gradually when people understood his yogic powers and scholarship the name changed from Superintend Ayyavu to Ayyavu Swami. Swami kept strict discipline at work and was extremely punctual.

A Page of Pracheena Malayalam

Ayyavu Swamikal visited Vaikunda Swami of Nagarcoil and also the famous Maruthwamalai where he sat in meditation for days. At his residence, he spent most of his time in meditation and in initiating and instructing his disciples in spiritual practices. Ayyavu used to deliver lectures on Bhakti, Yoga and Vedanta in Jnanaprjagaram; where the leading literary, social and spiritual personalities in and around Trivandrum used to assemble discuss and deliver lectures and discourses. He in association with Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai founded the Saiva Prakasha Sabha of Trivandrum.

He already knew that he had to permanently withdraw from this objective world and enter into Samadhi on that day. When the King knew about his approaching Samadhi he wanted to provide a place for Samadhi near the palace and construct a temple there. But Ayyavu insisted that his Samadhi should be in the Thycaud cremation ground and should be a very simple and small structure. Ayyavu Swami attained Samadhi on 20 July 1909. A Shivalinga was installed over the Samadhi site of Ayyavu Swami in Thycaud in 1943. This temple was improved under the patronage of Sri Chithira Thirunal Maharaja the last king of Travancore. This is now known as Thycaud Siva Temple.

When Ayya Vaikundar (1833–c.1851 )s a 19th-century social reformer and iconoclast who worked for the upliftment of downtrodden people in the Kingdom of Travancore, was arrested by Swati Thirunal, he was released by the King, on the advice of Thycaud Ayya who was the Guru of Swathi Thirunal Maharaj and a disciple of Vaikundar as well. Vaikundar made some controversial statements like mentioning the Travancore king as the ‘Devil in Ananthapuri’ and the British rule as the ‘Rule of White Devils’. Against the background of the growing popularity of Vaikundar and the convergence of people around him in multitudes, a complaint was lodged against him with the king of Travancore. The Travancore king Swati Thirunal arrested Vaikundar in 1838 and imprisoned him at Singarathoppu jail. After 110 days of imprisonment, on March 26, 1839, he was released.

© Ramachandran 

THE BUDDHA AS A HINDU AND MARXIST

The Mystery of the Adi Buddha

I had been to Bodh Gaya.Buddha got enlightenment while meditating underneath a fig tree here.Emperor Asoka's evil queen Tissarakha  thought Asoka was pouring his love and affection to the tree instead of her and used a Mandu thorn to kill the tree in the Mahamega arama.Hindus had been visiting Bodh Gaya since atleast Buddha's own life time.The site was actually maitained by a lineage of Saiva priests.

Why so?

It is because there was a Hindu Buddha.The Adi Buddha,who is considered to be an avatar of Vishnu.

In Lalita Vistara, it is described how Gautama Buddha meditated on the same spot as the predecessor Buddha. The original name of Bodhgaya is Kikata, after Gautama attained enlightment there, it came to be known as Buddha gaya. Even today the rituals of worship is preformed by sannyasis of Sankaracharya sect.

Lankavatara Sutra, the famous buddhist work says that Ravana, King of Lanka first worshipped Vishnu incarnation Buddha then successive and future Buddha.

It is very evident that Purana and Buddhist Chronology does not synchronize with each other, while they seem to be saying about the same person. When Analyzing this question. It becomes apparent that we have merged two Buddhas. The Adi Buddha or Avatar Buddha of Vishnu and Shakya Buddha or Gautama Buddha into One.

Adi Buddha was born on 1887BC to Mother Anjana in Kikata (Bodh Gaya).

He established the Philosophy of Ahimsa, Non Violence. He preached against ritual animal sacrifices that has crept into Vedic Hinduism. He emphasized the divine in all beings and divinity of all souls arousing compassion for all.

Bhagavata Purana says "At the commencement of the Kāli-yuga will Vishnu become incarnate in Kikata, under the name of Buddha, the son of Jina, for the purpose of deluding the enemies of the gods."

Puranas say that Adi Buddha was born in Ikshvaku Dynasty.

Adi Buddha is contemproary of Srenika(Sunika) whose father was Hemajit or Kshemajit or Kshetroja or Ksetrauja. Son of Srenika is Kunika. His son is Dharshaka.

Siddhartha was was born around 560BC in the royal family of Suddhodana and Mayadevi in Lumbini in Nepal. Siddhartha received his name Gautama from his spiritual Master Gautama Muni, who belonged to Kapila dynasty,as per Sundarananda Charita. He left home, his royal comforts to find enlightenment. He went to Bodh Gaya to meditate and got enlightenment.It again means Bodh Gaya was a pilgrimage centre during his time.

Gautama Buddha is the propagator of Bahyatmavada, Jnanatmavada and Sunyavada, three pillars of Atheism. He Went to Bodhgaya to meditate because of its spiritual potency as the birthplace of Adi Buddha.

If Adi Buddha was the contemporary of srenika,as stated above,again confuion arises-Bimbisāra (c. 558 – c. 491 BC or during the late 5th century BC,was  also known as Seniya or Shrenika in the Jain histories.He was a King of Magadha (r. 543 – 492 BC or c. 400 BC and belonged to the Haryanka dynasty. He was the son of Bhattiya,a chieftain. His expansion of the kingdom, especially his annexation of the kingdom of Anga to the east, is considered to have laid the foundations for the later expansion of the Maurya Empire.

He is also known for his cultural achievements and was a great friend and protector of the Buddha. Bimbisara—according to Hiuen Tsang—built the city of Rajgir (Rajagriha), famous in Buddhist writings (others attribute the city's foundation to his successor).He was succeeded on the throne by his son Ajatashatru.

Bimbisara welcomes Buddha

He became a devotee of Jainism impressed by the calmness of Yamadhar (a Jain Muni). He frequently visited Samavasarana of Lord Mahavira seeking answers to his queries.Per Jain scripture, Bimbisara killed himself in a fit of passion, after his son had imprisoned him. Consequently, he was reborn in hell, where he is currently residing, until the karma which led to his birth there comes to an end.It is further written, that he will be reborn as Mahapadma (sometimes called Padmanabha), the first in the chain of future tirthankaras who are to rise at the beginning of the upward motion (Utsarpini) of the next era of time

According to Buddhist scriptures, King Bimbisara met the Buddha for the first time prior to the Buddha's enlightenment, and later became an important disciple that featured prominently in certain Buddhist suttas. He is recorded to have attained sotapannahood, a degree of enlightenment in Buddhist teachings. Although Bimbisara let the women in his palace visit Buddha in his monastery in the evenings; the women wanted a hair-and-nail stupa they could use to venerate the Buddha any time. Bimbisara spoke with Buddha who complied with their requests.

Many biographies of the Buddha begin not with his birth in his last lifetime but in a lifetime millions of years before, when he first made the vow to become a buddha. According to a well-known version, many aeons ago there lived a Brahman named (in some accounts) Sumedha, who realized that life is characterized by suffering and then set out to find a state beyond death. He retired to the mountains, where he became a hermit, practiced meditation, and gained yogic powers. While flying through the air one day, he noticed a great crowd around a teacher, whom Sumedha learned was the buddha Dipamkara. When he heard the word buddha he was overcome with joy. Upon Dipamkara’s approach, Sumedha loosened his yogin’s matted locks and laid himself down to make a passage across the mud for the Buddha. Sumedha reflected that were he to practice the teachings of Dipamkara he could free himself from future rebirth in that very lifetime. But he concluded that it would be better to delay his liberation in order to traverse the longer path to buddhahood; as a buddha he could lead others across the ocean of suffering to the farther shore. Dipamkara paused before Sumedha and predicted that many aeons hence this yogin with matted locks would become a buddha. He also prophesied Sumedha’s name in his last lifetime (Gautama) and the names of his parents and chief disciples and described the tree under which the future Buddha would sit on the night of his enlightenment.

Over the subsequent aeons, the bodhisattva would renew his vow in the presence of each of the buddhas who came after Dipamkara, before becoming the buddha Shakyamuni himself. Over the course of his lifetimes as a bodhisattva, he accumulated merit (punya) through the practice of 6 (or 10) virtues. After his death as Prince Vessantara, he was born in the Tusita Heaven, whence he surveyed the world to locate the proper site of his final birth.

He determined that he should be born the son of the king Shuddhodana of the Shakya clan, whose capital was Kapilavastu. Shortly thereafter, his mother, the queen Maha Maya, dreamed that a white elephant had entered her womb. Ten lunar months later, as she strolled in the garden of Lumbini, the child emerged from under her right arm. He was able to walk and talk immediately. A lotus flower blossomed under his foot at each step, and he announced that this would be his last lifetime. The king summoned the court astrologers to predict the boy’s future. Seven agreed that he would become either a universal monarch (chakravartin) or a buddha; one astrologer said that there was no doubt, the child would become a buddha. His mother died seven days after his birth, and so he was reared by his mother’s sister, Mahaprajapati. As a young child, the prince was once left unattended during a festival. Later in the day he was discovered seated in meditation under a tree, whose shadow had remained motionless throughout the day to protect him from the sun.The later legend is well known.

The Nirvana of Buddha

But the irony is that,for a man who espoused Ahimsa,the end was by eating meat.At age 80 the Buddha, weak from old age and illness, accepted a meal (it is difficult to identify from the texts what the meal consisted of, but many scholars believe it was pork) from a smith named Chunda, instructing the smith to serve him alone and bury the rest of the meal without offering it to the other monks. The Buddha became severely ill shortly thereafter, and at a place called Kusinara (also spelled Kushinagar; modern Kasia) lay down on his right side between two trees, which immediately blossomed out of season. He instructed the monk who was fanning him to step to one side, explaining that he was blocking the view of the deities who had assembled to witness his passing. After he provided instructions for his funeral, he said that lay people should make pilgrimages to the place of his birth, the place of his enlightenment, the place of his first teaching, and the place of his passage into nirvana. Those who venerate shrines erected at these places will be reborn as gods. The Buddha then explained to the monks that after he was gone the dharma and the vinaya (code of monastic conduct) should be their teacher. He also gave permission to the monks to abolish the minor precepts (because Ananda failed to ask which ones, it was later decided not to do so). Finally, the Buddha asked the 500 disciples who had assembled whether they had any last question or doubt. When they remained silent, he asked two more times and then declared that none of them had any doubt or confusion and were destined to achieve nirvana. According to one account, he then opened his robe and instructed the monks to behold the body of a buddha, which appears in the world so rarely. Finally, he declared that all conditioned things are transient and exhorted the monks to strive with diligence. These were his last words. The Buddha then entered into meditative absorption, passing from the lowest level to the highest, then from the highest to the lowest, before entering the fourth level of concentration, whence he passed into nirvana.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the term ādibuddha is often used to describe Samantabhadra, Vajradhara or Kalachakra. In East Asian Mahayana, the ādibuddha is typically considered to be Vairocana.

The Guhyasamāja Tantra says of Vajradhāra, " Vajradhara, the Teacher, who is bowed to by all the Buddhas, best of the three diamonds, best of the great best, supreme lord of the three diamonds."

Alex Wayman notes that the Pradipoddyotana, a tantric commentary, states that the "three diamonds" are the three mysteries of Body, Speech, and Mind. Wayman further writes: "Tsong-kha-pa's Mchan-'grel explains the "lord of body": displays simultaneously innumerable materializations of body; "lord of speech": teaches the Dharma simultaneously to boundless sentient beings each in his own language; "lord of mind": understands all the knowable which seems impossible.

According to the 14th Dalai Lama, the ādibuddha is also seen in Mahayana Buddhism as representation of the universe, its laws and its true nature, as a source of enlightenment and karmic manifestations and a representation of the Trikaya.

Within the Nichiren school of Japanese Buddhism, the Nikko-lineage, specifically the Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu, regard Nichiren as the Adi-(primal) Buddha and dispute the contentions of other sects that view him as a bodhisattva.

Tibetan thangka of Vajradhara

Sanghyang Adi Buddha is a concept of God in Indonesian Buddhism. This term was used by Ashin Jinarakkhita at the time of Buddhist revival in Indonesia in the mid 20th century to reconcile the first principle of the official philosophical foundation of Indonesia (Pancasila), i.e. "KeTuhanan Yang Maha Esa" (lit. "Recognition of the Divine Omnipotence") that requires the belief in a supreme God, with Buddhism which strictly speaking does not believe in such monotheistic God.This concept is used by the Indonesian Buddhist Council, an organization that seeks to represent all Buddhist traditions in Indonesia such as Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana.

Adi Buddha is a term used in Tantric Buddhism to refer to the Primordial Buddha. The term Sanghyang Adi Buddha is agreed upon and used by the Indonesian Supreme Sangha and the Indonesian Buddhist Council as the designation for the God Almighty. This term is not found in Pāli Canon, but used in some old Indonesian Vajrayana texts such as Sanghyang Kamahayanikan.

Sang Hyang Adi Buddha refers to "the seed of Buddhahood" inside every being. In Mahayana Buddhism, Adi Buddha refers to the primordial Buddha that outlines the same Universal Dhamma.The Adi-buddha is not a monotheistic deity as in the Abrahamic traditions, but is rather the primordial nature of mind, the part of the mind that never enters samsara, and is thus the "primordial Buddha." As the Primordial Buddha never entertains conceptual ignorance or proliferation, all that arises is referred to as "self-liberated."

Indonesian National Encyclopedia (1988) describes Adi Buddha and the traditions that are used this term thus:

"Adi-Buddha is a term for the Almighty God in Buddhism. This title came from the Aisvarika tradition of Mahayana in Nepal, which is spread through Bengal, and became also known in Java. Aisvarika is the term for the disciples of theist view in Buddhism. This word came from 'Isvara' which means 'God' or 'Great Buddha' or 'the Almighty', and 'ika' which means 'follower' or 'disciple'. "

"This term is used by the Svabhavavak Buddhism in Nepal. This school is one of the branch of Tantrayana school of Mahayana. The term for God Almighty in this school is Adi-Buddha. Later, this view also spread to Java in the time of Srivijaya and Majapahit. The present scholars knows this term from the paper of B.H. Hodgson, a researcher who studied the religious in Nepal.

"According to this view, one can coalesce (moksha) with Adi-Buddha or Isvara through his efforts with the ascetic path (tapa) and meditating (Dhyana)."

The use of Sanghyang Adi Buddha as a name for a supreme God is controversial among Indonesian Buddhists to the present day. The reason is that the concept of Sanghyang Adi Buddha, which only exists in Tantrayana/ Vajrayana traditions, is not a god in the sense of a personal god of the monotheistic religions. The use of the name of Sanghyang Adi Buddha as a personal god, is the product of a compromise with political reality, and is contrary to the teachings of Buddhism. Because of this political compromise, Indonesian Buddhism differs from mainstream Buddhism. This controversy also extends to Very Venerable Ashin Jinarakkhita as the originator of the term Sanghyang Adi Buddha as a god in Buddhism.

Mahavamsa traces the Shakya dyansty to Ikshvaku dynasty and starts the dynasty with Ikshvaku.

Threvada Texts refer to six Preceding Buddhas (Those who have been awakened) as Vipasyin, Sikin, krakuccanda, Konagamara and Kashyapa, also they say Maitreya as the Buddha of the future.

Amara Simha, Buddhist scholar, who wrote Amarakosha gives eighteen names of Vishnu avatara including the name Sugato (Which Shankara calls Buddha) and seven names of Shakya Simha Buddha without any mention of Sugato. So we can even argue that Shankara talks about avatar Buddha not Shakya Buddha. Amarakosha states the Lord Buddha is also known as Samanta Bhadra, whereas Gautama Buddha is a human being.

Analysing Buddhist texts like Prajna-Paramita sutra, Astasahastrika prajna- paramita sutra, Sata-Shastrika Prajna, Pramita Sutra, Lalita Vistara shows three categories of Buddha namely,

Human Buddhas: Like Gautama, who came to be known as Buddha after enlightment.
Bodhisattva Buddhas: Personalities like Samanta Bhadraka who were born enlightened.
Adi(Original-First) Buddha: the Avatar of Vishnu.

Adi Shankara, who can be termed founder of Hinduism,in discussion with others treated both Buddhas as one person and did not discriminate between the two.Hindu scholars doesn't see Vedanta in Buddhism,since Buddha was a Nasthika.Maybe,Buddhism can be included only as part of the Purva Mimamsa,which dwelt only in outer spheres of human actions.With his Advaita Mayavadha philosophy Sankara not only stopped the rise of Buddhism in India, assuring its decline. 

By Combining two Buddhas Indology scholars have ignored the Purana accounts and thus the Indian mythology. Whenever the Puranas refers to Adi Buddha,the euro centric scholars will cite Gautama Buddha to discredit and vice versa.

Colonel Kennedy, argues that the Buddha of the Purana and Buddha the founder of the Buddhist system of religion have nothing in common but the name, and that the attempted identification of these two is simply the work of European scholars, who have not been sufficiently careful to collect information, and to weigh the evidence they have had before them.

The Cambridge and Oxford histories of India accept 483 B.C as the date of Buddha’s nirvana. But, William Jones, on the basis of Chinese and Tibetan records infers that Buddha lived in the 11th century B.C. Historian Fleet, who makes a study of ‘Rajatarangini’, thinks that Buddha lived in the 17th century B.C. Chinese monk Fa-Hien puts Buddha’s Nirvana at 1050 B.C. These contradictory theories arise from the euro centric existential dilemma.

Indology scholars just pick and choose to discredit Purana sources. The history that Buddha lived in the 5th century B.C was propounded by E.J Rapson who writes that the exact date of Buddha’s Nirvana is not known and hence the popularly accepted year of Buddha’s Nirvana is imaginary. Western scholars arbitrarily skipped 12 centuries of Indian history because their ‘hypothesis’ about Alexander’s invasion did not match with centuries-old Indian chronology.

We see that Early Buddhist texts distinguishes the two Buddhas, while the later ones seem to ignore the former. The Rock Edicts of Piyadasi teachings are of Adi Buddha and not Gautama Buddha. Gautama Buddha is not the avatar of Vishnu. Avatar of Vishnu is Adi Buddha.

Buddha is considered as an avatar of Vishnu, by traditions within Hinduism. Buddhists traditionally do not accept the Buddha to be a Vishnu avatar. The adoption of Buddha may have been a way to assimilate Buddhism into the fold of Hinduism.Much like Hinduism's adoption of the Buddha as an avatar, Buddhism legends too adopted Krishna in their Jataka tales, claiming Krishna the Vishnu avatar, to be a character whom Buddha met and taught in his previous births. The adoption of the Buddha in texts relating to Hindu gods, and of Hindu gods in Buddhist texts, is difficult to place chronologically. According to Alf Hiltebeitel and other scholars, some of the stories in Buddha-related Jataka tales found in Pali texts seem slanderous distortions of Hindu legends, but these may reflect the ancient local traditions and the complexities of early interaction between the two Indian religions.

Bodh Gaya

Though an avatar of Vishnu, the Buddha is rarely worshipped like Krishna and Rama in Hinduism.According to John Holt, the Buddha was adopted as an avatar of Vishnu around the time the Puranas were being composed, in order to subordinate him into the Brahmanical ideology. Further adds Holt, various scholars in India, Sri Lanka and outside South Asia, that the colonial era and contemporary attempts to assimilate Buddha into the Hindu fold are part of a nationalistic political agenda, where the Buddha has been reclaimed triumphantly as a symbol of indigenous nationalist understandings of India's history and culture.

Swami Vivekananda said:

"Buddha was a great Vedantist (for Buddhism was really only an offshoot of Vedanta), and Shankara is often called a “hidden Buddhist”. Buddha made the analysis, Shankara made the synthesis out of it. Buddha never bowed down to anything — neither Veda, nor caste, nor priest, nor custom. He fearlessly reasoned so far as reason could take him. Such a fearless search for truth and such love for every living thing the world has never seen."

He added:

"In Buddha we had the great, universal heart and infinite patience, making religion practical and bringing it to everyone’s door. In Sankaracharya we saw tremendous intellectual power, throwing the scorching light of reason upon everything. We want today that bright sun of intellectuality joined with the heart of Buddha, the wonderful infinite heart of love and mercy. This union will give us the highest philosophy. Science and religion will meet and shake hands. Poetry and philosophy will become friends.."

There are several other statements of Vivekananda on Buddha,which are contradictory;he has also termed Buddha a Hindu.In Notes Taken Down in Madras ( 1892-1893) ,Vivekananda says,"Buddha,we may say now,ought to have understood the harmony of  religions;he introduced sectarianism."

But in Vivekananda's Buddha's Message to The World ( 18 March 1900 ) Vivekananda remarked:

"Buddha was the triumph in the struggle that had been going on between the priests and the prophets in India. One thing can be said for these Indian priests — they were not and never are intolerant of religion; they never have persecuted religion. Any man was allowed to preach against them. Theirs is such a religion; they never molested any one for his religious views. But they suffered from the peculiar weaknesses of all the priests: they also sought power, they also promulgated rules and regulations and made religion unnecessarily complicated, and thereby undermined the strength of those who followed their religion."

Vedantists will never agree with Vivekananda's statement that Buddha was a vedantist.Buddhism,infact,has nothing to do with vedanta.For this too,I quote Vivekananda:"Buddhism proves nothing about the Absolute Entity. In a stream the water is changing; we have no right to call the stream one. Buddhist deny the one, and say, it is many. We say it is one and deny the many. What they call Karma is what we call the soul. According to Buddhism, man is a series of waves. Every wave dies, but somehow the first wave causes the second. That the second wave is identical with the first is illusion. To get rid of illusion good Karma is necessary. Buddhists do not postulate anything beyond the world. We say, beyond the relative there is the Absolute".

The Oxford professor and later President of India, S Radhakrishnan states that "as a matter of fact, nowhere did Buddha repudiate the Upanishad conception of Brahman, the absolute"; that Buddha, if anything, "accepted the Upanishad's position". Buddhologists like K.R. Norman and Richard Gombrich meanwhile, argue that the Buddha's anatta theory does indeed extend to the Brahmanical belief expounded in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that the Self (Atman) is the Universal Self, or Brahman.They point to the Pali Alagaddūpama-sutta, where the Buddha argues that an individual cannot experience the suffering of the entire world.

Ambedkar,the Dalit leader who in 1935 declared his intention to convert from Hinduism to Buddhism and converted about 20 years later, rejected that Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu. Ambedkar, while he was a Hindu and before he launched a new form of Buddhism, reinterpreted Buddha's teachings into what he called Navayana (New Vehicle), wherein he tried a Marxist interpretation of Buddha teachings. He founded and converted to a new version of Buddhism, a version which criticized and rejected Hinduism, but also Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism because, according to Ambedkar, they all misrepresented the Buddha.

To me,arguing on philosphy is intellectual masturbation.Buddha need not be a Hindu to be accepted into its fold because Buddha is part of the great Indian tradition where the Samkhya/Charvaka primeval Marxist philosphy ruled for 700 years.Hinduism even accepts that soulless philosphy part of its tradition.Hence,the ousted Rama advised his brother King Bharatha to  honour the Charvakas,the then Marxists,while knowing the Marxists are intolerant.Hence the many lives of Buddha makes the Indian tradition vibrant and exotic.

© Ramachandran